Cognitive Attraction Theory and Moral Judgment

Abstract

The present article deals with the processes that underpin moral judgment. In the specialized literature, some concepts are proven to be important mechanisms that build up the moral judgment. For instance, intuition, emotion, reasoning, moral rules, deontology and consequentialism. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive framework, which puts together those key concepts in a clear picture. The present article argues for a more comprehensive view under the light of the Cognitive Attraction Theory (CAT). The derived framework considers emotion as the main facilitator of moral judgment as it acts as the means of conceptual attraction between the different cognitive entities, including moral beliefs and rules. Based on this principle, we show how the moral judgment “evolves” from a moral intuition, sometimes endorsed by a reasoning fallacy, to an elaborated judgment that is a result of a conscious reasoning. With the help of a computer simulation performed with an artificial moral agent that incarnates a computational model of CAT, we show that moral judgment can be deontological or consequentialistic.