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    Moral intuitions are explained by evolutionary pressures ... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Moral intuitions are explained by evolutionary pressures rather than by inherent moral value in the things intuited

    Moral ResponsibilityTruth & Knowledge
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    • 1.Sharon Street's 'Darwinian Dilemma' shows that if moral realism were true, the odds of evolution tracking mind-independent moral facts are vanishingly small.
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    • 2.Evolutionary pressures systematically favor fitness-enhancing attitudes, not truth-tracking ones, making moral intuitions epistemically unreliable guides to objective value.
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    • 3.The content of moral intuitions varies predictably with ancestral environment, which is precisely what an evolutionary debunking explanation predicts and moral realism cannot explain.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Richard Joyce's evolutionary debunking argument establishes that if a belief can be fully explained causally without reference to its truth, we have strong reason to doubt it.
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    • 2.Kin altruism, reciprocity norms, and harm-aversion intuitions map onto inclusive fitness benefits, confirming a purely selective explanation with no remainder requiring moral facts.
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    • 3.The best explanation principle demands we prefer the hypothesis with fewest unexplained posits, and natural selection eliminates the need to posit inherent moral value as an explanatory entity.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Humans have evolved to react to certain types of act with approval or disapproval
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    • 2.This evolutionary reaction is sufficient to explain why certain moral propositions seem true
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    • 3.No appeal to inherent value is needed to account for moral seemings
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    Moral ResponsibilityTruth & Knowledge

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    Related

    Evolutionary pressures systematically favor fitness-enhancing attitudes, not tru...Humans have evolved to react to certain types of act with approval or disapprova...Kin altruism, reciprocity norms, and harm-aversion intuitions map onto inclusive...No appeal to inherent value is needed to account for moral seemings
    +5 moreShow less
    Richard Joyce's evolutionary debunking argument establishes that if a belief can...Sharon Street's 'Darwinian Dilemma' shows that if moral realism were true, the o...The best explanation principle demands we prefer the hypothesis with fewest unex...The content of moral intuitions varies predictably with ancestral environment, w...This evolutionary reaction is sufficient to explain why certain moral propositio...

    Similar

    Moral intuition is essential to arriving at moral knowledge84%Our best explanations of the occurrence of intuitions (intuitings) do ...82%Moral intuitions cannot be caused by non-natural moral facts82%If perceptions justify in virtue of their nature rather than their sou...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: intuitionism-ethics
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    Furthermore, if intuitions are intellectual seemings, one might ask why certain moral propositions seem true whereas others do not. If moral facts are non-natural facts, as intuitionists maintain, and non-natural properties lack causal powers, then moral intuitions cannot be caused by the corresponding moral facts, as, e.g., certain perceptual seemings are caused by certain natural facts. Critics would argue that certain things seem right and good to us, not because of some inherent value they h
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit