Rules, Know-How, and the Future of Moral Cognition

Abstract

Professor Clark's splendid essay represents a step forward from which there should be no retreat. Our de facto moral cognition involves a complex and evolving interplay between, on the one hand, the non discursive cognitive mechanisms of the biological brain, and, on the other, the often highly discursive extra-personal “scaffolding” that structures the social world in which our brains are normally situated, a world that has been, to a large extent, created by our own moral and political activity. That interplay extends the reach and elevates the quality of the original nondiscursive cognition, and thus any adequate account of moral cognition must address both of these contributing dimensions. An account that focuses only on brain mechanisms will be missing something vital.