The normative theory basically tells a person which acts are wrong such as pulling someone’s hair or speaking to a person inches away from their face. The affirmative mechanism is activated when we see others suffering, such as someone witnessing a car accident victim. Nichols seems to make point out that people except children and psychopaths, who have a clear understanding, have the capacity for core moral judgment and thus possess a normative theory. For Nichols, emotions play a crucial role in shaping the content of our normative theory, but moral judgments do not concern these emotions, but are instead about the content of the normative …show more content…
People may act on emotion without knowing it, specifically people in the workforce. Certain jobs require that employees display certain emotions toward their customers. What if certain emotions can’t be controlled? For example, a doctor having personal issues at home is very stressed and because of this much of his judgement on his patients are affected. A waitress is suppose to show the customer that she cares but what if she’s having a bad day? Another example could be the police force. Police officers must be able to act professionally. A police officer who displays too much anger, sympathy, or other emotion while dealing with danger on the job will be viewed by other officers or citizens as someone who is weak and not capable doing police work. Nichols does not really talk about these type of bad emotions but he does mention that certain emotions have shaped norms throughout time, he just isn’t specific about it.
Another argument against Nichols could be that children do feel guilt. If neo-sentimentalists are right, to think that something is wrong, for example, is to think that guilt is fitting for doing it but, Nichols claims, children who distinguish moral from conventional violations do not yet possess the concept of guilt. It is not easy to determine either whether children make full-blown moral judgments or experience guilt. There is some evidence that very young children exhibit behavioural signs of