ABSTRACT
This chapter traces two recent scientific approaches to moral decision making and then examines their significance for ethics as interpreted by the theological tradition begun by Thomas Aquinas. Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virgina, has devoted a great deal of time to studying the moral emotions. Marc Hauser has given extensive attention to examining the distinctiveness of human cognition. Thomas is perhaps best known for promoting a "natural law" ethic as the basis of his account of moral standards. "Natural law" refers not to the "laws of nature" studied in classical physics but to the natural human desire for the good (or "human flourishing"). The chapter focuses on to the sets of challenges presented by Thomistic ethics for the moral psychologists: one set for Hauser's "Rawlsian creature" in several ways and another for Haidt's "Humean creature".
