LEVELS OF REASONING AND THEIR IMPACT ON UNIVERSALISM AND PARTICULARISM IN ETHICS

Year 2023, Volume: 9 Issue: 2, 95 - 117, 28.12.2023

Per Bauhn

Abstract

This article discusses psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s two systems of thinking in relation to the field of moral philosophy. According to Kahneman, while System 1 thinking is fast and intuitive, System 2 thinking is slow and reflective. However, the reason why we trust moral reflection over spontaneous moral intuition is not that the former is “slow” and the latter is “fast”, but rather that the reflective level introduces certain tools of rational criticism helping us distinguish between justified and unjustified moral judgements. This raises the further question whether critical reflection, aiming for truth and objectivity, might make us lose sight of more local moral values, such as loyalty to one’s family, friends, and political community. The conclusion of this article will be that it is indeed possible to outline a moral theory that is both justified at the level of critical thinking and that makes sense of particularist commitments.

Keywords

Kahneman, moral philosophy, universalism, particularism

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