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Why is ain't ought, or: Is Homo sapiens a rational humanist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2004

Oliver Vitouch
Oliver Vitouch*
Affiliation:
Cognitive Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Klagenfurt, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/psy/cognition/
*
oliver.vitouch@uni-klu.ac.at
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Abstract:

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Although the critique of disputable norms is largely legitimate in the cognitive realm, the role of social norms is a different one. Darley, Zimbardo, Milgram, and CNN have compellingly demonstrated that humans are not always humane. But the very cognitive ability to distinguish between “is” and “ought” shows that there is behavioral plasticity, and space for education, inoculation, and learning.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , June 2004, pp. 359 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

References

Notes

1. This is, at least, what philosophers believed for the longest time. Many other metaphors have been proposed, such as Homo economicus, the selfish and corrupt guy who you would not necessarily like to live next door to.

2. In order to endorse such (extraordinary) courageous behavior, the Austrian empress Maria Theresia (1717–1780) instituted a high military decoration for justified and victorious disobedience to an order.