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Lecture 06:

Moral Psychology

[email protected]

Structure of this course

Course Structure

Part 1: psychological underpinnings of ethical abilities

Part 2: political consequences

Part 3: implications for ethics

Could scientific discoveries undermine, or support, ethical principles?

‘Hier sehen wir nun die Philosophie in der Tat auf einen mißlichen Standpunkt gestellt [...]

Hier soll sie ihre Lauterkeit beweisen als Selbsthalterin ihrer Gesetze [...]

Alles also, was empirisch ist, ist als Zutat zum Princip der Sittlichkeit nicht allein dazu ganz untauglich, sondern der Lauterkeit der Sitten selbst höchst nachteilig [...]

Wider diese Nachlässigkeit oder gar niedrige Denkungsart in Aufsuchung des Princips unter empirischen Bewegursachen und Gesetzen kann man auch nicht zu viel und zu oft Warnungen ergehen lassen,

indem die menschliche Vernunft [...] gern [...] der Sittlichkeit einen aus Gliedern ganz verschiedener Abstammung zusammengeflickten Bastard unterschiebt, der allem ähnlich sieht [...], nur der Tugend nicht’

(Kant, 1870, p. AK 4:425--6)

Don’t say you weren’t warned kids.

No discernible argument.

Also, how can something be both patched together out of various limbs and a bastard? It’s really quite vulgar.

‘Here we see philosophy placed in a predicament, Here it should prove its integrity as self-sustainer of its own laws [...] So everything empirical is, as a contribution to the principle of morality, not only entirely unfit for it, but even highly detrimental to the integrity of morals. [...] Against this careless, base way of thinking one cannot warn too often or too strongly: for human reason happily replaces morality with a bastard patched together from limbs of diverse ancestry which [...] looks nothing like virtue’ (loose translation adapted from Kant (2002, pp. 43--4)).

Background: How do philosophers do ethics?

There are many approaches, but let’s look at one influential candidate.

Background: How do philosophers approach ethics? Rawls’ idea about reflective equilibrium captures a dominant strategy.

One standard in ethics: Rawls’ reflective equilibrium idea

‘one may think of moral theory at first [...] as the attempt to describe our moral capacity [...] what is required is a formulation of a set of principles which, when conjoined to our beliefs and knowledge of the circumstances, would lead us to make these judgments with their supporting reasons were we to apply these principles conscientiously and intelligently’ (Rawls, 1999, p. 41); see Singer (1974) for critical discussion.

‘one may think of physical moral theory at first [...]
as the attempt to describe our moralperceptual capacity

Interesting: seems like Rawls’ project requires the methods of psychology (and is moral psychology)

[...]

what is required is

a formulation of a set of principles which,

when conjoined to our beliefs and knowledge of the circumstances,

would lead us to make these judgments with their supporting reasons

were we to apply these principles’

Rawls, 1999 p. 41

The idea of moral theory as an attempt to describe our moral capacity is great. It looks like this will involve moral psychology. But actually Rawls has no such ambitions. He thinks that you can describe moral capacities by characterising the judgements people are inclined to make.

So my main point for now is just that one quite influential way of doing ethics leaves no room for discoveries about moral psychology.

But actually you can already see the outlines of an objection to reflective equilibrium:

Given multiple moral foundations, or multiple processes, we would not necessarily expect a single consistent set of principles. Neither within an individual; nor between individuals from different cultures.

This is a rough division. There’s an extended list of claims to consider on the handout.

Discoveries about moral psychology can ...

[bold] undermine the project of reflective equilibrium

Let’s preview this (although it will be a while before we get there)

Further issue

Can we tackle Audi’s view about how ethics works?

One response: Euclidean axioms, axiom of choice ...

Another response: fast processes give the illusion ...

‘self-evident propositions are truths meeting two conditions: (1) in virtue of adequately understanding them, one has justification for believing them [...]; and (2) believing them on the basis of adequately understanding them entails knowing them’ (p. 65).

‘Intuition is a resource in all of philosophy, but perhaps nowhere more than in ethics’ (p. 57).

‘Episodic intuitions [...] can serve as data [...] ... beliefs that derive from them receive prima facie justification’ (p. 65).

(Audi, 2015)

‘A dominant theme in normative ethics for the past century or more has been the debate between those who support a systematic normative ethical theory---utilitarianism and other forms of consequentialism have been the leading contenders---and those who ground their normative ethics on [...] intuitions’

(Singer, 2005, p. 343).

‘the chief weapons of opponents of utilitarianism have been examples intended to show that the dictates of utilitarianism clash with moral intuitions that we all share’

(Singer, 2005, p. 343).

Singer, 2005 p. 343

‘Advances in our understanding of [moral psychology] do not themselves directly imply any normative conclusions, but they undermine some conceptions of doing ethics which themselves have normative conclusions. Those conceptions of ethics tend to be too respectful of our intuitions. Our better understanding of ethics gives us grounds for being less respectful of them’

(Singer, 2005, p. 349).

Singer, 2005, p. 349

‘Science can advance ethics by revealing the hidden inner workings of our moral judgments, especially the ones we make intuitively. Once those inner workings are revealed we may have less confidence in some of [...] the ethical theories that are explicitly or implicitly based on them’

Greene, 2014 pp. 695--6

Aim is to understand and evaluate this claim. Start with a puzzle ...

This is a rough division. There’s an extended list of claims to consider on the handout.

Discoveries about moral psychology can ...

[modest] inform some decisions about which intuitions to keep

[bold] undermine the project of reflective equilibrium

[ambitious] eliminate objections to some normative ethical theories, and debunk arguments for other theories

My plan is to start with the modest and work towards the more ambitious.

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Lecture 06:

Moral Psychology

[email protected]

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