Imitation and Moral Development

Abstract

There is a longstanding philosophical debate concerning the relationship between moral judgments and motivation. According to one side, moral concepts are intrinsically motivating and according to the other side, they are not. Philosophers who engage in this debate often end up deadlocked in a clash of intuitions. I try to escape this predicament by calling on recent empirical work on psychopathy. This work points to an intimate link between moral judgments and motivation in nonpsychopathic individuals. Moral judgments are intrinsically motivating because moral concepts are inextricably bound to moral emotions. Any theory of moral development that emphasizes reasoning alone leaves something out. Moral development requires emotional development. Some theories have emphasized the role of empathy in moral development. I argue, in contrast, that sadness and its derivatives may be even more important. I also argue that imitation plays an important role in learning to be emotionally responsive to moral concerns. In fact, imitation enters at various stages, from infantile contagion to sophisticated form of imitative norm transfer. The kinds of imitation that are most important for moral development differ from those that have been emphasized in the imitation literature. Moral learners must copy the inner states of others, not just their goal directed behaviors.