Philosophical Studies 173 (2):417-435 (2016)
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Abstract |
It is widely supposed that evolutionary debunking arguments against morality constitute a type of epistemological objection to our moral beliefs. In particular, the debunking force of such arguments is not supposed to depend on the metaphysical claim that moral facts do not exist. In this paper I argue that this standard epistemological construal of EDAs is highly misleading, if not mistaken. Specifically, I argue that the most widely discussed EDAs all make key and controversial metaphysical claims about the nature of morality or the possibility of moral truth that belie their apparently epistemological character. I show that the debunking force of these EDAs derives largely from metaphysical claims about morality and their implications for the possibility of moral reduction, rather than from epistemological worries associated with the existence of an causal/non-moral explanation of our moral judgments. The paper briefly concludes with a dilemma that I believe confronts all EDAs such as those discussed in this paper: either such arguments are unsound, or else they prove too much, debunking our knowledge of science and the external world, as well as morality
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Keywords | Evolution Debunking Evolutionary debunking arguments Meta-ethics Moral naturalism Moral realism |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11098-015-0499-9 |
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References found in this work BETA
Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - Oxford University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Evolutionary Arguments Against Moral Realism: Why the Empirical Details Matter (and Which Ones Do).Jeroen Hopster - 2018 - Biology and Philosophy 33 (5-6):41.
Bad News for Moral Error Theorists: There Is No Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies.Ramon Das - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (1):58-69.
Are Evolutionary Debunking Arguments Self-Debunking?Christos Kyriacou - 2016 - Philosophia 44 (4):1351-1366.
Evolutionary Debunking: The Milvian Bridge Destabilized.Christos Kyriacou - 2019 - Synthese 196 (7):2695-2713.
View all 14 citations / Add more citations
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