In a nutshell? Most of our Moral judgments and intuitions are much better explained by natural selection, evolutionary psychology and other natural processes than by an appeal to some ontological beings/facts/laws as many Moral Realists do. In short, Biology explains morality better than Metaphysics does.
Not to be parochial, but that sounds an awful lot like the LW consensus.
(Granted, that consensus owes as much to a filtered set of mainstream moral philosophy as it does to endogenous content. Probably more; basic ethics isn’t a major focus here.)
BerryPick6′s summary of Walter-Sinnott Armstrong’s moral views — “Most of our Moral judgments and intuitions are much better explained by natural selection, evolutionary psychology and other natural processes than by an appeal to some ontological beings/facts/laws” — concerns what mainstream philosophy calls “evolutionary debunking arguments” (the classic paper here is Street 2006, but the point had been made less thoroughly many times before by both scientists and philosophers).
I should clarify, though, that evolutionary debunking arguments aren’t the focus of Jackson’s metaethical work, though as a naturalist Jackson assumes the basics of evolutionary biology and psychology and their implications for the origins of our moral attitudes.
The purpose of Jackson’s analytic descriptivism is, rather, to explain why something that feels kinda like moral realism can still be true despite the universe’s lack of spooky intrinsic normativity. Analytic descriptivism is one of several approaches for grounding (moral) normative properties in natural, descriptive properties. (Other well-known approaches to this include Railton’s and, less well-developed, Foot’s.)
For more, see my April 2011 blog post on Jackson’s theory. The best explanation of Jackson’s theory is, still, Miller (2003). Luckily, the next edition of Miller’s excellent book should be available early next year.
The best explanation of Jackson’s theory is, still, Miller (2003). Luckily, the next edition of Miller’s excellent book should be available early next year.
It is without a doubt one of the most helpful and informative books I’ve ever read and I strongly recommend it to anyone with any interest at all in Metaethics.
I had no idea it was being updated, any specific word on what new content will be in it?
In a nutshell, what are the main ideas of his work?
In a nutshell? Most of our Moral judgments and intuitions are much better explained by natural selection, evolutionary psychology and other natural processes than by an appeal to some ontological beings/facts/laws as many Moral Realists do. In short, Biology explains morality better than Metaphysics does.
Not to be parochial, but that sounds an awful lot like the LW consensus.
(Granted, that consensus owes as much to a filtered set of mainstream moral philosophy as it does to endogenous content. Probably more; basic ethics isn’t a major focus here.)
Yep. My standard go-to on nearest mainstream metaethical philosophy to LW is Frank Jackson’s analytic descriptivism / moral functionalism.
For the curious...
BerryPick6′s summary of Walter-Sinnott Armstrong’s moral views — “Most of our Moral judgments and intuitions are much better explained by natural selection, evolutionary psychology and other natural processes than by an appeal to some ontological beings/facts/laws” — concerns what mainstream philosophy calls “evolutionary debunking arguments” (the classic paper here is Street 2006, but the point had been made less thoroughly many times before by both scientists and philosophers).
I should clarify, though, that evolutionary debunking arguments aren’t the focus of Jackson’s metaethical work, though as a naturalist Jackson assumes the basics of evolutionary biology and psychology and their implications for the origins of our moral attitudes.
The purpose of Jackson’s analytic descriptivism is, rather, to explain why something that feels kinda like moral realism can still be true despite the universe’s lack of spooky intrinsic normativity. Analytic descriptivism is one of several approaches for grounding (moral) normative properties in natural, descriptive properties. (Other well-known approaches to this include Railton’s and, less well-developed, Foot’s.)
For more, see my April 2011 blog post on Jackson’s theory. The best explanation of Jackson’s theory is, still, Miller (2003). Luckily, the next edition of Miller’s excellent book should be available early next year.
It is without a doubt one of the most helpful and informative books I’ve ever read and I strongly recommend it to anyone with any interest at all in Metaethics.
I had no idea it was being updated, any specific word on what new content will be in it?