scholarly journals Why Metaethics Needs Empirical Moral Psychology

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (155) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Hopster ◽  
Michael Klenk
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking ◽  
Experimental Findings

What is the significance of empirical moral psychology for metaethics? In this article we take up Michael Ruse’s evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism and reassess it in the context of the empirical state of the art. Ruse’s argument depends on the phenomenological presumption that people generally experience morality as objective. We demonstrate how recent experimental findings challenge this widely-shared armchair presumption and conclude that Ruse’s argument fails. We situate this finding in the recent debate about Carnapian explication and argue that it illustrates the necessary role that empirical moral psychology plays in explication preparation. Moral psychology sets boundaries for reasonable desiderata in metaethics and, therefore, it is necessary for metaethics.

scholarly journals The Experimental Psychology of Moral Enhancement: We Should If We Could, But We Can't

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 313-328
Author(s):  
Sylvia Terbeck ◽  
Kathryn B. Francis
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Psychological Assessment ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Experimental Findings

AbstractIn this chapter we will review experimental evidence related to pharmacological moral enhancement. Firstly, we will present our recent study in which we found that a drug called propranolol could change moral judgements. Further research, which also investigated this, found similar results. Secondly, we will discuss the limitations of such approaches, when it comes to the idea of general “human enhancement”. Whilst promising effects on certain moral concepts might be beneficial to the development of theoretical moral psychology, enhancement of human moral behaviour in general – to our current understanding – has more side-effects than intended effects, making it potentially harmful. We give an overview of misconceptions when taking experimental findings beyond the laboratory and discuss the problems and solutions associated with the psychological assessment of moral behaviour. Indeed, how is morality “measured” in psychology, and are those measures reliable?

An Ambiguity in Marx's and Engels's Account of Justice and Equality

1982 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Ethical Argument ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Status ◽  
International Distribution ◽  
Recent Debate

Given the widespread moral conventionalism or historicism in contemporary social science and ethics, many have viewed Marx as arguing either that conceptions of justice simply shift historically and lack objectivity (relativism) or that notions of justice are to be understood solely as expressions of class interests (reductionism). Although metaethical ambiguities about the status of conceptions of justice influenced some of Marx's and Engels's formulations, they condemned the “crying contrasts” of rich and poor. Marx is better understood as defending a version of moral objectivity or moral realism. The paper begins with an example from the recent debate about justice in the international distribution of wealth to highlight the implausibility of a relativist or reductionist account. It then describes alternative views of the status of justice and equality in Marx and Engels and explores the logical structure of Marx's critique of Proudhon. A fourth section examines the analogy between Marx's and Engels's realism in the philosophy of science and their realist arguments in ethics, focusing on Marx's and Engels's non-relativist and non-reductionist conception of moral progress. The conclusion sets Marx's use of concepts of exploitation in the context of his overall moral judgments and suggests that Marx's social or historical theory rather than his moral standards are the most controversial part of his ethical argument.

scholarly journals A Commentary on the Unsupervised Learning of Disentangled Representations

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (09) ◽  
pp. 13681-13684
Author(s):  
Francesco Locatello ◽  
Stefan Bauer ◽  
Mario Lucic ◽  
Gunnar Rätsch ◽  
Sylvain Gelly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Result ◽  
Unsupervised Learning ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
Experimental Findings

The goal of the unsupervised learning of disentangled representations is to separate the independent explanatory factors of variation in the data without access to supervision. In this paper, we summarize the results of (Locatello et al. 2019b) and focus on their implications for practitioners. We discuss the theoretical result showing that the unsupervised learning of disentangled representations is fundamentally impossible without inductive biases and the practical challenges it entails. Finally, we comment on our experimental findings, highlighting the limitations of state-of-the-art approaches and directions for future research.

scholarly journals A debunking explanation for moral progress

2019 ◽  
Vol 177 (11) ◽  
pp. 3171-3191
Author(s):  
Nathan Cofnas
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Moral Truth ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Cultural Convergence ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Empirical Argument ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking

Abstract According to “debunking arguments,” our moral beliefs are explained by evolutionary and cultural processes that do not track objective, mind-independent moral truth. Therefore (the debunkers say) we ought to be skeptics about moral realism. Huemer counters that “moral progress”—the cross-cultural convergence on liberalism—cannot be explained by debunking arguments. According to him, the best explanation for this phenomenon is that people have come to recognize the objective correctness of liberalism. Although Huemer may be the first philosopher to make this explicit empirical argument for moral realism, the idea that societies will eventually converge on the same moral beliefs is a notable theme in realist thinking. Antirealists, on the other hand, often point to seemingly intractable cross-cultural moral disagreement as evidence against realism (the “argument from disagreement”). This paper argues that the trend toward liberalism is susceptible to a debunking explanation, being driven by two related non-truth-tracking processes. First, large numbers of people gravitate to liberal values for reasons of self-interest. Second, as societies become more prosperous and advanced, they become more effective at suppressing violence, and they create conditions where people are more likely to empathize with others, which encourages liberalism. The latter process is not truth tracking (or so this paper argues) because empathy-based moral beliefs are themselves susceptible to an evolutionary debunking argument. Cross-cultural convergence on liberalism per se does not support either realism or antirealism.

Sidgwick's Dualism of Practical Reason, Evolutionary Debunking, and Moral Psychology

Utilitas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-377
Author(s):  
Peter Andes
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Peter Singer ◽  
Unresolved Problem ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking

AbstractSidgwick's seminal text The Methods of Ethics left off with an unresolved problem that Sidgwick referred to as the dualism of practical reason. The problem is that employing Sidgwick's methodology of rational intuitionism appears to show that there are reasons to favour both egoism and utilitarianism. Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer offer a solution in the form of an evolutionary debunking argument: the appeal of egoism is explainable in terms of evolutionary theory. I argue that like rational prudence, rational benevolence is subject to debunking arguments and so problematic, but also – and more importantly – that debunking arguments are irrelevant in the debate over the dualism of practical reason on the view of reason and rational intuitionism that Lazari-Radek and Singer embrace. Either both egoism and utilitarianism are debunked, or neither are. If I am right, Sidgwick's dualism is left standing.

Evolutionary Debunking of Moral Realism

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katia Vavova
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking
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