Study Questions

Nichols' Article on Moral Psychology

1.) According to Nichols, what does moral psychology study?

2.) Why does Nichols select the particular cases he mentions as the core cases of altruism?  What do these cases have in common?

3.) What is the contagion theory of altruism?

4.) What is the major problem Nichols identifies for the contagion theory of altruism?

5.) What is attributional mind reading?

6.) What is perspectival mind reading?

7.) What is a dissociation, and what is its value in evaluating theories in moral psychology?

8.) What does the data from psychopaths indicate about the perspectival theories of mind reading?

9.) What does the data from child development indicate about the perspectival theories of mind reading?

10.) What does the data from autistic children indicate about the perspectival theories of mind reading?

11.) what do Nichols' core cases of moral judgement have in common?

12.) What is the Violence Inhibition Mechanism (VIM), and how does it figure in James Blair's theory of moral judgement?

13.) What are the problems with VIM?

14.) What is Nichols' minimal mind reading theory of moral judgement?