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Cognition in moral space: A minimal model
1Department of English, Clemson University, 815 Strode Tower, Clemson, SC 29631, United States.
Abstract:
We describe moral cognition as a process occurring in a distinctive cognitive space, wherein moral relationships are defined along several morally relevant dimensions. After identifying candidate dimensions, we show how moral judgments can emerge in this space directly from object perception, without any appeal to moral rules or abstract values. Our reductive "minimal model" (Batterman & Rice, 2014) elaborates Beal's (2020) claim that moral cognition is determined, at the most basic level, by "ontological frames" defining subjects, objects, and the proper relation between them. We expand this claim into a set of formal hypotheses that predict moral judgments based on how objects are "framed" in the relevant dimensions of "moral space."
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