EUNSA has published the book “Universal Moral Grammar. A cognitive approach to natural law?” (in Spanish) by Dr Mariano Asla.

By its very nature ethical speculation has been since its inception a land for intellectual dialogue, where ordinary knowledge, philosophy and different religious faiths converged. But this scenario today has become more complex and presents novel aspects, due to the emergence of particular sciences (especially from the cognitive perspective) in the study of the moral phenomenon. In this context of naturalization of ethics, a research program inspired by Chomsky’s linguistics, called Universal Moral Grammar was developed in recent years. UMG argues, in essence, that under our spontaneous moral intuitions there is a network of cognitive, innate and unconscious principles, which are the evolutionary heritage of our species.

In this book the author proposes a philosophically weighted and critical reading of this research program, examining its possible inclusion in the broader debate on ethical universals and establishing some nontrivial affinities with the notion of natural law proposed by the Thomist tradition.

The book can be purchased on the site of EUNSA.