© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/156853710X497149 Journal of Cognition and Culture 10 (2010) 1–26 brill.nl/jocc Te Moral-Conventional Distinction in Mature Moral Competence Bryce Huebner*, James J. Lee and Marc D. Hauser Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, 215 New North 37th and O Streets, NW Washington, DC 20057, USA * Corresponding author, e-mail: huebner@wjh.harvard.edu Abstract Developmental psychologists have long argued that the capacity to distinguish moral and conventional transgressions develops across cultures and emerges early in life. Children reliably treat moral transgressions as more wrong, more punishable, independent of structures of authority, and universally applicable. However, previous studies have not yet examined the role of these features in mature moral cognition. Using a battery of adult-appropriate cases (including vehicular and sexual assault, reckless behavior, and violations of etiquette and social contracts) we demonstrate that these features also distinguish moral from conventional transgressions in mature moral cognition. Each hypothesized moral transgressions was treated as strongly and clearly immoral. However, our data suggest that although the majority of hypothesized conventional transgressions also form an obvious cluster, social conventions seem to lie along a continuum that stretches from mere matters of personal preference (e.g., getting tattoos or wearing black shoes with a brown belt) to transgressions that are treated as matters for legitimate social sanction (e.g., violating traffic laws or not paying your taxes). We use these findings to discuss issues of universality, domain-specificity, and the importance of using a well- studied set of moral scenarios to examine clinical populations and the underlying neural architecture of moral cognition. Keywords Moral-Conventional distinction, moral psychology, social cognition Most people are likely to agree that it is okay to wear your pajamas to the symphony if everyone else does. While this kind of behavior may seem odd, wearing pajamas at the symphony is not beyond the realm of plausibility. Most people are also likely to agree that after you have entered the symphony hall, it is never okay to throw a rock at the bassoonist just because his pacing sounded forced, even if everyone else is doing this. Tese cases appear to lie along a spectrum (which may include more ambiguous cases such as eating