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Affording Affordance Moral Realism

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Abstract

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 are the manifestation of substantive moral goods. In making this argument, I take a scientific naturalistic approach that includes both the natural and social sciences, aiming to make my account both methodologically and substantively naturalistic. On the subject side of my affordance view, I offer a scientific account of moral agency, one based on an extension of social cognitive theories of agency to the realm of morality. And I argue that affordance moral realism explains the nature of moral agency, its acquisition, maintenance, and successful performance. To explain its origin and maintenance, I make use of a general theory of selection that embraces biological, social, cultural, and intentional selection. On the object side, I offer a theory of moral affordances and their actualizations, employing the findings and theories of moral developmental psychology and moral psychology to understand their actualizations through the successful operations of moral agents. I conclude that a scientifically based naturalistic affordance moral realism promises to provide the best current account of morality. It is not only affordable; it’s a bargain.

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Notes

  1. An anonymous referee suggested that I briefly detail developments since I first introduced this model of moral agency. I used psychologist Albert Bandura’s theory of social cognitive agency to develop this model of moral agency in my book The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency (1998). And I argued that it provided a superior account of moral agency than the then-current Kohlbergian accounts of moral agency because of its superiority in accounting for moral action. I also argued that the work of Martin Hoffman on the superiority of inductive techniques in moral learning to those of power assertion and love withdrawal provided strong evidence for successful moral agency. And I used biological findings concerning altruistic behavior to support that model. In the last more than 20 years since writing that book, moral developmental psychology has blossomed, and I have in subsequent work, as well as in the development of affordance moral realism, used the work of Turiel, Shweder, Haidt, and colleagues to elaborate a cross-cultural account of moral phenomena (Turiel 1983; Turiel et al. 1987; Shweder et al. 1987, 2000; Haidt 2001, 2003, 2012; Haidt and Joseph 2007; Haidt and Bjorklund 2008). Richard Lazarus’ appraisal theory of emotions (1991), along with Rozin and colleagues’ cross-cultural account of moral emotions (Rozin et al. 1999), helped fill in a story about the capacities of the base and behavioral levels of moral agency. And, very importantly, with the development of a generalized theory of selection (spurred on by the work of Boyd, Richerson, Henrich, and their colleagues; Boyd 1988; Richerson and Boyd 2005; Henrich 2016) embracing both biological and cultural evolution, I have been able to elaborate on a major mechanism of moral development, cultural learning.

  2. I thank two anonymous reviewers for urging that this concern be addressed.

  3. I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this question.

  4. I thank an anonymous reviewer for vigorously pressing this point.

  5. I thank an anonymous reviewer for urging me to make this comparison.

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Acknowledgments

A shorter, invited version of this article was presented at a conference on evolutionary ethics hosted by Nangyang Technological University in Singapore. I thank the organizer of that conference, Andres Luco, and the participants for their comments. I also thank my colleagues John Fritzman, Jay Odenbaugh, and Nicholas Smith for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. My thanks are also due to two anonymous referees of this journal for their suggestions and to its editor, Stuart Newman, for guiding this article through the review process.

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    William A. Rottschaefer

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Rottschaefer, W.A. Affording Affordance Moral Realism. Biol Theory 16, 30–48 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-020-00361-8

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