Michael Klenk

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 to the realism/anti-realism debate to do better. The book is a valuable and thought-provoking contribution to experimental metaethics and, in particular, to debates surrounding experimental studies of folk-moral realism, where it provides an insightful and handy guide to the field. In what follows, I briefly lay out the book’s main arguments, focusing on Pölzler’s assessment of existing science-based arguments, along with some critical remarks, before providing a broader evaluation.

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 significance of higher-order evidence for moral epistemology. Part II covers the sources of higher-order evidence in moral epistemology, such as disagreement and moral testimony, for both individuals and groups. The essays in Part III discuss permissible epistemic attitudes regarding a body of moral evidence, including the question of how to determine the permissibility of such attitudes. Finally, Part IV examines the relevance of higher-order evidence for phenomena of practical concern, such as fundamentalist views about moral matters. This volume is the first to explicitly address the implications of higher-order evidence in moral epistemology. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced graduate students working in epistemology and metaethics.

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 contributions to four topics: the definition of morality, the nature ofmoral change and progress, the truth of moral relativism, and attempts to debunkmorality. The ethical turn uncovers a richer picture of moral phenomena on theintersubjective level, one akin to a virtue theoretic focus on moral character, withstriking similarities of moral phenomena across cultures. Perennial debates are notsettled but the ethical turn strengthens moral philosophy’s empirical turn and itrewards serious attention from philosophers.

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 evolutionary history, whereas our moral judgements do. It has been argued that we, therefore, cannot tell right from wrong. In my thesis, I investigate the epistemology behind the evolutionary debunking of morality. Evolutionary explanations of morality, I argue, do not imply that our moral judgements are false. This leaves the possibility that evolution undercuts our (alleged) evidence for our moral judgements. Our evolutionarily influenced moral judgements might turn out to be unreliable guides to the moral truth, just like sight is a lousy guide to the external world in bad lighting conditions. However, I show that as long as we have reason to initially trust our moral beliefs, evolution does not provide us with reason to give up our moral beliefs. If evolution undercuts our moral beliefs, evolutionary considerations must show that true moral judgements do not qualify as knowledge because moral judgements are not cognitive achievements but comparable to lucky guesses. The thesis thus answers how empirical investigations of morality might have justificatory implications and the findings are relevant for deciding whether new factual information can alter how we think about right and wrong.

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 of the objections levelled against moderate subjectivism but can be shown to yield inconsistent results in some cases. Both subjectivisms should be rejected. We should be objectivists regarding undercutting defeat. This requirement, however, is likely to be problematic for a popular interpretation of evolutionary debunking arguments in metaethics as it can be shown that existing objectivist accounts of defeat do not support such arguments. I end by discussing the constraints of developing such an account.

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 agreement. In remote scenarios, evolutionary considerations do not entail relevant disagreement with our epistemic peers, neither on a narrow nor on a broad conception of peerhood. In conclusion, evolutionary considerations do not reveal epistemically troubling kinds of disagreement. Anti-objectivists need to look elsewhere to fuel their sceptical argument.

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 debunking explanations depends on the epistemic significance of disagreement. This paper aims to show that disagreement does not constrain the epistemic legitimacy of third-factor explanations in metaethics, and it suggests a way forward in addressing the view that debunking depends on disagreement. First, Tersman’s constraints are impossible to violate, given the assumption that the justification relation exhibits monotonicity. Second, some disagreements are irrelevant, given that they cannot be about beliefs whose reliability the objectivist seeks to defend. Third, actual disagreement about moral beliefs is implausible, given recent ethnographic findings. In light of this discussion, the paper shows that the prospects of the disagreement view depend on which moral beliefs objectivists need to defend and the criteria we use to assess epistemically relevant moral disagreement.

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 moral beliefs about those properties would not be selected for. However, no evolutionary, causal explanation plays an essential role in reaching the argument’s epistemological conclusion. Street’s argument depends on the Benacerraf-Field challenge, which is the challenge to explain the reliability of our moral beliefs about causally inert moral properties. The Benacerraf-Field challenge relies on metaphysically necessary facts about realist moral properties, rather than on contingent Darwinian facts about the origin of our moral beliefs. Attempting to include an essential causal empirical premise yet avoiding recourse to the Benacerraf-Field problem yields an argument that is either self-defeating or of limited scope. Ultimately, evolutionary, causal explanations of our moral beliefs and their consequences do not present the strongest case against robust moral realism. Rather, the question is whether knowledge of casually-inert, mind-intendent properties is plausible at all.

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 textbooks in the field do not even mention the term morality at all (and focus on 'prosociality' instead). This relative lack of 'coverage' might have to do with the difficulty of operationalising 'morality' in a fitting way (more on this below). However, morality certainly is a social phenomenon and therefore the collection of Fargas, Jussim, and Van Lange is certainly a step in the right direction; it offers an extensive overview of the field and is suggestive of the vast potential of studying morality through the lens of social psychology.

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 different things. And although we know a lot about moral development, what we know has little to do with moral progress. Let’s untangle both concepts.

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 externalism about epistemic defeaters. However, even if we do, I argue, the conditions Moon identifies for a valid third-factor response are not met in the case of moral realism.