E.O. WILSON'S PROPOSAL:

REPLACE MORAL PHILOSOPHY WITH SOCIOBIOLOGY

Ethics is an evolutionary product of the emotional control centers in the hypothalamus ad limbic systems of the brain.

Moral intuitions are an illusion.

Moral truth is an illusion.

RUSE'S EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS

1. How does Ruse avoid the "Naturalistic Fallacy"?

2. Ruse's Evolutionary Account of Morality ("Altruism"):

(a) kin selection for innate "altruism";

(b) "reciprocal altruism"

(c) "objective morality"

3. What is the "gap" Ruse identifies in Rawls's social contract theory? How does Ruse close it?

RUSE'S NONCOGNITIVIST

META-ETHICS

1. How does Ruse understand "metaethics"?

2. Ruse's Claim: Normative Ethics has no foundation. How does Ruse support this claim?

3. What does Ruse mean by saying that normative ethics is "redundant"?

4. How does Ruse disagree with Kant and Rawls? Which philosopher is he most akin to?

EXPLANATION VS. JUSTIFICATION

SOBER'S SLOGAN: An explanation for why someone believes something may fail to show whether the proposition is justified, and a justification of a proposition may fail to explain why someone believes the proposition.

Two questions:

(1) Why do people have the views they do concerning when it is morally permissible to kill?

(2) When is killing morally permissible?

Are ethical statements ever true?

Yes No

(Ethical Objectivism) (Ethical Subjectivism)

If an ethical statement is true,

is it true independently of

whether various people believe

or say it is true?

Yes No

(Ethical Realism) (Ethical Conventionalism)

(Normative Relativism)

SOBER'S TWO-WAY EXTENSION

OF HUME'S THESIS

Hume's Thesis: Purely descriptive premises cannot, by themselves, provide deductive support for an ought-conclusion. ("A deductively valid argument for an ought-conclusion must have at least one ought-premise.")

Sober's Two-Way Extension of Hume's Thesis:

(1) Not only can purely descriptive premises not provide deductive support for an ought-conclusion, but also purely descriptive premises cannot, by themselves, provide nondeductive support for an ought-conclusion;

(2) Not only are positive moral claims ought-conclusions, but also moral anti-realism is itself an ought-conclusion.

SOBER'S RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FORM OF RUSE'S ARGUMENT

I. First Formulation—Genetic Fallacy

Genetic Premise (G): Explanation of our coming to have beliefs of kind K.

No belief of kind K is true.

Examples of Ben and Cathy.

Ben Example

(G) Ben decided that there were seventy-eight people in the room by drawing the number seventy-eight at random from an urn

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It isn't true that there were seventy-eight people in the room.

G supports an Independence Claim: The processes that determine Ben's coming to believe there were 78 people in the room are entirely independent of whether that belief is true.

Cathy Example

(G) Cathy carefully counted the people in her class and consequently believed that thirty-four people were present.

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Thirty-four people were present in Cathy's class.

In this case G does not support an Independence Claim: The processes that determine Cathy's coming to believe there were 34 people in the room are reliably related to the number of people in the room. In this case, G supports a Dependence (or what I will refer to as a Sensitivity) Claim.

II. Second Formulation of the Form of Ruse's Argument.

The argument has two parts: (1) an argument for an epistemological conclusion; (2) an extension of the argument to a metaphysical conclusion (moral anti-realism). First, the argument to the epistemological conclusion:

Genetic Premise (G)

Independence Claim (Sober's "A"): The processes that determine our coming to have beliefs of kind K are entirely independent of which kind K statements (if any) are true.

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Epistemological Conclusion: The beliefs of kind K that we currently have are probably false.

THE FIRST PART OF THE ARGUMENT

(TO THE EPISEMOLOGICAL CONCLUSION)

Genetic Premise (G): We believe the ethical statements we do because of our evolution and because of facts about our socialization.

(Independence Claim) (A): The processes that determine what moral beliefs people have are entirely independent of which moral statements (if any) are true.

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The moral beliefs we currently have are probably not true.

THE SECOND PART OF THE ARGUMENT TO

MORAL ANTI-REALISM

(SOBER'S VERSION)

(Ockham's Razor) We should deny the existence of entities and processes that are not needed to explain anything.

We do not need to postulate the existence of ethical facts to explain why people have the ethical beliefs that they do.

It is reasonable to postulate the existence of ethical facts only if that postulate is needed to explain why people have the ethical beliefs they do.

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There are no ethical facts.

The example of the statistics professor.
THE SECOND PART OF THE ARGUMENT TO

MORAL ANTI-REALISM

(TALBOTT'S VERSION)

1. When we know the Independence Claim is true for a class of beliefs K, then the existence of entities or truths of kind K is not needed to explain why we believe in them.

2. (Knowledge of the Independence Claim) The Independence Claim is true for ethical beliefs and we know it.

3. Therefore, ethical truths are not needed to explain why we believe in them.

4. (The Justificatory/Explanatory Impotence Premise) When the existence of entities or truths of kind K is not needed to explain why we believe in them, beliefs of kind K cannot be used to justify or explain anything.

5. Therefore, ethical truths cannot be used to justify or explain anything.

6. (Modified Ockham's Razor) We should deny the existence of entities or truths that cannot be used to justify or explain anything.

p

There are no ethical facts/truths.

Consider the example of the statistics professor again.