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HomeUpcoming EventsIvan Gonzalez-Cabrera (ANU): A Model of Normative Cognition: Norms, Emotions and Decision-making [Mid-Term Review]
Ivan Gonzalez-Cabrera (ANU): A model of normative cognition: norms, emotions and decision-making [Mid-Term Review]

My goal in this paper is to show how neurocomputational models of decision-making can help us to pinpoint key explanatory targets for evolutionary and developmental accounts of normative cognition. Building on this literature, I will sketch the basic cognitive architecture underlying this form of cognition. I will argue that what the resulting architecture shows us is that there is no such a thing as a dedicated ‘moral organ’. A capacity for making moral judgments requires the integration of different neural substrates that are not exclusively dedicated to moral thinking. There is no evidence for specific neural circuitries dedicated to moral judgment. Morality is just not a distinctive psychological subject matter. However, this literature (I will show) can still help us to identify some important explanatory targets for evolutionary and developmental accounts of normative cognition. In particular, I argue that the cognitive systems deployed in normative thinking include the mechanisms that enable cognitive control and motivation for action, the systems responsible for the representation of structured thoughts, norms, and values, as well as the cognitive machinery underlying episodic memory and mental simulation.

Date & time

  • Tue 26 Aug 2014, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Location

Sir Roland Wilson Lecture Theatre 1.02

Event Series

Philsoc seminars