The objectivity of moral norms is a top-down cultural construct

Behav Brain Sci. 2018 Jan:41:e116. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X18000213.

Abstract

Encultured individuals see the behavioral rules of cultural systems of moral norms as objective. In addition to prescriptive regulation of behavior, moral norms provide templates, scripts, and scenarios regulating the expression of feelings and triggered emotions arising from perceptions of norm violation. These allow regulated defensive responses that may arise as moral idea systems co-opt emotionally associated biological survival instincts.

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Emotions
  • Humans
  • Ice Cream*
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Morals
  • National Socialism*