Evolutionary debunking of morality: epistemological or metaphysical?

Abstract

It is widely supposed that evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) 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 (including those of Joyce, Kitcher, Ruse, and Street) all make key and controversial metaphysical claims about the nature of morality or the (im)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 (alleged) implications for the (im)possibility of moral reduction, rather than from epistemological worries associated with the existence of an (alleged) 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.

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

“…Apart from being (for the most part) a ‘how possibly’ story about the origins of our moral judgments (…), the evolutionary component of such arguments is, as Joyce (2016, p. 125) has noted, ‘strictly, dispensable.’ Any equally plausible causal explanation of our moral judgments that does not presuppose the truth of such judgments would serve the evolutionary debunker’s purposes just as well – or as poorly. (Das 2016, p. 419)Similarly, referring to the most renowned EDA against moral realism—Sharon Street’s (2006) Darwinian Dilemma—David Enoch submits thatthere is nothing essentially Darwinian about the Darwinian Dilemma. Replace any other (non-tracking) causal explanation of why we make the normative judgments that we do in fact make, and the realist will again find herself up against the problem of explaining strong correlations analogous to the ones Street draws attention to.…”

“…Apart from being (for the most part) a ‘how possibly’ story about the origins of our moral judgments (…), the evolutionary component of such arguments is, as Joyce (2016, p. 125) has noted, ‘strictly, dispensable.’ Any equally plausible causal explanation of our moral judgments that does not presuppose the truth of such judgments would serve the evolutionary debunker’s purposes just as well – or as poorly. (Das 2016, p. 419)…”