How Do We Judge?
Morphological Pluralist Approach to Moral Judgment.
Matjaž Potrč

Introduction
Morphological pluralism is an account of moral judgment. Pluralists see several reasons and their underlying principles being involved into the situation leading to the moral judgment. Embracing morphology means that the operational mode of reasons or principles in the formation of moral judgment originates from the shape of the judger’s background cognitive system. In short, morphological pluralism insists that a plurality of reasons is in the basis of the moral judgment formation. Morphological pluralist's answer to the question in which manner reasons or their underlying principles exercise their effect upon moral judgment is that their effectivity is coming from the background, so that reasons illuminate the given situation and that they are in most cases not explicitly represented within the judgment. Despite that these two main requirements sound plausible they can be denied. The denial of reasons’ pluralism takes monist and particularist forms. The denial of morphology amounts to the promotion of evidential self-conscious explicit representations as precondition for moral judgment formation. The denial of pluralism in its monistic guise finally results in abandoning the need for moral judgment. The particularist denial of pluralism meets the flattening of moral landscape objection, lacking the accent of relevance as the precondition for moral judgment. The denial of morphology clashes with phenomenological data concerning moral judgment, for reasons are mostly not forthcoming in that kind of judgment in an explicit manner. Such a form of their appearance also would preclude another condition for moral judgment formation, its background effect bound intuitive nature. Both pluralism and morphology turn out to be preconditions for moral judgment formation and explanation. In order to tackle the topics of moral judgment, it seems wise to take a look at the judgment first, at the question how judgment tends to be treated in an overall philosophical approach. The overall way in which judgment is handled, one may suppose, has an impact upon the manner in which moral judgment itself is treated. The customary approach to the judgment indeed shapes the ways in which moral judgment tends to be understood, be it in the sense of prescriptivism, underlying its emotional side, or in the sense of cognitivism, where judgment is treated as a kind of genuine belief. Both cognitivism and noncognitivism as positions in moral philosophy have their roots in an approach to judgment as a broad philosophical project. Morphological pluralism provides the needed means to reverse the situation. It seems a sensible suggestion to first take a look at how judgment gets approached in the philosophical tradition, in order to be able to see how customary treatments of moral judgment are rooted in this specific manner of understanding judgment. This may then provide guidelines for moral judgment’s revival through morphological pluralism.

Judgment in reasoning: dismissing the need for it
Nothing in the ways according to which philosophy is practiced during the last century may match the influence of Gottlob Frege who introduced a new approach to the basics of logic (1879, 1892). Thereby he exercised an affect upon the overall approach to philosophy that he himself would probably not be able to predict. At the first sight it can sound unusual that a proposal about how to conceive the basics of logic would exercise a wide impact upon various areas of practicing philosophy, for logic seems to be just an auxiliary philosophical tool. Russell, Wittgenstein and many others spread the word though, proposing their own idiolects as indicating the direction to take when dealing with philosophical questions. Philosophy of language experienced a booming period following Fregean guidelines (Dummett 1973). And as the fashion turned in support of the philosophy of mind, Fregean influence was looming in its background. So it is sensible to ask what exactly the Fregean turn in logic happens to be, given its wide influence upon the ways in which people approach various areas of philosophy. What was Frege’s magic trick that exercised its mesmerizing influence over a century of philosophical practice? Making a long story short, the proposal was to deny the importance of the judgment. This is what Frege proposed for the area of reasoning. 
Take some logic book preceding Frege’s proposal. It would be based upon an account of reasoning relying upon the subject-predicate form of sentences, in a broadly understood Aristotelian tradition. Here is an example:

	All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. So Socrates is mortal.

This reasoning may be seen as dealing with grammatical subject (all men, Socrates) and with grammatical predicates (is mortal, is a man). The specific form of reasoning would then follow subject-predicate permutations, categorized according to the A E I O universal and existential statements. Several forms of reasoning were then mnemonically abbreviated by such words as barbara, celarent, darii, ferio. Before Frege’s proposal became influential, the introductory logic books took the judgment in its subject-predicate form as their departure. This was then perhaps quite unsurprisingly also followed by the approaches embraced by philosophical books in such areas as ontology and epistemology. After Frege’s influence became an accepted matter though, the subject-predicate form of judgment, and with it the judgment itself started to be neglected. This may be noticed if one reaffirms the importance of judgment. And if such is the case, then a general way to proceed announces itself, namely to take judgment as underlying the inquiry in such areas as metaphysics, epistemology and in other domains of philosophy.
	But let us first take a look at Frege’s claims. His proposal was to substitute subject-predicate form of statements with the function-argument form of sentences. (Frege 1879; Potrč 1986) This certainly had an impact upon logic. But the influence also spread over to the manner in which philosophy is practiced in several areas, all from metaphysics and up to the theory of morals. Treating sentences under the function-argument view of their constitution paved the way towards dominant position of linguistic philosophy in the former century and to the manner in which philosophy of mind gets shaped, among other things. Our specific interest here is to indicate in broad brushstrokes the influence of function-argument treatment of sentences upon ethics and metaethics issues. Despite that this angle of looking at things is important it did not really get the deserved attention. The guideline is Frege’s dismissing the importance of judgment in reasoning. This may seem strange for it can be pointed out that Frege did have a view about what he called judgment. But this was not judgment at all if we take on board two preconditions for a genuine judgment: plurality of reasons or forces underlying it bringing along with them the needed tension, and the indirect background morphological influence of these reasons and their underlying principles upon the overall situation where the judgment is fallen. Such a judgment tends to be momentary, intuitive, and it comes with a specific qualitative consciousness or phenomenology. In a while we will take a look at these requirements that an account of judgment needs to satisfy. Let us just say now that the sketched form of judgment was dismissed by Frege, and that what he calls judgment himself does not satisfy the mentioned requirements. Frege’s account of judgment does not introduce the judgment that one would really care for or the brand that would fit people’s judgmental practices. 
Frege centers at the structure of reasoning. In this respect he pursues the project of mastering language in direction of strict and flawless procedures. Ordinary language is just fine for such purposes as producing poetry and enjoying it, but not for the correct and impeccable reasoning. Ambiguities may enter the scene and referential points may be missed. The language mastering and correcting project was pursued by such people as Raymond Lull, Leibniz and encyclopedists. In order for this kind of project to be effective, in Frege’s view, one has to abandon the subject-predicate founded account of language. Frege’s ideal, in his Begriffsschrift, is based upon the substitution of  judgment with the writing. As people reason by the usage of spoken language, the argument went, this can easily lead to ambiguities and misunderstandings. Once the writing takes over the function of reasoning though, there is a prospect that reasoning may become flawless. How could this be done? People would just sit down and draw their reasoning directions upon a piece of paper. And indeed, the german word Schrift means writing. Reducing reasoning to writing would have advantage, in Frege’s view, that the possible ambiguities and misunderstandings would get eliminated. But of course, on the other hand, sticking just to writing in one’s reasoning eliminates the spoken word and the need for judgment along with it. People tend to forget the accent that was put upon writing by Frege’s proposal. His original diagramming of reasoning directions by the appropriately branching lines was namely later substituted by the nowadays practiced existential and universal quantifiers predicate calculus notation. In the original Frege’s proposal quantifiers would just provide the scope for reasoning directions that were drawn as the two-dimensional spaced lines. 
Coming to our main point again, Frege substituted the subject-predicate and thus the judgment based reasoning with the function-argument based account of reasoning, relying upon the written two-dimensionally diagrammed directions. This is what would bring clarity in the reasoning process, by abandoning the psychology and spoken language judgment supported mistakes. Reduction of reasoning to the writing procedures obviously does away with judgment and with its underlying phenomenology. So function-argument reasoning account first of all dismisses the judgment. But does this still allow for reasoning? And if it does, in what shape would it come?

The impact of avoiding judgment upon moral philosophy: non-cognitivism and cognitivism 
The impact of judgmental neglect did not just exercise its stress upon how we do logic and how we tend to account for reasoning. It also exercised its impact upon several areas of philosophy. Notice for example that the widespread appearance and dominance of philosophy of language in the last century would not be there in the shape in which it was if the judgment would not be excluded from the study of language. Even accounts of intentionality (Chisholm 1967; Sajama and Kamppinen 1987) were built upon the judgment disregarding departure, so that sentences without consideration of their judgmental environment offered the starting point for the study. Communication-intention accounts, along with their contextualist leanings, always took off from a non-judgmental language story, so that the phenomenology, say, was not important for them at all. Even the trials in this direction that aimed to restitue subject-predicate basis of reasoning (Strawson 1952) still do not embrace the judgmental nature of reasoning, with phenomenology and the rest. This is why establishing of intentionality-phenomenology connection (Horgan and Tienson 2002) provides a promise for real innovation, without that the need for this move would be supplied through a function-argument account of sentences.
	Philosophy of language tried to avoid judgment, being rather preoccupied by the quantification related metaphysical and contextual matters. Controversy of descriptions centered upon the ontological referential support as the manner of measuring adequacy of quantificational commitments in direction of the sentential truth-valuing. The question for Russell (1905) is decided upon the basis of the actual king of France non-existence in the world in direction of the falsity truth-assignment to the sentence. Strawson (1950) counters that communication-intention presuppositions are decisive, and so there may be truth-value “neither true nor false” ascribed to the sentence “The actual king of France is bald”. But none of participants in the controversy concerning theory of descriptions really cared about the judgment phenomenology involving force of the statement in question. The truth-assignment decision procedures then spread over to such areas as philosophy of mind, which is particularly strange given that one would expect judgment to be the starting point in this environment. 
	Let us just preliminarily hint at how the judgment dismissing approach exercised its influence in the area of theory of morals and meta-ethics. Instead of centering their efforts upon the characteristics proper to the moral judgment people rather started with the moral judgments in the form of sentences and asked whether truth-value may be assigned to these, and if yes in what manner. Some people felt that moral sentences do not really need to always have truth-value, and that at many occasions they are rather akin to commandements in this respect. These people would be characterized as non-cognitivists, which is a curious title in its own right. That title opposes another approach, embracing the intuition that moral engagements are not really bare sentences, but that they have to be beliefs, thus that they would have some kind of psychological underpinning. Beliefs being also called cognitive states, this would then be the approach of cognitivism, and this one would allow for the assignment of truth-values to moral statements: according to cognitivism, these aren’t desires, after all. Yet no judgment of a genuine kind would be forthcoming on any side, with its specific tension and the background effect of reasons that are involved into it, producing specific phenomenological effects. The point here is that the whole area of moral philosophy, promoting such positions as cognitivism and non-cognitivism is built upon unusual foundations, so that the judgment is expelled at the very start, and something such as sentential truth-aptness is envisioned as the aim of analysis.

Judgment revival prospect through morphological pluralism
We have shortly indicated the importance of leaving out judgment from an account of reasoning exercising its impact upon the manner in which the basics of logic are assessed. We then indicated how this account of reasoning influenced the way in which philosophy has been practiced since Frege entered the scene. His substitution of the subject-predicate judgments based reasoning with the function-argument supported account excluded judgment from the picture, substituting it with an approach tailored according to the sentential truth-aptness measure. This had an impact upon how to do philosophy in diverse areas, from the philosophy of language to philosophy of mind and finally to moral philosophy which is the target of the present writing. It is about time now to take a first glimpse at morphological pluralism, an account of moral judgment that we propose. First of all, as far as we are concerned at this point, morphological pluralism is able to give an account of judgment in its genuine sense. A further task will be to provide an account of moral judgment, according to the morphological pluralism guidelines.
	Morphological pluralism is a position concerning judgment with two basic points of departure. First, as its name indicates, it is pluralism, which shows that it sees judgment being rooted in a plurality of reasons and of their underlying principles such as they are forthcoming in a situation at hand. Judgment is not just a neutral description. It is a decision, produced by a tension, and tension will be there if several aspects or reasons are involved into the situation. The mentioned tension may not be obvious, but pluralism takes it that various forces are involved into a situation inviting the judgment. Take a simple case. I judge that I will have a cup of tea now. This is not just a description of some situation in the world. I had decision to make, although this might not be obvious at first sight, between taking tea or having coffee, between having a cup or having just a sip of the substance, between drinking something or not drinking anything at this time. There is a myriad of such forces in the background, and these lead me to fall a judgment. Otherwise, I would just describe some state of affairs. Morphology is the next ingredient of morphological pluralism, and it is on time to present it shortly now and to indicate in what manner it underpins the production of judgment. Morphology is a word originating in the Greek expression referring to form, and here it indicates the form of the cognitive background, perhaps not in an explicit manner at all, but rather implicitly determining the shape of things that appear at the surface. We have said that a plurality of forces or reasons underlies the judgment. But now, we also have to realize that the mode of these forces’ effectivity is usually not explicit at all, and that it rather operates in the background of the situation, somehow illuminating it in an indirect manner. This nicely captures the side of the judgment which many times comes on board as intuition. Judgments, such as that I will have a cup of tea, are products of my intuition, one may say, of the background covering my former accumulated experiences, and they get triggered at the time as I fall the judgment, providing a specific intuitive phenomenological feel to it. 
We have briefly indicated an account of judgment with its ingredients of pluralism and of morphology. These ingredients provide answers to two questions, supplemented here with their answers. Q1: What is there in the basis of judgment? A1: Plurality of forces or reasons. Q2: In what manner is this plurality effective in the judgment? A2: In a background morphology indirect manner. The combination of these, morphological pluralism, is able to account for judgment that comes as an intuitive phenomenology guided experience of the one who judges. Morphological pluralism may serve as a revival for judgment so that it would be able to enter the scene after the Fregean negative impact. The subsequent exercise will argue that moreover, morphological pluralism is a position specifically appropriate for an account of moral judgment. So morphological pluralism with its two conditions of pluralism and morphology has a possibility to underpin a revival of judgment -- such as judgment in reasoning -- and that of moral judgment, specifically. More about this in what follows.

Preliminaries
Can one deliver an account of diverse everyday judgmental practices, and further on of the specific practices involving moral judgment? Moral judgment is seen as having its roots in the tension that underlies it in a given situation, for without the tension there seems to be no need to fall a judgment. Tension arises from competition among several reasons or between their underlying principles such as these come together in a situation. Judgmental tension is not explicit most of the time: it underlies a judgment by its felt background effect. A judgment is thus forthcoming where there is strain between several mostly implicitly present features. In the case of moral judgment there is a tension between several reasons and their underlying principles. In each case the effectivity of features or reasons/principles impinges upon the overall situation from the agent's cognitive background. This goes for every judgment, such as a judgment concerning some factual assertion, where diverse options of interpreting the situation are present in such a way that some or most of them get excluded. This kind of judgment may appear in reasoning and in argument construction. A constitutive tension for judgment is not so much felt in the case of argumentative reasoning that may underlie moral judgments without being identical to them. The tension from which moral judgments originate is not explicitly present in most of the cases, although it tends to be present in this manner in moral dilemmas. But weighting of reasons is not identical to falling of a judgment upon this basis. Once as one accepts both reasons and their underlying principles to be in the roots of moral judgment formation, exercising their effect in an indirect manner from the cognitive background, one may take a look at the way moral judgments happen to be accounted for in the case as one or the other of these constitutive requirements is not taken on board. A first option is the denial of reasons and of their underlying principles’ plurality. This may amount to embracing moral monism, which allows for just one reason or its underlying principle to be there, instead of many independently existing ones. Hence monism tries to reduce plurality of reasons/principles to just one. If this is accomplished then what are really diverse reasons tends to be hierarchically subsumed under one single principle. Once things get arranged in this manner, there is inclination towards eliminating the need for judgment. The hierarchical discipline thus precludes the call for judgment. But this does not accord with the facts, given that judgment that is there happens to be based in a plurality of reasons underlying its constitutive tension. Once monism gets explicitly rid of reasons' plurality and along it with the judgment, it nevertheless in a reluctant manner recognizes the need for judgment. It is instructive to look at how monism reintroduces plurality of reasons, all in sticking to its official judgment banning practice. Another constituent of judgment is the background mode of effectivity proper to the involved plurality of reasons and of their underlying principles. The available accounts of judgment try to do away with this requirement as well. The idea here may be that moral decisions are important, and so we should better be aware of them if we wish our resolve to be effective in a morally right manner. According to this view one should be fully self-consciously cognizant of principles and reasons underlying our judgments. We should thus explicitly self-evidently and consciously represent to ourselves these principles that lead our decisions if we wish our actions to be morally right. This requirement, again, conflicts with the practice proper to most of our everyday judgments. First of all, the feelings that go with most cases of our judgment formation are not appropriately captured in this way; the phenomenology of moral judgment just isn’t accounted for. Duties are important, and we tend to act on their basis. But duties mostly just aren't explicitly represented at the time as we morally judge in accordance with them. Deontologists – that's what the breacher's of background effectivity of reasons in moral judgment may be called – thus tend to be wrong in respect to the moral judgment phenomenology. However they don’t ultimately fail to develop several ways of sticking to the background effectivity of reasons such as these are forthcoming in moral judgments. Here is thus an account of moral judgments, embracing plurality of reasons and their background efficiency coloring the relevant situation: morphological pluralism. Morphology refers to the background effectivity of reasons and of their underlying principles, while pluralism points out their multitude as it is involved into a complex situation where moral judgment tends to appear. We have just indicated how both of these requirements are disregarded in several broadly and generically specified accounts of moral judgments, by either aiming at reasons’ monistic hierarchical ordering, or at an explicit representation of the involved principles. Neither of these though accords with an appropriate account of moral judgment, such as it is provided by morphological pluralism.

Abstract
Morphological pluralism is a view about moral judgments. Some examples of moral judgments are given. The controversy between intuitionism and rationalism involving moral judgments is sketched. Morphological rationalism argues for the background effectivity of reasons and of their underlying principles. Morphological pluralism explicitly joins pluralism of reasons with their morphological background mode of effectivity. Pluralism and morphology are spelled out in a preliminary manner. Once pluralism and morphology are proposed as an appropriate combination leading to the account of judgment and then of moral judgment, two main manners of disregarding this combination enter the scene. Skipping of pluralism is a characteristics of moral monism, which ultimately displays the tendency of dispensing with moral judgments. Given the nature of judgments though, there are several ways in which monism reluctantly buys pluralism as its account of moral judgments. Skipping of morphology is the main tendency of the generically taken deontological approach. Deontology requires moral judgment to be underpinned by the self-conscious evidential representation of reasons/principles, which leads to its phenomenological implausibility. Again, the nature of moral judgment constraints deontology to acknowledge morphology, as this is indicated by deontological pluralism.

Moral judgments
People act and in this way they transcend just physical happenings that are characteristic for the nature. Given that their actions are normatively supported they also surpass events which are happening in the animal kingdom. There is no moral necessity involved in a stone's rolling down the slope, whereas someone's activity of throwing a stone may be normatively evaluated, depending upon the circumstances in which it happens. A fox eating a chicken may be seen as cruel, but we will not be really comfortable to condemn whatever the fox does by using moral judgment. Unhappily though, there are many occasions where condemnation by the usage of moral judgment seems appropriate. These cases involve human actions, and not actions with provenience from foxes or other animals.
Several cases of human action do not have to do with morality, at least if they are not interpreted in this direction with some quite stretching intentions. I work in the field, or I exercise. These are just some of my described actions that do not seem to involve any or much of normativity within them. But someone may remark that my work in the field helps me to save money and in this way it further serves to fulfill my obligations towards the family. As I exercise in the morning this may be taken as an action of mine by the means of which I fulfill the duty that I have towards my well-being, perhaps again involving my obligations towards myself and toward others, since thereby I diminish my possible dependence upon them, and their related pain. In this manner my mentioned activities would be moral activities. But in fact this interpretation seems to be a kind of stretch, and the mentioned deeds should rather be interpreted as non-moral activities of mine. I just work in the field, and I just perform a series of push-ups in the morning, that’s all. There is not really any serious underlying normativity involved into this.
Sometimes I do not just act without any deep normativity involving purpose. Sometimes I judge. But this may not be moral judgment; it will just be my judgment. Take again the reported case of my simple judgment that it’s appropriate time to have a cup of tea now. As just mentioned, any judgment like this effectuates a decision between several ways in which matters may evolve, and in this sense it involves a choice. Despite being a judgment however, it is not a moral judgment. 
	My judgment that I ought to help this person is different. It has a moral reason and its underlying moral principle in its basis. And in the current situation it may well have another moral reason and its underlying principle considered as well, such as my promise to meet you now. I have to decide between these two obligations and their underlying principles. (Help the person in need. Keep your promises.) And on this basis I have to fall a judgment. It does not seem to be a stretch to claim that this case involves moral dimension. 
	The former case presented a judgment involving choices. An appropriate decision in respect to the given options is called for. But such a decision may not be very easy to obtain: some situations just do not offer any appropriate or comfortable outcomes to the one who is supposed to judge. The judgment may be finally fallen, but it certainly will not feel to the judger like being really appropriately supported by some reason or principle.
Another example is where dilemma confronting you leaves you a lot of time to deliberate which choice to make. This is then a case of moral deliberation. Sometimes the options will be hard, and you will have quite some time to decide what you do. But again, your character may preclude the falling of decision that you should make. In such cases you will deliberate, and you may feel regret related to your failure to decide. But once as you will fall the judgment, this will not be deliberation anymore. It will be a different kind of animal. We will take a look at the difference between moral deliberative reasoning and between the moral judgment later on.

Towards examples of moral judgments
We may summarize at this point, kind of. We said that my judgment to have tea now, although it may be interpreted as involving some normative consequences in a remote manner, is not really a moral judgment. But it is a judgment, for it involves several background choices, and it is a momentary decision matter guiding my present or future activity in an insightful manner.
My judgment that I have obligation to help her, given the circumstances, is substantially based upon the reason that I should help her, granted the background principle commanding me or at least advising me to help the people in need, provided that I happen to be the only person around being able to do this here and now. My judgment that I need to help her may be fallen through considerations that override another reason and that other reason’s supporting principle, such as that I have to fulfill my promise to meet you, and that thereby I should follow the standard of keeping one’s promises.
Let us presume that I have a whole year to think about whether I will invest the available money into improving my home or to immediately indulge into expenses needed for some family member’s non-urgent medical care. In such a case I have reasons to do the first or to do the second. In the first case I will follow the principle of self-interest that may eventually allow me to help the family member at some later occasion, where the help may be more needed than it is now. Or I may opt for a different, although not urgent direction of helping the member of my family. Such a long winding deliberative process may be called reasoning or deliberation. But this process of reasoning is not a judgment. It is true that the reasoning which slowly follows my deliberative cogitations may influence the direction of the judgment which is based upon it once as that judgment gets fallen. Judgment to go in one of the sketched directions is of a different nature as the deliberative process though. If there are moral dilemmas and I deliberate considering the importance of the involved principles, this is not a judgment yet. A judgment, we may say, is reflexive and emotional gut reaction that may come as follow-up to the protracted moral reasoning, but is not itself moral reasoning. And judgment will involve moral reasons together with their underlying principles, in some yet to be specified manner.

Intuitionism/rationalism controversy involving moral judgments
Moral judgments are usually taken to be underpinned by reasons and by their underlying principles. If I judge that I should help her in this situation, this is because of the reason that I have to help her, the reason in question being underscored by the appropriate principle, such as that one has an obligation to help the people in need. Such a reasoning seems to be forthcoming upon an a priori basis. This way of arguing was lately questioned by an empirical psychology supported position by the name of intuitionism. This intuitionism in respect to moral judgment should not be confused with the old intuitionist tradition that is mostly compatible with a priori kind of approach, insisting upon the evidential insight into reasons or principles that the judger has, independently of the manner in which this may be empirically accounted for. The new intuitionism about moral judgment which we are concerned with here builds, as we just said, upon the psychological empirical data that seem to confirm moral judgments not being rooted in their underlying reasons and principles, but in emotional reactions to the situations that the moral agent encounters. As I drive along this road with the intention of meeting you in fifteen minutes time, just as I have promised, I encounter this traffic accident realizing that she has been hurt. I know that her well-being depends in a great part upon the prompt offering of help, and that I am the only one in vicinity who is able to provide such a help right now. Experiencing compassion with the situation she is in, I immediately form the judgment that I ought to help her in the situation. Intuitionists say that my immediate emotional response to the situation has brought me to fall the judgment. This is the basis that I then act upon. Later, as I am asked why I have helped her, I do not fall a judgment, but I try to explain why I have acted in the way I did. It is only at this stage, intuitionists say, that I make recourse to reasons and their underlying principles that help me to explain my action. But as I now explain things, I do not judge anymore, intuitionists affirm, but I rather confabulate. I produce a story that my action was based upon moral reasons and upon moral principles. But in fact, there were no such reasons or principles really involved at the time that I have fallen my judgment, which lead me to action. It was not these reasons and principles but rather the emotional gut reaction that led me to my moral judgment and to my subsequent action of offering my help to her. Intuitionists look for the support of such a view in psychological empirical data which seem to confirm that moral judgment is produced by strong emotional reaction to the given situation.
	This is countered by rationalists in respect to moral judgment, whose position consists in claiming that moral judgments originate in their underlying reasons and in the moral principles that support these reasons. The title of rationalism implies that reasoning is involved into formation of moral judgments. This may be the reasoning proceeding from moral reasons to moral principles, or as an interaction between several reasons and principles. But again it is not correct to see the title of rationalism to cover procedures of reasoning in the case of moral judgment. The stress is rather upon moral judgment being based upon reasons and their underlying principles. So rationalists do not see reasons and principles to be post hoc explanatory confabulations, but to be there in the basis of moral judgment. So the position of rationalism in respect to moral judgment is a return to the old “intuitionist” views that underline the constitutive role of reasons and of their supportive principles in moral judgment. Just that this form of rationalism builds upon some empirical data itself, so that it does not follow a priori armchair intuitionist ways of the evidentialism leaning intuitionists.

Morphological rationalism: the background reasons/principles effectivity
One presupposition adopted by classical rationalism is that moral judgments have those reasons and their underlying principles that they act upon available in a direct, explicit or intuition following evidentialist manner. The one that judges then weighs those principles in the situation at hand, reasoning upon this basis.
	But there is the possibility that reasons and their underlying principles guiding moral judgments exercise their role without being evidently present in the judgmental process. This is indeed a possibility which to some extent follows the insight that is provided by intuitionism. Moral judgments, intuitionism claims, are emotional gut reactions to the situation at hand which moral judger happens to encounter. Reasons and their underlying principles are nowhere to be seen at the time the judgment gets produced. They may just enter as post hoc explanatory confabulations. Rationalism now confirms that reasons and principles are not directly displayed at the time as moral judgment is fallen. But they are still present in the situation, illuminating it from the background. So reasons or principles are not directly implied into the moral judgment, but rather indirectly so. The position claiming this is a position about moral judgment involving reasons and principles as operating from the cognitive background. Let us call such cognitive background morphological background, indicating the form of the cognitive hopper where the accumulated experience gets settled, waiting there in a dispositional manner to be recalled once as the situation requires it. Reasons and principles may still be implied in such situations, just that they are not explicitly represented as they enter the scene. This then complies with the model of dynamical cognition which allows for representations, only that they do not usually function in an explicit or evidential manner. 
	Here is one example that may help to introduce the approach of morphological rationalism (Horgan and Timmons 2007) as it is dubbed. Mary just learned about her promotion and, being all happy about this, decides to share her feelings with Jane with whom she was a good friend during the high school, but somehow lost the touch with her because of their busy schedules, and because of the fact that they now inhabit quite different parts of the country. Mary calls Jane using her smartphone, saying cheerfully “Hello, Mary here; I decided to call you.” Mary wanted to continue the conversation by giving the reason why she called: to share the joy about her promotion with her old friend. At this time she hears the voice of Jane, her “Hello...”, in a very unhappy tone. Instead of telling her news, Mary decides to be compassionate and to hear Jane’s news first, so she says: “How about you, Jane? How are you?” To this question, Jane replies with a torn down voice: “I have a bad news to tell you; unhappily I just lost my job, I got fired yesterday.” At this juncture of their dialogue, Mary immediately decides not to tell her good news at this time to Jane, for the situation is not appropriate for this. So she rather waits for Jane to tell her own feelings related to the situation in which she finds herself. After hearing this out Mary continues with some small talk and promises Jane to call her again in some not too distant time. What has happened? Mary wanted to share the good news about her promotion with Jane, but confronting the feelings which Jane radiates, immediately decided that the right thing to do is refraining from telling her good news, and rather to comfort her friend at the time when she may need it. The judgment to act in this direction was fallen momentarily, without any deep and extended reasoning. The reason that she refrained from acting according to her earlier intention was in that she followed some principle such as that one needs to help a friend in distress, and that one needs to refrain from displaying one’s own successes at such time, which would ultimately result in an unfriendly, arrogant behavior. That reason or principle was not displayed explicitly in the situation at hand, but it was rather effective from Mary’s cognitive background, from which it acted in a dispositional manner, coloring the overall situation and directing her to the appropriate judgment. The principle in question, we may suppose, resided in Mary’s cognitive background, and exercised its effect instantaneously in the complex encountered situation where it was needed.

Morphological pluralism: joining pluralism and morphology
Morphological rationalism is opposed to intuitionism about moral judgments which treats these as emotional gut reactions with reasons or principles not having any serious role in judgment construction but just in the nonessential explanatory confabulation apres coup process. Morphological rationalism quite to the contrary affirms the constitutive role of reasons and of their underlying principles in judgment formation. This is where its title of rationalism comes from: moral judgments need reasons in their basis. Morphology addresses the question that the mode of reasons/principles effectivity in judgment construction is not explicit but that it rather proceeds from the cognitive background where they dispositionally await to be triggered as they are needed in the complex morally important situation at hand. Morphological pluralism is a subspecies of morphological rationalism, just that it insists on plurality of reasons/principles acting in the background of moral judgment formation. There are two preconditions for judgment formation that morphological pluralism recognizes: pluralism of reasons/principles and morphology. In fact, pluralism of reasons/principles is specific for moral judgment, whereas simple everyday judgments lean upon plurality of features that do not need to be moral features. Both everyday practical judgments and moral judgments proceed from the morphological background, just that in the case of moral judgments that background involves moral reasons and their underlying principles. Let us now say some more about preconditions for judgment and for moral judgment as these are present in morphological pluralism.

Pluralism as judgment condition
Pluralism is one ingredient of morphological pluralism. It holds that there is a plurality of features needed as the precondition for judgment. Let us take again the simple everyday judgment of mine to have a cup of tea now. As I have fallen the judgment to this effect I have decided for one course of action between the plurality of features that were available and that I have thereby excluded: to have coffee, to have just a sip of tea, and many more. The plurality of available features may not be present to me at all as I fall my judgment. But the judgment would not be there if I would not have to make a decision how to proceed in the situation at hand. Although I may not have even noticed it, the background of my judgment provides a tension between several available courses of actions, and between the plurality of features that may have been embraced. Going for cup of tea centers my possible subsequent behavior proposed by judgment in just one direction. But judgment would not be needed if some decision between plurality of features and their related outcome would not exist to prompt it. 
	Notice that my judgment to the effect of having a cup of tea now is a judgment indeed, but that it is not a moral judgment. In order for a judgment to be moral, the plurality of features in question that are needed for judgment has to contain normative reasons and their underlying principles, so that the tension is between these reasons and principles. The case of mine offering help to the accident victim while being on my way to our promised meeting point would be one example of a tension between moral reasons or principles and not just between several features that prompts moral judgment. In the overall sense though, pluralism is a precondition of judgment, so that in everyday nonmoral judgment there is plurality of features upon the basis of which the judgment is fallen, whereas in the case of moral judgment there is a plurality of moral reasons or principles. In the case of moral judgment thus normativity gets involved into its underlying tension. We have illustrated the difference between the everyday nonmoral judgment and between moral judgment with the cases of my decisions to have tea and my obligation to help the person.

Morphology as judgment condition
The first precondition for judgment is thus the tension between several features that are there in the situation. The precondition for moral judgment is that the features in question are moral reasons or their underlying principles. 
	The second precondition for judgment is morphology, which we have already characterized as the form of the background dispositional landscape. In the case of simple everyday judgment, there are several features that inhabit my background dispositional landscape which allows me to fall my judgment that I will have a cup of tea now. In the case of moral judgment, morphology involves moral reasons and their underlying principles. The difference is thus that for simple judgment, morphology provides the background push between the featured choices, whereas for  moral judgment, morphology pushes dispositional moral reasons/principles, of normative nature, from the background so that a judgment may be fallen. The difference between simple everyday judgments and between moral judgments is as well that the first ones do not involve emotional forces in a decisive manner, whereas moral judgments do involve basic emotional forces, for moral reasons or principles are related to the right conduct and to the values, and thereby they are emotionally supported. Dynamical cognition model for moral judgment thus needs inclusion of the basic emotional dynamics.

Moral judgments as emotional and modular principles involving gut reactions 
If we take a look at the above mentioned dispute between intuitionists and rationalists in respect to moral judgment, they happen to be offered in an exclusivist manner. Whereas intuitionists see moral judgments as emotional gut reactions, rationalists see them as reasons and their underlying principles driven matter. In opposition to this, one may now propose an inclusivist approach to moral judgments. According to the rationalist pluralism, one will allow for multiplicity of reasons/principles as underlying moral judgments by providing the needed tension. But these principles as moral features also involve emotional side, for they are concerned with the right conduct and with values, which all are emotionally supported features. Morphology that is constitutive for judgment would then involve emotional gut reactions, proper to moral reasons and principles. So rational cognitivism needs to be supplemented by emotional gut reaction morphology. The view of morphological pluralism thus reveals itself to be inclusivist in that it involves both moral reasons/principles and their background morphological gut reaction mode of effectivity, of at least partially emotional nature.

Higher cognitive processes and modular processes
Fodor (1983) distinguished between higher cognitive processes and between modular processes. Modular processes are cognitive processes indeed, just that they are reflexive reactions related to and tied to the specific kinds of stimuli. A specific inbuilt cognitive mechanism allows me to reflexively perceive and understand the physically incoming information as being phonemes, and these do subsequently enter into my grasping of the meaning of sentences and words, such as phonemes /c/, /a/, /t/ that are processed and grasped by myself as the word cat. My cognitive modules in question deal with phonemes, whereas other kinds of modules deal with borders and other similar visual stimuli.
	The difference between reflexive modular processes and between higher cognitive processes, such as my reasoning while trying to solve some philosophical conundrum is that these last kind of mentioned processes proceed according to a very slow pace. Modular processes are effective in fractions of a second, whereas thought processes, such as solving a certain philosophical problem, may take years. The reason is that the first kind of processes, the modular ones, are encapsulated, whereas higher cognitive processes are holistic, and so the relevance in them cannot be achieved in a reflexive automatic manner.

Deliberative moral reasoning, such as moral dilemmas, involves principles in an explicit manner, but it is not a judgment
Let us take a look at what the difference between the reflexive modular processes and between higher cognitive processes, such as thoughts, may tell us about the cases of moral judgment. Here is the outcome. Moral judgments, despite that they involve moral reasons and their underlying principles, are close to modular processes, in that they provide a gut reaction to the given situation. As opposed to intuitionism, such a gut reaction involves moral reasons and principles. These reasons/principles, again, have some emotional deep down nature, related to the right conduct that they prescribe and to the values which they promote. 
	Moral judgment being a reflexive, modular like process, may be contrasted by moral dilemmas, which involve a possibly slow process of moral deliberation and reasoning. Not just that moral dilemmas may take time to be resolved, if resolution they allow for, and that they are similar to higher cognitive processes such as holistic processes of thinking in this respect. More important for our discussion, moral dilemmas involving deliberative reasoning are not judgments at all. Moral dilemmas involve reasoning and the cogitation involving their offered solutions may provide help in falling of a judgment, as the time comes, and it may motivate the judgment. But again, moral dilemmas and their cogitation are not identical to judgment. Notice as well that moral dilemmas involve principles which are displayed in an explicit manner while they are considered. Whereas in moral judgments moral reasons/principles are there as well, but they are effective in a non-explicit, morphological background dispositional manner.

Moral judgment is reflexive modular principles involving gut reaction, coloring the overall situation
Moral judgment is a gut reaction. And it involves reasons or principles. It is a gut reaction, because contrary to moral deliberative processes such as these characterize cogitations involving moral dilemmas, it proceeds reflexively. But the dispositional morphological background which enters the formation of moral judgments essentially involves moral reasons and their underlying principles. Moral judgment pushes reasons or principles so that they have some effect upon the overall situation. But reasons/principles are not explicitly present in the situation of moral judgment; they rather color the situation from the background. This goes well with the characteristic of moral judgment.

Moral cognition
The extension of the inquiry into cognition needs to be expanded in the direction of models involving moral cognition. The characteristic of moral cognition is that it involves emotional normative basic ingredients. Moral judgments build upon reasons/principles, and these are based upon normative right conduct and values. They are also forthcoming in a reflexive manner.

Moral judgment as emotional reaction based upon plurality of reasons
Here is the argument: Simple judgments such as my decision that I will have tea now do not involve decisive emotional influence, besides to such matters as pleasure in the prospect of drinking tea. In the case of emotional gut reactions, such as my emotional state of hate or of love, there is no judgment involved, really, although there may be some alternatives in the background. Plurality of reasons is not in the basis of emotional reaction. In the case of moral judgment, there is a plurality of reasons/principles that leads to the judgment upon an emotional basis. The effect of this emotional basis comes from the cognitive dynamical background. The basic thing is that in that background, there are dispositionally stacked moral principles awaiting the appropriate conditions where they may be triggered in a complex judgment. In order for there to be judgment, there needs to be plurality of features in the situation that provide the needed tension. In order for there to be moral judgment, there needs to be plurality of moral reasons/principles that provide the normative tension which is needed for the judgment. In this sense, moral judgment is an emotional, value or right conduct involving reaction to the situation, where plurality of reasons is normally involved.

Moral cognition: extension of dynamical cognition account by emotional pushes of reasons/principles from the cognitive background
Horgan and Tienson (1996) proposed the model of dynamical cognition, based upon connectionist computational model. The dynamics in such a model is provided by the background multi-dimensional landscape, where morphological content is operative, the content that is forthcoming from the shape of the mentioned landscape. Such a morphological content determines which total cognitive states will be occurrently present in the cognitive system.
	An extension of the dynamical cognition model is needed so that we could obtain a model of moral cognition, more specifically of dynamical moral cognition. The specificity of such a model is that it builds upon the background morphological dynamics as substantially involving emotional ingredients, in the sense as moral reasons or principles involve such emotional ingredients. Notice that emotional background is available in each kind of cognition. Just that in the usual cognition emotional ingredients are not in the center of the dynamics. But in the case of moral cognition emotional forces are in  the center of cognitive dynamics, because the reasons/principles are emotionally underpinned following their right conduct and values connections.

Skipping pluralism: monism
We have seen that there are two preconditions for moral judgments according to our account: pluralism and morphology. Now, each of these preconditions that need to be jointly satisfied for moral judgment to be effective may be breached. And this was actually the case. As morphological pluralism is pluralism, we may take Ross (1930) criticism of two aberrations against an effective moral judgment view as our guideline. The first between these is non-pluralism, say consequentialist monism. And the second one is the breach against the morphology condition, which we will tackle in the next subsection.
Monism needs no moral judgments
Take monism of consequentialist kind as denial of pluralism. As it is well known, consequentialism will go for one principle: maximizing the available good in a situation. In fact, it turns out that there aren’t any judgments needed once as one take such approach, for it may be that one adopts a hierarchical value ranging of all the available situations, so that there is an automatic decision procedure.
Manners in which monism reluctantly buys pluralism for an account of moral judgments
But consequentialism in its own development realized that it needs to buy something additional, such as rules. We talk about rule-pluralism then. But this one allows for reasons or principles, and namely for a plurality of these. So although reluctantly, monism has to buy pluralist involvements. So we can talk about monistic pluralism. Now, one may say that this proves our hypothesis that the open kind of pluralism is an appropriate position in respect to moral judgment, and namely that it should be taken as default position in this respect (Timmons 2002). This just shows that we have to involve into our considerations moral judgment such as it happens to be.
Skipping pluralism: moral particularism and flattening of the moral landscape
Here we claim that moral particularism cannot deliver a plausible account of moral judgments either, for it does not appreciate the moral judgment producing constitutive tension of reasons and their underlying principles plurality, and also not really appreciating reasons' morphological background effectivity in the production of moral judgments. Moral particularism is thus another kind of moral anti-pluralism, which was not yet available as an option to Ross in his time.

Skipping morphology: deontology
The breach of the second precondition for moral judgment is non-morphology. Ross (1930) again pinpointed it as the threat for a plausible pluralist account. Denying morphology implies denying the background effectivity of reasons/principles in moral judgment. As this omission proves to be unrealistic as well in respect to moral judgment, it also has to acknowledge, somehow, the pluralist option.

Deontological ueber-judgment requirement of self-conscious evidential reasons/principles representations underlying judgment formation: phenomenological implausibility
Deontology requires moral judgments to be explicitly supported by reasons/principles in order to be morally right. Without being explicitly aware as acting from duty, an action following a judgment will not be morally fitting, according to deontologists. In order for judgments to be morally appropriate thus one needs self-conscious explicit access to evidential representations of reasons/principles. This seems to be a case of ueber-judgmental requirement, and it certainly breaches against the phenomenology of moral judgment. As we morally judge, reason/principle is not in the center of our insight. Reasons/principles  may be in the center of deliberative processes. But these processes, as we have claimed, are not identical to moral judgment.
	There is something plausible related to the deontological proposal. If one experiences the push by moral reasons/principles while one forms moral judgment, one experiences such reasons and principles as something that goes contrary to one’s immediate desires, as something that imposes itself as a duty without being based in the agent’s own wishes and desires. But certainly in the moral judgment as we have characterized it there is morphological and not explicit representational effectivity of moral reasons/principles. So deontology may be taken to deal with moral deliberation, but in no way with a realistic moral judgment.

Ways for deontology to acknowledge moral judgments nature: pluralist deontology
But again, given that the real nature of moral judgment is appropriately captured by morphological pluralism, one will not be perplexed to find out that deontologists have sometimes appropriated a pluralist version of their doctrine (Hill 2000). Categorical imperative may be interpreted as supporting humanity, but also as a decision procedure in its universalist guise (Timmons 2002). 

Open morphological pluralism as a default position for moral judgment
Timmons (2002) argues for open pluralism as a default position in moral theory. We add the need for morphology in accounting for moral judgment. Reasons/principles plurality provides the tension needed for moral judgment. Emotional morphology is needed for moral reasons/principles effectivity in moral judgment.

Rational disagreement
The stress here is that one needs to fall a judgment in rational disagreement situations. Falling of judgment is a moral requirement. There is the difference between rational deliberation or reasoning and between judgment. Rational deliberation does not follow whatever determines preconditions for judgment: a. pluralism, b. morphology. Rational deliberation is not pluralistic (the denial of a: pluralism), for its conclusion is in direction of exclusivist affirmation of one of the positions, with exclusion of the other position. Rational deliberation is not morphological: as a deliberation it is explicitly displaying the basics of each position (the denial of b: morphology). Our position is that the judgment needs to be fallen. But judgment, of course, is different from rational deliberation and from rational disagreement: it should satisfy the requirements for judgment: a. pluralism with its tension, and b. morphology with its background effectivity.
Vague Content in a Non-Vague World
If moral judgment is appropriately interpreted as complying to morphological pluralism, with its requirements, then one question about such a judgment may be metaphysical. Is moral judgement’s characteristics to be non-vague or to be vague? We appropriate the existence of a non-vague mind and language independent world (Horgan and Potrč 2008). In such a world, however, there will still be vague matters, such as language and thought, and especially judgments. How is vague content possible in a non-vague world though? An answer is that we take recourse to a unique identity between intentionality and phenomenology as the departure. And this is especially appropriate for an account of moral judgment, being rooted in complex situations. It is possible that moral judgment, as we have started to argue, is a problem as we know it because the very nature of judgment, and together with it of its phenomenology, used to  be neglected because of the prevailing Fregean approach.

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Introduction
Judgment in reasoning: dismissing the need for it
The impact of avoiding judgment upon moral philosophy: non-cognitivism and cognitivism
Judgment revival prospect through morphological pluralism
Preliminaries
Abstract
Moral judgments
Towards examples of moral judgments
Intuitionism/rationalism controversy involving moral judgments
Morphological rationalism: the background reasons/principles effectivity
Morphological pluralism: joining pluralism and morphology
Pluralism as judgment condition
Morphology as judgment condition
Moral judgments as emotional and modular principles involving gut reactions
Higher cognitive processes and modular processes
Deliberative moral reasoning, such as moral dilemmas, involves principles in an explicit manner, but it is not a judgment
Moral judgment is reflexive modular principles involving gut reaction, coloring the overall situation
Moral cognition
Moral judgment as emotional reaction based upon plurality of reasons
Moral cognition: extension of dynamical cognition account by emotional pushes of reasons/principles from the cognitive background
Skipping pluralism: monism
Monism needs no moral judgments
Manners in which monism reluctantly buys pluralism for an account of moral judgments
Skipping pluralism: moral particularism and flattening of the moral landscape
Skipping morphology: deontology
Deontological ueber-judgment requirement of self-conscious evidential reasons/principles representations underlying judgment formation: phenomenological implausibility
Ways for deontology to acknowledge moral judgments nature: pluralist deontology
Open morphological pluralism as a default position for moral judgment
Rational disagreement
Vague Content in a Non-Vague World
References