Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6 (2):231-253 (2015)
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Abstract |
Evolutionary debunking arguments purport to undercut the justification of our moral judgments by showing why a tendency to make moral judgments would evolve regardless of the truth of those judgments. Machery and Mallon (2010. Evolution of morality. In J.M. Doris and The Moral Psychology Research Group (Eds.), The Moral Psychology Handbook (pp. 3-46). Oxford: Oxford University Press) have recently tried to disarm these arguments by showing that moral cognition – in the sense that is relevant to debunking – is not the product of natural selection. Specifically, they present a barrage of increasingly influential challenges against reciprocity-based approaches to moral nativism. In the present paper I defend the nativist account of moral cognition against these criticisms, thereby bolstering the skeptical conclusions of evolutionary debunking arguments. However, Machery and Mallon's critique does successfully highlight several vulnerabilities in Richard Joyce's approach to debunking, suggesting several ways in which it can be revised toward generating a more robust version of the argument.
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Keywords | direct reciprocity indirect reciprocity evolution of morality moral nativism debunking arguments moral skepticism |
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DOI | 10.1007/s13164-014-0207-2 |
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References found in this work BETA
Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition.Saul Kripke - 1982 - Harvard University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Culture and Cognitive Science.Andreas De Block & Daniel Kelly - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Moral Cheesecake, Evolved Psychology, and the Debunking Impulse.Daniel Kelly - 2017 - In Richard Joyce (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy. New York, NY, USA: pp. 342-358.
The Tale of a Moderate Normative Skeptic.Brendan Cline - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (1):141-161.
Big History, Value, and the Art of Continued Existence.Brendan Cline - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (3):901-930.
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