Understanding Noam Chomsky #3: Moral Cognition & Moral Competence (with John Mikhail)

This conversation is part of the 'Understanding Noam Chomsky' Series ('Dare to know!' Philosophy Podcast). Today we are joined by John Mikhail who is currently a Professor of Law at Georgetown University. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School and his PhD in Philosophy from Cornell University. He is the author of 'Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls's Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment'. Today, we will talk in particular about Professor Mikhail's article 'Chomsky and Moral Philosophy' in the book: 'The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky'.

In this episode of the Dare to know! Podcast we discuss Noam Chomsky's views on moral cognition, moral competence, & cognitive science more broadly.

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HOST INFO:
My name is Fabian Corver, living in the Netherlands. I graduated last year from my Master's in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Currently, working for AI-focused start-up and reading lots of philosophy at night.

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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
0:44 - Background
1:50 - Plato's Problem
4:20 - Innateness of Knowledge
6:44 - Moral Sense & Human Nature
13:03 - Chomsky, Rawls, & The Trolley Problem
24:48 - Moral Theories: Descriptive, Explanatory, & Normative
29:11 - Moral Competence
36:52 - Unobservables, Rule-Following, & Unconscious Computations
40:55 - Linguistic Intuitions & Moral Intuitions
43:47 - Creative Aspect of Language & Morality?
47:20 - Aquinas' Distinction
54:16 - Chomsky's Views on Morality-Politics
59:10 - Moral Psychology & Normative Ethics

[Daretoknow]

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
0:44 - Background
1:50 - Plato's Problem
4:20 - Innateness of Knowledge
6:44 - Moral Sense & Human Nature
13:03 - Chomsky, Rawls, & The Trolley Problem
24:48 - Moral Theories: Descriptive, Explanatory, & Normative
29:11 - Moral Competence
36:52 - Unobservables, Rule-Following, & Unconscious Computations
40:55 - Linguistic Intuitions & Moral Intuitions
43:47 - Creative Aspect of Language & Morality?
47:20 - Aquinas' Distinction
54:16 - Chomsky's Views on Morality-Politics
59:10 - Moral Psychology & Normative Ethics

[nunoa.fernandes]

BTW, the first part of Mikhail's book is an excellent intro to Chomsky's work. I loved his book, super interesting!

[gaetanovenezia]

This conversation just seems to be about general decision making heuristics—tools that evolution has given us in order to make social decisions. First off, who knows whether the useful tools lead to truth or not (it doesn't matter for evolution). Second, I don't see the specific moral aspect. Third, I really dislike the 'objective' and 'universal' language. There is a lot of intersubjective agreement, but there's no way to empirically or theoretically verify objectivity. We would need access to a non-human perspective which is impossible. Plus even just looking at objective claims on their own, there are far too many caveats, even for the cases that seem clear like murder, lying, and racial discrimination. Sure we can say that our society now has a better moral system, but other cultures or ours in the past would not agree with that reasoning, in many cases because they start from different first principles.