Is the theory of moral cognition usefully modeled on aspects of Universal Grammar? Noam Chomsky has suggested on a number of occasions that it might be (see, e.g., 1978, 1986a, 1988a, 1993a). In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls makes a similar suggestion and compares his own elaborate characterization of the sense of justice with the linguist's account of linguistic competence (1971: 46–53). A number of other philosophers, including Stephen Stich (1993), Alvin Goldman (1993), Susan Dwyer (1999), Matthias Mahlmann (1999), and Gilbert Harman (2000), among others, have ruminated publicly about the idea as well. Despite this, and despite the fact that the competence–performance distinction and other parts of Chomsky's basic theoretical framework have been successfully utilized in other areas of cognitive science, such as vision and musical cognition, little sustained attention has been given to examining what a research program in moral cognition modeled on central features of Universal Grammar might look like, or how traditional philosophical questions about the nature of morality might be fruitfully addressed in these terms.