Morality and Mathematics: The Evolutionary Challenge

Clarke‐Doane, Justin

doi:10.1086/663231

Cited by 77 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…This interpretation is formulated most clearly by Clarke-Doane (2012). He argues that the debunking premise of the argument is substantiated by the following conditional:…”

Section: Empirical Premises Are Not Requiredmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old Wine in New Bottles

Klenk

2017

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) 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 BenacerrafField 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.

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“…This interpretation is formulated most clearly by Clarke-Doane (2012). He argues that the debunking premise of the argument is substantiated by the following conditional:…”

Section: Empirical Premises Are Not Requiredmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old Wine in New Bottles

Klenk

2017

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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“…Naturalists can also accept (ANR). One can be a naturalist about restaurants, for instance, without supposing that being a restaurant is a mind‐dependent property or that it plays an essential role in our causal‐explanatory theory of the world (Clarke‐Doane , 318). In this paper, we will present a metasemantic position that yields just this type of naturalist realist view of normative properties.…”

Section: The Generalized Integration Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

The Generalized Integration Challenge in Metaethics

Schroeter

2017

Nous

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The Generalized Integration Challenge (GIC) is the task of providing, for a given domain of discourse, a simultaneously acceptable metaphysics, epistemology and metasemantics and showing them to be so. In this paper, we focus on a metaethical position for which (GIC) seems particularly acute: the brand of normative realism which takes normative properties to be (i) mind‐independent and (ii) causally inert. The problem is that these metaphysical commitments seem to make normative knowledge impossible. We suggest that bringing metasemantics into play can help to resolve this puzzle. We propose an independently plausible metasemantic constraint on reference determination and show how it can provide a plausible response to (GIC) for this brand of normative realism.

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“…For evolutionary issues concerning perception, see Schafer, ; White, ; Vavova, . For evolutionary issues concerning mathematics, see Clarke‐Doane, ; Schechter, , p. 455; Field, . For deductive logic, see Schechter, , ; Field, .…”

Section: An Improved Account Of (In)adequacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining our Moral Reliability

Dogramaci

2016

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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I critically examine an evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism. The key premise of the argument is that there is no adequate explanation of our moral reliability. I search for the strongest version of the argument; this involves exploring how ‘adequate explanation’ could be understood such that the key premise comes out true. Finally, I give a reductio: in the sense in which there is no adequate explanation of our moral reliability, there is equally no adequate explanation of our inductive reliability. Thus, the argument that would debunk our moral views would also, absurdly, debunk all inductive reasoning.

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Morality and Mathematics: The Evolutionary Challenge

Cited by 77 publications

References 19 publications

Old Wine in New Bottles

Old Wine in New Bottles

The Generalized Integration Challenge in Metaethics

Explaining our Moral Reliability

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