ABSTRACT
I criticize several a posteriori arguments for the conative view. Not specifically on moral concepts, several cognitive scientists have made more general claims that concepts can be constituted by emotions. However, I object to such studies in that they rely on neuroimaging scans to draw their conclusions. Such tests only lead to claims that emotions correlate with certain concepts. Yet, concepts are in part defined as playing a causal role in decision-making. Hence, one must have the appropriate causal rather than merely correlational data to draw a constitution claim. This chapter also criticizes Gibbard’s evolutionary psychology arguments and Prinz’s contentions for the conative view. One of Prinz’s arguments is based on psychopaths and their performance on the moral/conventional task of distinguishing between moral and conventional judgments. I provide an extended critique of this task in this chapter. All in all, I conclude that the viability of the conative view has yet to be empirically established.
