Is Human Morality Innate? Much of this chapter is based on material in my book The Evolution of Morality (MIT Press, 2006).

Joyce, Richard

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310139.003.0016

Cited by 49 publications

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“…In support of Blackburn (2001) and Singer (2011), and against Harris (2010) and Joyce (2006), we affirm the gulf between science and ethics. Modifying Sellars’ definition of philosophy (‘philosophy studies how things in general hang together’), we claim that science studies how things are and ethics considers how things ought to be.…”

Section: Part Ii—integrating Science Engineering and Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 57%

“…Ethicists like Joyce (2001, 2006), Hauser (2006) and Harris (2010) assume that humans care for one another as a result of natural selection. Wilson (2012) makes the provocative claim that humans by their biological nature are eusocial , or capable of sacrificing their personal interests for the sake of their groups in the very best of circumstances.…”

Section: Part Ii—integrating Science Engineering and Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Survival Ethics in the Real World: The Research University and Sustainable Development

et al. 2013

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We discuss how academically-based interdisciplinary teams can address the extreme challenges of the world’s poorest by increasing access to the basic necessities of life. The essay’s first part illustrates the evolving commitment of research universities to develop ethical solutions for populations whose survival is at risk and whose quality of life is deeply impaired. The second part proposes a rationale for university responsibility to solve the problems of impoverished populations at a geographical remove. It also presents a framework for integrating science, engineering and ethics in the efforts of multidisciplinary teams dedicated to this task. The essay’s third part illustrates the efforts of Howard University researchers to join forces with African university colleagues in fleshing out a model for sustainable and ethical global development.

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Section: Part Ii—integrating Science Engineering and Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 57%

Section: Part Ii—integrating Science Engineering and Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Survival Ethics in the Real World: The Research University and Sustainable Development

et al. 2013

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“…This point raises difficulties for increasingly popular claims that scientific work, particularly in evolutionary theory, can be used to do philosophical ‘debunking’ work in ethics. Some have claimed that appeals to evolutionary influences on human psychology can debunk morality altogether [ 1 ], or at least realist views of it [ 9 ]. Others have argued more specifically for the evolutionary debunking of certain particular ethical beliefs, such as belief in ‘partialist’ moral systems that recognize special moral duties to kin and prerogatives to favour oneself and friends and family over strangers [ 10 ].…”

Section: General Evolutionary Debunking Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time, the thoughts, motivation and behaviour associated with altruism and cooperation are empirical phenomena that can be studied scientifically by evolutionary biologists, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists. Here we might inquire into the evolutionary origins of human capacities and dispositions associated with altruism and cooperation, and more generally the origins of our ability and tendency to make (and to be motivated by) distinctively moral judgements, all of which might be spoken of broadly as inquiry into ‘the evolution of morality’ [ 1 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human altruism, evolution and moral philosophy

FitzPatrick¹

2017

R. Soc. open sci.

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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.

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“…Goodwin and Darley, for example, summed up the findings of their influential 2008 study as follows: “Individuals seem to identify a strong objective component to their core ethical beliefs […]. Arguably, many of our participants viewed their ethical beliefs as true in a mind-independent way” ( 2008 : 1359; see also, e.g., Joyce 2006 : 129–130). More recently, in contrast, people have been thought rather to favor realism with regard to some moral sentences and anti-realism with regard to others — depending on factors such as their openness to alternative moral views and their perceptions of consensus (e.g., Goodwin and Darley 2012 ; Pölzler 2017 ; Wright et al 2013 , 2014 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Measure Moral Realism

Pölzler

2018

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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In recent years an increasing number of psychologists have begun to explore the prevalence, causes and effects of ordinary people’s intuitions about moral realism. Many of these studies have lacked in construct validity, i.e., they have failed to (fully or exclusively) measure moral realism. My aim in this paper accordingly is to motivate and guide methodological improvements. In analysis of prominent existing measures, I develop general recommendations for overcoming ten prima facie serious worries about research on folk moral realism. G1 and G2 require studies’ answer choices to be as metaethically comprehensive as methodologically feasible. G3 and G4 prevent fallacious inferences from intuitions about related debates. G5 and G6 limit first-order moral and epistemic influences. G7 address studies’ instructions. And G8 and G9 suggest tests of important psychological presuppositions.

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Is Human Morality Innate? Much of this chapter is based on material in my book The Evolution of Morality (MIT Press, 2006).

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

Survival Ethics in the Real World: The Research University and Sustainable Development

Survival Ethics in the Real World: The Research University and Sustainable Development

Human altruism, evolution and moral philosophy

How to Measure Moral Realism

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