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85Thomas Pölzler, Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences (review)International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 11 (1): 78-86. 2019.Thomas Pölzler’s book offers the first detailed study that focuses explicitly on the promise of science-based arguments for and against moral realism (of both the natural and non-natural kind). His two central claims are that sound arguments bearing on the realism/anti-realism debate are possible, and, yet, that four central attempts to derive metaethical conclusions from science-based arguments uniformly fail. The book then provides several recommendations for future science-based contributions…Read more
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104Higher Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology (edited book)Routledge. 2020.This book offers a systematic look at current challenges in moral epistemology through the lens of research on higher-order evidence. Fueled by recent advances in empirical research, higher-order evidence has generated a wealth of insights about the genealogy of moral beliefs. Higher-Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology explores how these insights have an impact on the epistemic status of moral beliefs. The essays are divided into four thematic sections. Part I addresses the normative signific…Read more
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729Moral Philosophy and the ‘Ethical Turn’ in AnthropologyZeitschrift Für Ethik Und Moralphilosophie (2): 1-23. 2019.Moral philosophy continues to be enriched by an ongoing empirical turn,mainly through contributions from neuroscience, biology, and psychology. Thusfar, cultural anthropology has largely been missing. A recent and rapidly growing‘ethical turn’ within cultural anthropologynow explicitly and systematically studiesmorality. This research report aims to introduce to an audience in moral philosophyseveral notable works within the ethical turn. It does so by critically discussing theethical turn’s con…Read more
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61Survival of Defeat - Evolution, Moral Objectivity, and UndercuttingDissertation, Utrecht University. 2018.Evidence from biology and psychology suggests that our moral views depend on our evolutionary history. For example, if we humans would have evolved to live like hive bees, we would probably think very differently about moral questions such as whether we have a duty to care for our children. The findings from biology and psychology threaten to ‘debunk’ the justification of judgements about objective moral truths. Objective moral truths are always the same and they do not vary with our contingent …Read more
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106Objectivist conditions for defeat and evolutionary debunking argumentsRatio 32 (4): 246-259. 2019.I make a case for distinguishing clearly between subjective and objective accounts of undercutting defeat and for rejecting a hybrid view that takes both subjective and objective elements to be relevant for whether or not a belief is defeated. Moderate subjectivists claim that taking a belief to be defeated is sufficient for the belief to be defeated; subjectivist idealists add that if an idealised agent takes a belief to be defeated then the belief is defeated. Subjectivist idealism evades some…Read more
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85Evolution and Moral DisagreementJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 14 (2). 2018.Several philosophers have recently argued that evolutionary considerations undermine the justification of all objectivist moral beliefs by implying a hypothetical disagreement: had our evolutionary history been different, our moral beliefs would conflict with the moral beliefs of our counterfactual selves. This paper aims at showing that evolutionary considerations do not imply epistemically relevant moral disagreement. In nearby scenarios, evolutionary considerations imply tremendous moral agre…Read more
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132Third factor explanations and disagreement in metaethicsSynthese 197 (1): 427-446. 2020.Several moral objectivists try to explain the reliability of moral beliefs by appealing to a third factor, a substantive moral claim that explains, first, why we have the moral beliefs that we have and, second, why these beliefs are true. Folke Tersman has recently suggested that moral disagreement constrains the epistemic legitimacy of third-factor explanations. Apart from constraining third-factor explanations, Tersman’s challenge could support the view that the epistemic significance of debun…Read more
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358Old wine in new bottles: Evolutionary debunking arguments and the Benacerraf–Field challengeEthical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (4): 781-795. 2017.Evolutionary debunking arguments purport to show that robust moral realism, the metaethical view that there are non-natural and mind-independent moral properties and facts that we can know about, is incompatible with evolutionary explanations of morality. One of the most prominent evolutionary debunking arguments is advanced by Sharon Street, who argues that if moral realism were true, then objective moral knowledge is unlikely because realist moral properties are evolutionary irrelevant and mor…Read more
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50Review of The Social Psychology of Morality (review)Metapsychology Online 20 (48): 1-8. 2016.If you put chimpanzees from different communities together you can expect mayhem - they are not keen on treating each other nicely. There is closely related species of apes, however, whose members have countless encounters with unrelated specimen on a daily basis and yet almost all get through the day in one piece - that species is us, homo sapiens. But what makes us get along, most of the time? Morality as such is, perhaps surprisingly, not a mainstream research topic in social psychology. Most…Read more
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252Measuring Moral Developmentde Filosoof 75 21-23. 2017.In the aftermath of the financial crisis, heightened awareness of ethical issues has sparked increased efforts toward moral education within universities and businesses. In many cases, psychological tests are used to measure whether moral development occurs. As long as we understand moral development as synonymous with moral progress, this may seem like a good sign: it would appear that such tests give us a handle on moral progress. Alas, moral development and moral progress are two very differe…Read more
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1042Can Moral Realists Deflect Defeat Due to Evolutionary Explanations of Morality?Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (S1): 227-248. 2017.I address Andrew Moon's recent discussion (2016, this journal) of the question whether third-factor accounts are valid responses to debunking arguments against moral realism. Moon argues that third-factor responses are valid under certain conditions but leaves open whether moral realists can use his interpretation of the third-factor response to defuse the evolutionary debunking challenge. I rebut Moon's claim and answer his question. Moon's third-factor reply is valid only if we accept external…Read more
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223Review of Richard Joyce's Essays in Moral Skepticism (review)Ethical Perspectives 24 (1): 158-162. 2017.
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220Terence Cuneo. Speech and Morality. On the Metaethical Implications of Speaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. (review)Ethical Perspectives 22 (2): 345-350. 2015.
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Delft University of TechnologyAssistant Professor
Delft, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Moral Realism and Irrealism |
Moral Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
Moral Psychology |
Ethics and Cognitive Science |