Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T14:18:54.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Which Causes of Moral Beliefs Matter?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Elizabeth O’Neill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue that information about the distal causes of moral beliefs, such as evolution, is only relevant for assessing the epistemic status of moral beliefs in cases where we cannot determine whether the proximal processes producing these beliefs are reliable just by examining the properties of these proximal processes. Any investigation into the epistemic status of moral beliefs given their causes should start with a look at proximal causes—not at evolution. I discuss two proximal psychological influences on moral beliefs—disgust and sympathy—to demonstrate the feasibility of drawing epistemic conclusions from an examination of proximal causes alone.

Type
Psychology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1070 - 1080
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I wish to thank Edouard Machery, James Woodward, Karl Schafer, Kieran Setiya, Daniel Kelly, and Yoichi Ishida for comments on previous versions of this article, as well as audiences at the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology 2013 meeting, a 2014 Work in Progress talk at the University of Pittsburgh, the 2014 Conference on Value Inquiry, the 2014 Midsouth Philosophy Conference, the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2014 meeting, and the Philosophy of Science Association 2014 meeting for helpful discussion.

References

Bartneck, Christoph, and Hu, Jun. 2008. “Exploring the Abuse of Robots.” Interaction Studies 9:415–33.Google Scholar
Berker, Selim. 2009. “The Normative Insignificance of Neuroscience.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 37:293–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, Paul. 2013. “The Baby in the Well: The Case against Empathy.” New Yorker, May 20.Google Scholar
Brosnan, Kevin. 2011. “Do the Evolutionary Origins of Our Moral Beliefs Undermine Moral Knowledge?” Biology and Philosophy 26:51–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, Hanah A., and Anderson, Adam K.. 2013. “Things Rank and Gross in Nature: A Review and Synthesis of Moral Disgust.” Psychological Bulletin 139:300–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cikara, Mina, and Fiske, Susan T.. 2011. “Bounded Empathy: Neural Responses to Outgroup Targets’ (Mis)fortunes.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23:3791–3803.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Copp, David. 2008. “Darwinian Skepticism about Moral Realism.” Philosophical Issues 18:186–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, David. 2010. “The Epistemological Challenge to Metanormative Realism: How Best to Understand It, and How to Cope with It.” Philosophical Studies 148:413–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiala, Brian, Arico, Adam, and Nichols, Shaun. 2014. “You, Robot.” In Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy, ed. Machery, Edouard and O’Neill, Elizabeth, 31–47. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Benjamin James. 2014. “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments and the Reliability of Moral Cognition.” Philosophical Studies 168:457–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, Joshua. 2008. “The Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul.” In Moral Psychology, Vol. 3, The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders, and Development, ed. Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, 35–80. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Paul, and Wilkins, John. 2010. “When Do Evolutionary Explanations of Belief Debunk Belief?” http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/5314/.Google Scholar
Haidt, Jonathan, Bjorklund, Fredrik, and Murphy, Scott. 2000. “Moral Dumbfounding: When Intuition Finds No Reason.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Virginia.Google Scholar
Haidt, Jonathan, and Hersh, Matthew A.. 2001. “Sexual Morality: The Cultures and Emotions of Conservatives and Liberals.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 31:191–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helzer, Erik G., and Pizarro, David A.. 2011. “Dirty Liberals! Reminders of Physical Cleanliness Influence Moral and Political Attitudes.” Psychological Science 22:517–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horberg, E. J., Oveis, Christopher, Keltner, Dacher, and Cohen, Adam B.. 2009. “Disgust and the Moralization of Purity.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97:963–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inbar, Yoel, Pizarro, David A., Knobe, Joshua, and Bloom, Paul. 2009. “Disgust Sensitivity Predicts Intuitive Disapproval of Gays.” Emotion 9:435–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joyce, Richard. 2001. The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Richard 2006. The Evolution of Morality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kahane, Guy. 2011. “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments.” Nous 45:103–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kahane, Guy 2012. “On the Wrong Track: Process and Content in Moral Psychology.” Mind and Language 27:519–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kahane, Guy, and Shackel, Nicholas. 2010. “Methodological Issues in the Neuroscience of Moral Judgement.” Mind and Language 25:561–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kelly, Daniel. 2011. Yuck! The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Daniel 2014. “Selective Debunking Arguments, Folk Psychology and Empirical Moral Psychology.” In Advances in Experimental Moral Psychology, ed. Wright, J. C. and Sarkissian, H., 130–47. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Kelly, Daniel, and Morar, Nicolae. 2014. “Against the Yuck Factor: On the Ideal Role of Disgust in Society.” Utilitas 26:153–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landy, Justin F., and Goodwin, Geoffrey P.. 2015. “Does Incidental Disgust Amplify Moral Judgment? A Meta-Analytic Review of Experimental Evidence.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 10:518–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Machery, Edouard, and Mallon, Ron. 2010. “Evolution of Morality.” In The Moral Psychology Handbook, ed. Doris, John, 3–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, Joshua. 2014. “Does Disgust Influence Moral Judgment?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92:125–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Shaun. 2014. “Process Debunking and Ethics.” Ethics 124:727–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prinz, Jesse. 2011. “Against Empathy.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 49:214–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal-von der Pütten, A. M., Krämer, N. C., Hoffmann, L., Sobieraj, S., and Eimler, S. C.. 2012. “An Experimental Study on Emotional Reactions towards a Robot.” International Journal of Social Robotics 5:17–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roush, Sherrilyn. 2005. Tracking Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schafer, Karl. 2010. “Evolution and Normative Scepticism.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88:471–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnall, Simone, Haidt, Jonathan, Clore, Gerald L., and Jordan, Alexander H.. 2008. “Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34:1096–1109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singer, P. W. 2009. Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. 2005. “Ethics and Intuitions.” Journal of Ethics 9:331–52.Google Scholar
Street, Sharon. 2006. “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value.” Philosophical Studies 127:109–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Street, Sharon 2008. “Reply to Copp: Naturalism, Normativity, and the Varieties of Realism Worth Worrying About.” Philosophical Issues 18:207–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trawalter, Sophie, Hoffman, K. M., and Waytz, A.. 2012. “Racial Bias in Perceptions of Others’ Pain.” PLoS ONE 7:e48546.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wheatley, Thalia, and Haidt, Jonathan. 2005. “Hypnotic Disgust Makes Moral Judgments More Severe.” Psychological Science 16:780–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhong, Chen-Bo, Strejcek, Brendan, and Sivanathan, Niro. 2010. “A Clean Self Can Render Harsh Moral Judgment.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46:859–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar