Science, Philosophy and Politics. Kant and the Neurosciences of Moral Judgement

Abstract

This article discusses the opposition of neurosciences of moral judgement to moral philosophy, shedding light on the political meaning of the thesis according to which a science of morality is possible, or already real, and would demonstrate that rights’ recognition equates to a cognitive error. It furthermore presents some theoretical contributions offered by Kant’s moral doctrine – on condition that one avoids providing an unfounded and caricatural account in order to make it the paradigm of armchair philosophy – about the role of intuition and reasoning in formulating moral judgements and of mental experiments on moral dilemmas.

Keywords

• neurosciences of moral judgement
• armchair philosophy
• trolley dilemma
• deontological ethics
• kant’s metaethics