Evolutionary arguments against moral realism: Why the empirical details matter (and which ones do)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify the strongest evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) against moral realism and to assess on which empirical assumptions it relies. In the recent metaethical literature, several authors have de-emphasized the evolutionary component of EDAs against moral realism: presumably, the success or failure of these arguments is largely orthogonal to empirical issues. I argue that this claim is mistaken. First, I point out that Sharon Street’s and Michael Ruse’s EDAs both involve substantive claims about the evolution of our moral judgments. Next, I argue that combining their respective evolutionary claims can help debunkers to make the best empirical case against moral realism. Some realists have argued that the very attempt to explain the contents of our endorsed moral judgments in evolutionary terms is misguided, and have sought to escape EDAs by denying their evolutionary premise. But realists who pursue this reply can still be challenged on empirical grounds: debunkers may argue that the best, scientifically informed historical explanations of our moral endorsements do not involve an appeal to mind-independent truths. I conclude, therefore, that the empirical considerations relevant for the strongest empirically driven argument against moral realism go beyond the strictly evolutionary realm; debunkers are best advised to draw upon other sources of genealogical knowledge as well.

Striking coincidences: How realists should reason about them

“…After all, realists who grant that evolutionary influences do not constrain the relevant possibility space of candidate mind‐independent evaluative truths, seem to be committed to the view that these truths might have been anything , or at least that the relevant possibility space is extremely broad (cf. Hopster, ).…”

Hope for the Evolutionary Debunker: How Evolutionary Debunking Arguments and Arguments from Moral Disagreement Can Join Forces

“…See Tropman 2014 for a critique of Street's constructivism that focuses on this question, and Joyce 2016 for an argument that the debunking challenge does not depend on a realist construal of moral beliefs. For more on these issues see also Risberg and Tersman 2020a.2 For further discussion of these empirical issues, see, e.g.,Fraser (2010),Machery and Mallon (2010),Kahane (2011), Hopster (2018,Levy and Levy (2020), and the references therein. See alsoIsserow (2018), who argues that the currently most reasonable attitude is suspension of judgment about the correct story about how exactly our moral judgments have evolved, and thus about whether that story can underpin a successful debunking argument.…”