Evolution and Moral Disagreement

Michael Klenk

doi:https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v14i2.476

Volume 14, Number 2
December 2018

ARTICLE

Evolution and Moral Disagreement

Volume 14, Number 2, December 2018, Pages 112–142

https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v14i2.476

PDF

Abstract

Several philosophers have recently argued that evolutionary considerations undermine the justification of all objectivist moral beliefs by implying a hypothetical disagreement: had our evolutionary history been different, our moral beliefs would conflict with the moral beliefs of our counterfactual selves. This paper aims at showing that evolutionary considerations do not imply epistemically relevant moral disagreement. In nearby scenarios, evolutionary considerations imply tremendous moral agreement. In remote scenarios, evolutionary considerations do not entail relevant disagreement with our epistemic peers, neither on a narrow nor on a broad conception of peerhood. In conclusion, evolutionary considerations do not reveal epistemically troubling kinds of disagreement. Anti-objectivists need to look elsewhere to fuel their skeptical argument.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.

|

The Debunking Challenge to Moral Realism: How Evolution (Ultimately) Matters

Arnon Levy and Yair Levy

News Journalism and the Principles of Objectivity

Dhananjay Jagannathan and Clara Ence Morse

Parfit, Convergence, and Underdetermination

Marius Baumann

Evolutionary Debunking Arguments and Our Shared Hatred of Pain

Ben Bramble

Moral Disagreement and the Question Under Discussion

Stina Björkholm

Moral Disagreement and Practical Direction

Ragnar Francén

Moral Disagreement and Epistemic Advantages: A Challenge to McGrath

Ben Sherman

Moral Intuitions, Reliability and Disagreement

David Killoren

Unifying Moral and Epistemic Praiseworthiness

Leo Eisenbach

Being Wronged and Understanding Moral Wrongness

Daniel Vanello

When Enough Is Not Enough: Satisficing and Moral Efficiency

Konstantin Weber

Parents and Peers: A Kantian Moral Development

William Grant Ray