A Review of Kristján Kristjánsson, 2006. Justice and Desert-Based Emotions. Aldershot: Ashgate

Does Moral Psychology Need Moral Theory?

“…In order to finesse the problem under discussion, it is helpful to invoke and elaborate upon Maxwell's distinction among different approaches to the value of empirical evidence for moral theorizing suggested by the various kinds of naturalism that have been gathering pace in recent years (Maxwell, 2008a(Maxwell, , 2008b(Maxwell, , 2009. The first approach is what Maxwell calls "neo-Aristotelian naturalism," but might better be termed "virtue ethical naturalism" in view of fact that most of its proponents are modern-day virtue ethicists with a considerably more self-focused and particularist view of morality than Aristotle had (see Kristjánsson, 2007a).…”

“…Maxwell has graciously granted me authorship of a fourth approach: a subvariety of the third approach, entitled "neo-Millian evidential ethical naturalism" (Maxwell, 2008b(Maxwell, , 2009. Although not claiming originality, I see this approach as an attempt to flesh out and, to a certain extent, operationalize the tenets of evidential ethical naturalism (Kristjánsson, 2006, pp.…”

“…Carr's radically "moralized" view of social science not only "moralizes" moral psychology, therefore, it also reduces pedagogy to a sub-branch of value theory and elevates moral teaching from a chosen educational profession to an ineluctable educational condition. If this makes social scientists the moral philosophers' "under-laborers" (Maxwell, 2009), then-in Carr's view-so be it. The only way they could possibly avoid that predicament would be by becoming full-blown moral philosophers trying to pursue some good old-fashioned normative inquiry, rather than fooling themselves into thinking that they are engaged in a non-normative enterprise and, consequently, producing (at best) hollow-ringing platitudes, or (at worst) profusions of confusion on matters of the utmost importance for human well-being.…”