ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the fixed as well as the more variant foundations of moral judgment. The ability of supporters and opponents of abortion or of the death penalty to communicate and understand one another stems from the fact that the moral arguments used are subordinate to fixed and uniform parameters. Disagreements (i.e. different judgments) arise from the different weight that the two sides assign to the fixed parameters. The chapter also provides a coherent account of how we construe moral justifications. It shows that any attempt to change a moral judgment through a rational argument must focus on the perception of the childlike and adultlike features. This holds true not just for concrete cases, but also for moral principles. Extensive feedback loops and robust top-down constraints operate in a way that any information about these features influence the entire gestalt.
