Elements of Moral Cognition

This book explores whether the science of moral cognition is usefully modelled on aspects of Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar. Just as Chomsky argued that human beings are born with innate knowledge of grammar, so Mikhail suggests that humans might possess innate moral knowledge, and how this question can be investigated.

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Is the science of moral cognition usefully modelled on aspects of Universal Grammar? Are human beings born with an innate 'moral grammar' that causes them to analyse human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness as they analyse human speech in terms of its grammatical structure? Questions like these have been at the forefront of moral psychology ever since John Mikhail revived them in his influential work on the linguistic analogy and its implications for jurisprudence and moral theory. In this seminal book, Mikhail offers a careful and sustained analysis of the moral grammar hypothesis, showing how some of John Rawls' original ideas about the linguistic analogy, together with famous thought experiments like the trolley problem, can be used to improve our understanding of moral and legal judgement.