Harm, Reciprocity and the Moral Domain

Abstract

Can moral norms be unified under one superordinate content, such as harm? Following the discovery that children at an early age distinguish between moral and conventional norms, this question has been the focus of a recent interdisciplinary debate. Influential critics of the moral-conventional distinction have argued that the moral domain is pluri-dimensional and perhaps not even formally unified. Taking the five foundations theory proposed by Haidt and collaborators as guiding thread, I criticize two influential experiments against the unifying role of harm and point to new evidence from psychopathology and cognitive psychology supporting the hypothesis that harming innocent people is a core concern of norms identified as moral independently of cultural settings.