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47Affording Affordance Moral RealismBiological Theory 16 (1): 30-48. 2020.In this article I elaborate a scientifically based moral realism that I call affordance moral realism, and I offer a promissory note that affordance moral realism is the best current explanation of morality. Affordance moral realism maintains that morality is constituted by the interaction of moral agents and moral affordances. The latter are the natural and social environments in which moral agents’ activities take place and contain the objects of moral agents’ activities whose actualizations a…Read more
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20Moral Learning and Moral RealismThe Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 12 37-43. 1998.Although scientific naturalistic philosophers have been concerned with the role of scientific psychology in illuminating problems in moral psychology, they have paid less attention to the contributions that it might make to issues of moral ontology. In this paper, I illustrate how findings in moral developmental psychology illuminate and advance the discussion of a long-standing issue in moral ontology, that of moral realism. To do this, I examine Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon's discussio…Read more
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26Wilfrid Sellars and the Foundations of Normativity by Peter OleJournal of the History of Philosophy 55 (4): 745-746. 2017.In this very informative volume, Peter Olen addresses questions that are of interest both to philosophers generally and to students of Sellars's thought in particular. Do philosophers have a job that is distinct from the scientists'? Yes. What is the nature of normativity and how is it discerned? Roughly, normativity is connected with the extra-conceptual content that normative language adds to factual content. Do Wilfrid Sellars's career-long efforts to account for the nature of both philosophy…Read more
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16No Messages Without a SenderPhilo 4 (1): 38-53. 2001.In his recent Gifford Lectures, Holmes Rolston argues that the informational character of biological phenomena is better explained by a theistic God of the process variety than by appealing to naturalistic biological explanations. In this paper, I assess Rolston’s argument by examining current biological and philosophical interpretations of the role of the theoretical concept of information in the description and explanation of biological phenomena. I find that none of these understandings of th…Read more
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13Verbal Behaviorism and Theoretical MentalismPhilosophy Research Archives 9 511-533. 1983.Sellars’ verbal behaviorism demands that linguistic episodes be conceptual in an underivative sense and his theoretical mentalism that thoughts as postulated theoretical entities be modelled on linguistic behaviors. Marras has contended that Sellars’ own methodology requires that semantic categories be theoretical. Thus linguistic behaviors can be conceptual in only a derivative sense. Further he claims that overt linguistic behaviors cannot serve as a model for all thought because thought is pr…Read more
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Ordinary Knowledge in the Scientific Realism of Wilfrid SellarsDissertation, Boston University Graduate School. 1973.
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64Is the science of positive intentional change a science of objective moral values?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (4): 435-436. 2014.I examine whether Wilson et al.'s argument for a science of positive intentional change constitutes an argument for a science of objective moral values. Drawing from their discussion, I present four reasons for thinking that it may be and some considerations on why it may not be. Concluding, I seek help from the authors. [Open Peer Commentary on a BBS article.]
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22The Biology and Psychology of Moral AgencyCambridge University Press. 1997.This important book brings findings and theories in biology and psychology to bear on the fundamental question in ethics of what it means to behave morally. It explains how we acquire and put to work our capacities to act morally and how these capacities are reliable means to achieving true moral beliefs, proper moral motivations, and successful moral actions. By presenting a complete model of moral agency based on contemporary evolutionary theory, developmental biology and psychology, and socia…Read more
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23Naturalizing Or Demythologizing Scientific Inquiry: Kitcher’s: Science, Truth and DemocracyPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (3): 408-422. 2004.In Science, Truth and Democracy, Philip Kitcher has argued that science ought to meet both the epistemic goals of significant truth and the nonepistemic goals of serving the interests of a democratic society. He opposes this science as servant model to both the theology of science as source of salvific truth and the theology of science as anti-Christ. In a recent critical comment, Paul A. Roth argues that Kitcher remains entangled in the theology of salvific truth, not realizing that its goal is…Read more
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61The Middle Does Not HoldJournal of Philosophical Research 36 361-369. 2011.This paper continues the dialogue between my right-wing-Sellars and James O’Shea’s middle-Sellars. In it, I reply to O’Shea’s middle-Sellars critique of my right-wing-Sellarsian criticism of his recent attempt (Wilfrid Sellars: Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn) to develop an understanding of Sellars’s overall view that avoids the problems of both right and left-wing-Sellarsians. In his contribution to this issue O’Shea argues that Sellars follows a middle way between left and ri…Read more
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34Evolutionary naturalistic justifications of morality: A matter of faith and works (review)Biology and Philosophy 6 (3): 341-349. 1991.Robert Richards has presented a detailed defense of evolutionary ethics, a revised version of Darwin's views and a major modification of E. O. Wilson's. He contends that humans have evolved to seek the community welfare by acting altruistically. And since the community welfare is the highest moral good, humans ought to act altruistically. Richards asks us to take his empirical premises on faith and aims to show how they can justify an ethical conclusion. He identifies two necessary conditions fo…Read more
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49Singer, sociobiology, and values: Pure reason versus empirical reasonZygon 19 (2): 159-170. 1984.E. O. Wilson argues that we must use scientifically based reason to solve the values dilemma created by the loss of a transcendent foundation for values. Peter Singer allows that sociobiology can help us understand the evolutionary origin of ethics, but denies the claim that sociobiology or any science can furnish us with ultimate ethical principles. We argue that Singer's critique of Wilson's attempt to bridge the gap between fact and value using empirical reason is unconvincing and that Singer…Read more
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Book reviews-the biology and psychology of moral agencyHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 22 (3): 445-445. 2000.
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58. Using as a model contemporary analyses of scientific cognition, Ian Harbour has claimed that religious cognition is neither immediate nor inferential but has the structure of interpreted experience. Although I contend that Barbour has failed to establish his claim, I believe his views about the similarities between scientific and religious cognition are well founded. Thus on that basis I offer an alternative proposal that theistic religious cognition is essentially inferential and that religio…Read more
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40Why Wilfrid Sellars Is Right (and Right-Wing)Journal of Philosophical Research 36 291-325. 2011.Scholars of Wilfrid Sellars’s thought split into Right- and Left-wing Sellarsians. Right-wing Sellarsians urge Sellars’s scientific realism and the prominence of the scientific image of man in the synoptic vision. Left-wing Sellarsians emphasize the prominence of the logical space of reasons over that of causes, rejecting Sellars’s scientism. In his recent book James O’Shea attempts to reconcile these Sellarsian images, arguing that one best understands the Sellarsian synoptic image in terms of …Read more
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89Naturalizing or demythologizing scientific inquiry: Kitcher’s: Science, truth and democracyPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (3): 408-422. 2004., Philip Kitcher has argued that science ought to meet both the epistemic goals of significant truth and the nonepistemic goals of serving the interests of a democratic society. He opposes this science as servant model to both the theology of science as source of salvific truth and the theology of science as anti-Christ. In a recent critical comment, Paul A. Roth argues that Kitcher remains entangled in the theology of salvific truth, not realizing that its goal is either vacuous or unattainable…Read more
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139Willard A. Young, Fallacies of Creationism Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 6 (8): 411-412. 1986.Review Article
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23It's been a pleasure, but that's not why I did it. Are Sober and Wilson too generous toward their selfish brethren?Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (1-2): 1-2. 2000.Sober and Wilson demonstrate convincingly the fallacies of arguments for fundamental biological and psychological selfishness and establish the plausibility of both biological and psychological altruism. However, I suggest that they are more generous to proponents of fundamental selfishness than they need be and that morality is closer to our evolved and learned capacities than they suggest. I am less generous toward advocates of fundamental selfishness than are our altruistic authors.
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65The insufficience of supervenient explanations of moral actions: Really taking Darwin and the naturalistic fallacy seriously (review)Biology and Philosophy 6 (4): 439-445. 1991.In a recent paper in this journal (Rottschaefer and Martinsen 1990) we have proposed a view of Darwinian evolutionary metaethics that we believe improves upon Michael Ruse's (e.g., Ruse 1986) proposals by claiming that there are evolutionary based objective moral values and that a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness can be given that avoids the naturalistic fallacy in both its definitional and derivational forms while providing genuine, even if limited, jus…Read more
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52Discerning the Limits of Religious NaturalismZygon 36 (3): 467-475. 2001.In response to my “How to Make Naturalism Safe for Supernaturalism: An Evaluation of Willem Drees's Supernaturalistic Naturalism” (Rottschaefer 2001), Willem Drees maintains that I have misunderstood his purpose and views and have failed to make the case against his view that naturalism is intrinsically limited. In this response, I comment on these concerns.
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40Social Learning Theories of Moral AgencyBehavior and Philosophy 19 (1). 1991.An important question for a naturalized philosophical psychology is what constitutes moral agency (MA). The two prominent scientific theories to which such a philosophical approach might appeal, those of cognitive developmental theory (CDT) and social learning theory (SLT), currently face an investigative dilemma: The better theories of the acquisition of beliefs and the performance of action based on them, the SLTs, seem to be irrelevant to the phenomenon of MA and the theories that seem to be …Read more
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50Philosophical and religious implications of cognitive social learning theories of personalityZygon 26 (1): 137-148. 1991.This paper sketches an alternative answer to James Jones's recent attempt to explore the implications of cognitive social learning theories of personality for issues in epistemology, philosophy of science, and religious studies. Since the 1960s, two cognitive revolutions have taken place in scientific psychology: the first made cognition central to theories of perception, memory, problem solving, and so on; the second made cognition central to theories of learning and behavior, among others. Cog…Read more
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48Moral Learning and Moral Realism: How Empirical Psychology Illuminates Issues in Moral OntologyBehavior and Philosophy 27 (1). 1999.Although scientific naturalistic philosophers have been concerned with the role of scientific psychology in illuminating problems in moral psychology, they have paid less attention to the contributions that it might make to issues of moral ontology. In this paper, I illustrate how findings in moral developmental psychology illuminate and advance the discussion of a long-standing issue in moral ontology, that of moral realism. To do this, I examine Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon's discussio…Read more
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26Why Wilfrid Sellars Is Right (and Right-Wing)Journal of Philosophical Research 36 291-325. 2011.Scholars of Wilfrid Sellars’s thought split into Right- and Left-wing Sellarsians. Right-wing Sellarsians urge Sellars’s scientific realism and the prominence of the scientific image of man in the synoptic vision. Left-wing Sellarsians emphasize the prominence of the logical space of reasons over that of causes, rejecting Sellars’s scientism. In his recent book James O’Shea attempts to reconcile these Sellarsian images, arguing that one best understands the Sellarsian synoptic image in terms of …Read more
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59B.f. Skinner and the grand inquisitorZygon 30 (3): 407-433. 1995.B.F. Skinner allures us with the possibilities of turning the stones of materialistic rewards into the bread of human values. He tempts us by assuring success in achieving our goals through behavioral science, if only we give up our autonomy. He offers the power of complete control over our behaviors, on condition that we relinquish responsibility for our lives to a technological elite. Is B. F. Skinner a flesh‐and‐blood Grand Inquisitor? This essay tries to persuade the reader that Skinner's of…Read more