Abstract

In this paper, I take on the view that affective states are part of moral understanding.  However, my account gives a novel reason for why this is so.  Like the Intellectualist, I hold that moral understanding involves moral reasoning abilities; yet I argue that these abilities will often involve affective components.  I motivate my account by first showing that the Intellectualist account, as it currently stands, is unable to secure one of the values it takes moral understanding to provide – namely, that of moral autonomy.  I then give my account of moral understanding, which I call the Integrationist Account, giving philosophical and empirical reasons for why securing moral autonomy will involve a kind of moral understanding that includes affectively involved moral reasoning abilities.

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