Yes and no.Myanswer is a strong“yes”because the actionswe cantruly callmoral depend onthe work of reason at somestage in the process leading totheir execution.But my answeris also “no”because themoment-to-moment execution of actions,moral or otherwise, is notnecessarily under the controlof reason, even if reason has arole in the deliberations behindthe action and in strengthen-ing the control system that

executes it.Myanswer is aneven stronger“no”if thequestion impliesthat moral

actions are invented by reason,springing fully formed fromthe consorting of knowledgeand logic.

Looming large over thequestion is the issue of theorigins of morality.Doesreason construct moralintuitions, beliefs, conventions,and rules? Or does moralityemerge from prerationalprocesses?…

CONTINUED ONLINE.

Antonio Damasio is the David Dornsife Professor

of Neuroscience and the director of the Brain and

Creativity Institute at the University of Southern

California.He is the author of Descartes’Error

and Self Comes toMind, which will be published

later this year.

Not somuch.Psychopaths can teachus a lotabout thenature of morality.At �rst glance, they seem tohave perfectly functioningminds.�eir working memory

isn’t impaired, they haveexcellent language skills, andthey don’t have reducedattention spans. In fact, a fewstudies have found that psycho-paths have above-average IQsand reasoning abilities; theirlogic is impeccable.But thedisorder is associated with asevere moral de�cit.

So what’s gonewrong?Whyare psychopathsso much morelikely to useviolence to

achieve their goals?Why arethey so overrepresented inour prisons?�e answer turnsus to the anatomy of moralityin the mind.�at’s becausethe intact intelligence of psycho-paths conceals a devastatingproblem:�e emotional partsof their brains are damaged,and this is what makes themdangerous…

CONTINUED ONLINE.

Jonah Lehrer is the author of HowWeDecide

and ProustWas a Neuroscientist.A contributing

editor atWired, he has also written for theNew

Yorker,Nature, Seed, theWashington Post, and

the Boston Globe.

Yes, if…thatmeans thatmoral actiondepends on reason. I prefer toput it this way becausewe donot have to go through a processof reason-ing in order to arriveat a view of what moralityrequires on every occasion.Often,we simply know.Butmoral action does not merelydepend on reason.Moral actionis rational action, because themoral law is a law of reason.

Two distinctions will help toclarify this claim.�e �rst isbetween intelligence and reason.Intelligence is a power that

looks outward, tothe world aroundthe intelligentanimal. Speakingroughly, anintelligent animal

is one who learns from his expe-riences,displays some aware-ness of what causes what, andcan use that awareness to solveproblems.Reason, by contrast,looks inward, to what is goingon in the animal’s ownmind…

CONTINUED ONLINE.

ChristineM.Korsgaard is the Arthur Kingsley

Porter Professor of Philosophy and the director of

graduate studies in philosophy at Harvard

University.Her books include�e Sources of

Normativity; Creating the Kingdom of Ends;

�e Constitution of Agency; and Self-Constitu-

tion: Agency, Identity, and Integrity.

No, itdoes not!Rather,moral action dependson compassion.Parentsneed no reasoning to nourishtheir children in loving-kind-ness.Children need noreasoning to lovingly care fortheir aging parents.Neighborsneed no reasoning to warmlywelcome strangers to theneighborhood.Human beingsneed no reasoning to helpother needy humans and

creatures.All wetruly need, formoral action toarise, is compas-sion.Compas-sion is the

necessary and su�cientcondition on which moralaction depends.

Yes,compassion often gives riseto, and involves, a kind ofcompassionate discernment,especially when di�cult choices

have to bemade in a complexworld teeming with con�ictingdemands…

CONTINUED ONLINE.

Aref Ali Nayed is the director of KalamResearch&

Media in Dubai.He lectures on Islamic theology,

logic, and spirituality at the restored Uthman Pasha

Madrasa inTripoli and serves as a senior advisor to

the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme in the

United Kingdom.

Yes,withinlimits.Freedomof thewill is real,but that does notmean thatwe are totally free.Humanexperience, thought, and actionare constrained by a variety offactors, including our evolu-tionary heritage, law and

custom,overtsocial in�uences,and a range ofmore subtlesocial cues.Butwithin those

limits,we are free to do whatwe want,and especially to thinkwhat we want, and we are ableto reason our way to moraljudgments and action.

Many evolutionary psycholo-gists assert that reasoning ingeneral and moral reasoningin particular are constrained bycognitive modules that evolvedwhenwewere hunter-gathererson the East African savannahduring the Pleistocene era…

CONTINUED ONLINE.

John F.Kihlstrom is a professor of psychology

at the University of California, Berkeley, and the

author of over a hundred scienti�c articles.He is

the former editor of the journal Psychological

Science and the co-author,withNancy Cantor, of

Personality and Social Intelligence.

To read these essays intheir entirety, or to receive aprinted version, visitwww.templeton.org/reason.

Does moral action depend on reasoning?ADVERT I S EMENT

THIS IS THE SIXTH IN A SERIES OF CONVERSATIONS AMONG LEADING SCIENTISTS, SCHOLARS, AND PUBLIC FIGURES ABOUT THE “BIG QUESTIONS.”

TO JOIN THE CONVERSATION, PLEASE VISIT WWW.TEMPLETON.ORG/REASON.

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Chemical InsightsBiological ProcessesAugust 9–10, 2010

Hood College, Frederick, MD

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Invited Speakers Include:

Stuart Schreiber, Ph.D.Harvard University

Je�ery Kelly, Ph.D.The Scripps Research Institute

Craig Crews, Ph.D.Yale University

Kit Lam, M.D., Ph.D.University of California, Davis

David Mooney, Ph.D.Harvard University

Buddy Ratner, Ph.D.University of Washington

Joseph DeSimone, Ph.D.University of North Carolina,

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Peter Seeberger, Ph.D.Max Planck Institute

David Liu, Ph.D.Harvard University

William Fenical, Ph.D.University of California, San Diego

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Nathanael Gray, Ph.D.Harvard University

Scott Strobel, Ph.D.Yale University

James Chen, Ph.D.Stanford University

Michael Marletta, Ph.D.University of California, Berkeley

Sangeeta Bhatia, M.D., Ph.D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Space is limited!Advance registration is required

by July 26, 2010, at:

www.ncifcrf.gov/events/ccrcbs/2010

The deadline for poster abstract submission

is July 12, 2010.

Organized by the

Molecular Discovery Program

Communicating cutting-edge progress

in chemical biology

The Center for Cancer Research Presents the 2nd Biennial:

NationalCancerInstitute

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IntegratingMedicine and Science

Science TranslationalMedicine, fromAAAS, the publisher of Science, focuseson the conversion of basic biomedicalresearch into practical applications, thusbridging the research-to-application gap,linking basic scientists and researchers.

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17-21 February • Washington, DC

ScienceWithout Borders

The meeting is a platform for the most current thinking and research

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conventional disciplinary borders. It features strong presentations from

leading experts and a rare opportunity to meet and speak with eminent

scientists who share your interests and passion for science.

For details, go to www.aaas.org/meetings

and sign up for updates throughout the year.

2011 AAASAnnual Meeting