Abstract

One recent trend in Western philosophical ethics has been a push toward ethical naturalism, and with it, psychological realism.1 One part of such psychological realism involves the attempt to recast the ethical project in light of our recent acceptance that the sources of human behavior are complex and multifarious, that we are not, as it were, autonomous rational agents who can comply with our moral norms simply by choosing to do so. This keener empirical understanding of the sources of human behavior leads ethicists of a psychologically realist bent to see the project of developing empirically sound methods of ethical cultivation as an important part of the ethical project.2This trend in Western ethics has...