The Critique of Rationalist Morality

Key Insight

Erica's profound pain and self-hatred after her infidelity directly challenged the traditional folk theory of morality, which posits a struggle between primitive passions and enlightened reason. Her agony was not a calm, logical realization that she had violated principles, but a spontaneous, intense sensation akin to internal collapse, far more passionate than the act itself. This experience underscores that most moral judgments are 'deep and often hot responses,' instant evaluations of behavior made without conscious reasoning, such as fury at injustice or warmth at charity.

Further evidence against the rationalist view comes from research like Jonathan Haidt's, where subjects show strong intuitive negative reactions to scenarios (e.g., a man engaging in sexual activity with and then eating a chicken, or siblings having protected consensual sex) even when no harm occurs, yet they cannot logically explain their revulsion. This suggests that the unconscious mind makes moral calls. Moreover, studies reveal little correlation between moral theorizing and noble behavior; Michael Gazzaniga noted 'none has been found' in most studies, contradicting the expectation that reasoning leads to more moral actions.

At the extreme, a lack of emotional reaction to others' suffering is a characteristic of psychopaths, who are unmoved by horrific scenes and can cause pain without discomfort, rather than being hyper-rational moralists. Finally, moral behavior lacks 'cross-situational stability,' meaning actions are heavily influenced by context, not by permanent character traits. Experiments from the 1920s by Hartshorne and May, involving 10000 schoolchildren given opportunities to lie, cheat, and steal, found students cheated in some situations but not others, with no correlation to personality or moral reasoning. Later research reaffirmed this pattern, showing people can be dishonest at home but not school, or courageous at work but cowardly at church, indicating context as a powerful determinant.