Evolution and Moral Disagreement

Paradigmi, 2019

This paper aims at shedding light on the debate about Evolutionary Debunking Arguments and moral objectivity. I will assess the consequences of the evolutionary explanation of morality for moral objectivity, focusing on a recent realist argument that stems from the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes in biology. This argument presents some fallacies and thus fails in securing the realist conception of moral objectivity. I will argue that rethinking biological causation in terms of reciprocal causation rather than unidirectional causation, as the proximate/ultimate distinction presupposes, seems to push us toward a constructivist approach through the notion of niche construction.

Biology & Philosophy, 2018

The aim of this article is to identify the strongest evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) against moral realism and to assess on which empirical assumptions it relies. In the recent metaethical literature, several authors have de-emphasized the evolutionary component of EDAs against moral realism: presumably, the success or failure of these arguments is largely orthogonal to empirical issues. I argue that this claim is mistaken. First, I point out that Sharon Street's and Michael Ruse's EDAs both involve substantive claims about the evolution of our moral judgments. Next, I argue that combining their respective evolutionary claims can help debunk-ers to make the best empirical case against moral realism. Some realists have argued that the very attempt to explain the contents of our endorsed moral judgments in evolutionary terms is misguided, and have sought to escape EDAs by denying their evolutionary premise. But realists who pursue this reply can still be challenged on empirical grounds: debunkers may argue that the best, scientifically informed historical explanations of our moral endorsements do not involve an appeal to mind-independent truths. I conclude, therefore, that the empirical considerations relevant for the strongest empirically driven argument against moral realism go beyond the strictly evolutionary realm; debunkers are best advised to draw upon other sources of genealogical knowledge as well.

2010

Many claim that the availability of evolutionary explanations for human moral beliefs threatens the view that humans have moral knowledge. Proponents of such debunkings endorse the following thesis: The Evolutionary Debunking Thesis (EDT): If S’s moral belief that P can be given an evolutionary explanation, then S’s moral belief that P is not knowledge. We may distinguish metaphysical debunking arguments and epistemological debunking arguments. The former seek to establish (EDT) by showing that no moral belief that can be given an evolutionary explanation is true. The latter make the case that the existence of an evolutionary explanation for a given moral belief implies that even if the belief is true, it is not knowledge. In this paper, I debunk a variety of epistemological debunking arguments. To accomplish this I first sketch a possible evolutionary explanation for some human moral beliefs. Next, I explain how, given a reliabilist approach to warrant, my account implies that humans possess at least some moral knowledge. Finally, I examine in detail the epistemological debunking arguments of Michael Ruse, Sharon Street, and Richard Joyce. I draw on the account of moral knowledge sketched earlier to illustrate how these arguments fail. I do more than debunk the arguments of the would-be debunkers; I also provide a plausible, if incomplete, model of human moral knowledge.

The University of Edinburgh, 2021

This paper examines whether evolutionary debunking arguments (or EDAs) present a challenge to moral realism. The contingency argument raises skepticism about the justification of human moral beliefs, according to which moral truths are contingent on the sort of species one is, the parameters of the environment, and other factors that may benefit that species's survival. Sharon Street (2006) employed EDAs to argue that our moral beliefs are guided by evolutionary processes known to the sciences, and our moral dispositions are not necessarily based on independent truths outside of the evolutionary framework as some moral realists contend. Further, Street contends that the moral realist is presented with an unpleasant dilemma: either reject the notion that there is a connection between our moral dispositions and moral truths or provide a suitable explanatory model between the two. For moral realism to be viable, it must defend itself from these skeptical arguments.

Biology & Philosophy, 2010

According to some recent arguments, (Joyce in The evolution of morality, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2006; Ruse and Wilson in Conceptual issues in evolutionary biology, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1995; Street in Philos Studies 127: 109-166, 2006) if our moral beliefs are products of natural selection, then we do not have moral knowledge. In defense of this inference, its proponents argue that natural selection is a process that fails to track moral facts. In this paper, I argue that our having moral knowledge is consistent with, (a) the hypothesis that our moral beliefs are products of natural selection, and (b) the claim (or a certain interpretation of the claim) that natural selection fails to track moral facts. I also argue that natural selection is a process that could track moral facts, albeit imperfectly. I do not argue that we do have moral knowledge. I argue instead that Darwinian considerations provide us with no reason to doubt that we do, and with some reasons to suppose that we might. Keywords Evolutionary ethics Á Moral realism Á Moral epistemology In what follows, I will not question the plausibility of the hypothesis that our moral beliefs are products of natural selection. My interest is rather to investigate the implications that are drawn from this claim. Since these implications are said to affect moral realism, let me state briefly state how I will understand this view. There are different varieties of moral realism and my interest here is not to settle which of them is the most plausible (Boyd 1988; Brink 1989; Railton 1986; Sturgeon 1985; Shafer-Landau 2003). It is enough for present purposes to characterize it as the view that what makes any moral proposition true is independent of what anyone believes

Filosofia e História da Biologia (Fil. Hist. Biol. Vol16 no 1), 2021

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.

Anti-realist evolutionary debunking arguments purport to show that if there were objective moral truths, then evolutionary evidence would suggest that our moral judgements are unjustified (which excludes or makes it unlikely that these truths exist). Recent controversies about these arguments can often be traced back to confusion about how its premises are to be supported or undermined. My aim in this paper is accordingly a clarificatory one. I will attempt to identify which kinds of philosophical or scientific evidence would have to be obtained in order to be able to properly assess evolutionary debunking arguments. It will emerge that philosophical inquiry can make a greater contribution than has often been acknowledged. Moreover, part of what makes these arguments so difficult to evaluate is that their philosophical and scientific aspects are very closely intertwined.

Syzetesis, 2022

The aim of the paper is to assess two alternative explanations of morality in metaethics: the realist explanation of morality and the one provided by evolutionary theory. According to a traditional argument for moral realism, moral facts are part of the fabric of the world to the extent that postulating such entities is required in our best explanatory picture of what people think and do. In other terms, if moral facts figure in the best explanatory account for human moral thinking and behavior, they earn ontological rights and moral realism is secured. It will be analyzed how this issue might be renewed by taking into account evolutionary considerations and assessing their consequences in metaethics. I will consider the realist explanation of morality and compare it with the evolutionary explanation of morality. Finally, I will show how the realist attempts to reconcile the realist explanation of morality and the evolutionary explanation of morality can be undermined by connecting this discussion to the one about moral disagreement

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy

This paper reconstructs what I take to be the central evolutionary debunking argument that underlies recent critiques of moral realism. The argument claims that given the extent of evolutionary influence on our moral faculties, and assuming the truth of moral realism, it would be a massive coincidence were our moral faculties reliable ones. Given this coincidence, any presumptive warrant enjoyed by our moral beliefs is defeated. So if moral realism is true, then we can have no warranted moral beliefs, and hence no moral knowledge. In response, I first develop what is perhaps the most natural reply on behalf of realism – namely, that many of our highly presumptively warranted moral beliefs are immune to evolutionary influence and so can be used to assess and eventually resuscitate the epistemic merits of those that have been subject to such influence. I then identify five distinct ways in which the charge of massive coincidence has been understood and defended. I argue that each inte...

2020

In this chapter we will develop a way for moral realism to respond to evolutionary debunking arguments. In general terms, debunking arguments that appeal to evolutionary theory hold that natural selection and moral realism are incompatible. Our aims are threefold. First, we will describe some of the relevant arguments in the debate on this topic. We distinguish between a modal argument, a parsimony argument, and Sharon Street’s Darwinian dilemma. Second, we will focus on Street’s argument, which has ignited most of the recent interdisciplinary debate between philosophy of biology and metaethics. We will focus on the overlooked fundamental tenets of moral realism to open a route for defending it: its cognitivist character, its representational language nature, and the relationship between evaluative judgments and their truthmakers (which are facts). This will allow us to propose a response to the evolutionary debunking arguments. Finally, contra Street, we will argue that moral reali...