Theism & Evolutionary Debunking Arguments Against Moral Realism

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Paul Rezkalla
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Michael Ruse ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Specific Target ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Sharon Street ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking

Evolutionary debunking arguments against morality come in a variety of forms that differ both in how they take evolution to be problematic for morality and in their specific target of morality i.e. objectivity, realism, justification for moral beliefs, etc.  For the purpose of this paper, I will first articulate several recent debunking approaches and highlight what they take to be problematic features of evolutionary history for morality. In doing so I will be forced to abstract from some of the specific arguments offered, although I will provide replies to particular aspects of the arguments offered by Michael Ruse, Sharon Street and Richard Joyce. Then, I will show that theists have independent reasons for rejecting certain, core assumptions of these debunking approaches, thus deflating the major thrust of debunking worries for morality. While there may be good responses available to the non-theist realist with respect to several of the worries raised below, this paper will simply show why the theist need not be troubled by contemporary debunking approaches against morality.

scholarly journals A New Evolutionary Debunking Argument Against Moral Realism

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUSTIN MORTON
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Standard Version ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking ◽  
Categorical Reasons

ABSTRACT:Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) claim that evolution has influenced our moral faculties in such a way that, if moral realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. I present several popular objections to the standard version of this argument before offering a new EDA that has clear advantages in responding to these objections. Whereas the Standard EDA argues that evolution has selected for many moral beliefs with certain contents, this New EDA claims that evolution has selected for one belief: belief in the claim that categorical reasons exist. If moral realism is true, then this claim is entailed by all positive moral claims, and belief in it is defeated due to evolutionary influence. This entails that if realism is true, then we have no positive moral knowledge. While there may be objections against this New EDA, it is much stronger than the Standard EDA, and one realists ought to worry about.

scholarly journals Human altruism, evolution and moral philosophy

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 170441 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. FitzPatrick
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Moral Scepticism

This paper has two central aims. The first is to explore philosophical complications that arise when we move from (i) explaining the evolutionary origins of genetically influenced traits associated with human cooperation and altruism, to (ii) explaining present manifestations of human thought, feeling and behaviour involving cooperation and altruism. While the former need only appeal to causal factors accessible to scientific inquiry, the latter must engage also with a distinctive form of explanation, i.e. reason-giving explanation, which in turn raises important philosophical questions, the answers to which will affect the nature of the ultimate explanations of our moral beliefs and related actions. On one possibility I will explore, this explanatory project cannot avoid engaging with first-order ethical theory. The second aim is to apply lessons from these explanatory complications to the critique of ‘evolutionary debunking arguments’, which seek to debunk morality, or at least objective construals of it (i.e. moral realism), by appeal to allegedly scientific debunking explanations of our moral beliefs that would defeat our justification for them. The explanatory complications brought out in the first half raise difficulties for such debunking arguments. If we avoid begging central philosophical questions then such debunking arguments pose little threat of saddling us with moral scepticism or subjectivism, though they do pose an important challenge for those developing a moral realist view.

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.

scholarly journals Two versions of the evolutionary debunking arguments and their challenges to moral realism

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-112
Author(s):  
Víctor Emilio Parra Leal
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Evolutionary Forces ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking ◽  
Evolutionary Point ◽  
Moral Facts

This paper assesses some challenges posed by evolutionary debunking arguments in Joyce’s function and Street’s contingency versions to moral realism, understood as the metaethical theory according to which there are moral facts that are absolute, universal and context-independent. Some argue that Copp’s society centred realism is untenable given that it cannot support counterfactuals. Shafer-Landau and Huemer’s arguments are also subject to debunking because they cannot persuasively show that human morality is unaffected by evolutionary forces. In Huemer’s view, moral progress is proof of moral facts. It requires moral realism due to progress being context-dependent. From an evolutionary point of view, there are no previous standards and ideals concerning the direction of progress. Finally, a possible answer to the function version of the evolutionary debunking arguments is the possibility that the nature of human language (including moral language) is such that, in essence, it cannot be convincingly divided in language about facts and language about value.

scholarly journals Evolutionary anti-realism in ethics

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-67
Author(s):  
Igor Zivancevic
Keyword(s):  
Error Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking ◽  
Moral Capacity

In this paper I discuss two forms of evolutionary debunking arguments. These arguments have precursors in Mackie?s Moral error theory and Harman?s challenge, i.e. the explanatory irrelevance of moral facts. The first argument is metaphysical, and I call it the argument of phylogenetic contingency. To put it simple, this argument claims that if our evolutionary past had been different, then our moral capacity, moral concepts and moral beliefs, would have been different as well. The other argument is epistemological. It is based on the Nozickean conceptions of sensitivity and truth tracking. This argument claims that, when it comes to moral capacity, in the evolutionary past there was no selection for tracking moral truths. As a result, moral beliefs are insensitive to truth. Finally, I show how conception of self-deception, which is by definition insensitive to truth, could augment these arguments and help their better articulation.

scholarly journals Debunking Arguments in Metaethics and Metaphysics

2019 ◽  
pp. 337-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Z. Korman
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Adaptive Value ◽  
Evolutionary Debunking

Evolutionary debunking arguments abound, but it is widely assumed that they do not arise for our perceptual beliefs about midsized objects, insofar as the adaptive value of our object beliefs cannot be explained without reference to the objects themselves. This chapter argues that this is a mistake. Just as with moral beliefs, the adaptive value of our object beliefs can be explained without assuming that the beliefs are accurate. The chapter then explores the prospects for another sort of vindication of our object beliefs—which involves “bootstrapping” from our experiences of midsized objects—and defends bootstrapping maneuvers against a variety of objections. Finally, an explanatory constraint on bootstrapping is articulated and defended, and a variety of attempts to respond to debunking arguments are shown to run afoul of the constraint.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document