The meta-ethical significance of experiments about folk moral objectivism

Are ethical explanations explanatory? Meta-ethical beliefs shape judgments about explanations for social change

Why were women given the right to vote? "Because it is morally wrong to deny women the right to vote." This explanation does not seem to fit the typical pattern for explaining an event: rather than citing a cause, it appeals to an ethical claim. Do people judge ethical claims to be genuinely explanatory? And if so, why? In Studies 1 (N = 220) and 2 (N = 293), we find that many participants accept ethical explanations for social change and that this is predicted by their meta-ethical beliefs in moral progress and moral principles, suggesting that these participants treat morality as a directional feature of the world, somewhat akin to a causal force. In Studies 3 (N = 513) and 4 (N = 328), we find that participants recognize this relationship between ethical explanations and meta-ethical commitments, using the former to make inferences about individuals' beliefs in moral progress and moral principles. Together these studies demonstrate that our beliefs about the nature of morality shape our judgments of explanations and that explanations shape our inferences about others' moral commitments.

Implicit Metaethical Intuitions: Validating and Employing a New IAT Procedure

Philosophical arguments often assume that the folk tends towards moral objectivism. Although recent psychological studies have indicated that lay persons’ attitudes to morality are best characterized in terms of non-objectivism-leaning pluralism, it has been maintained that the folk may be committed to moral objectivism implicitly. Since the studies conducted so far almost exclusively assessed subjects’ metaethical attitudes via explicit cognitions, the strength of this rebuttal remains unclear. The current study attempts to test the folk’s implicit metaethical commitments. We present results of a newly developed Implicit Association Test (IAT) for metaethical attitudes which indicate that the folk generally tend towards moral non-objectivism on the implicit level as well. We discuss implications of this finding for the philosophical debate.

The Speciesism Debate: Intuition, Method, and Empirical Advances

Simple Summary

An influential idea in animal ethics is that moral favouritism towards members of one’s own species is a prejudice. This prejudice has been labelled ‘speciesism’, in analogy with racism and sexism. But not all ethicists subscribe to the view that speciesism is a prejudice. In fact, the tenability of speciesism is a topic of ongoing ethical debate. A recent exchange between Peter Singer and Shelly Kagan might leave the impression that this debate has essentially reached a stalemate, since the disputing parties rely on irreconcilable moral intuitions. In the present article, I argue that this impression is misleading. I highlight both philosophical and empirical research avenues that can help to move the speciesism debate forward, emphasizing that not all ethical intuitions about speciesism should be given equal weight. The article is part of the special issue ‘Animal Ethics: Questioning the Orthodoxy’.

Abstract

This article identifies empirical, conceptual and normative avenues to advance the speciesism debate. First, I highlight the application of Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (EDAs) as one such avenue: especially where (anti-)speciesist positions heavily rely on appeals to moral intuition, and EDAs have potential to move the debate forward. Second, an avenue for conceptual progress is the delineation of speciesism from other views in its vicinity, specifically from the view that biological differences between species are sometimes morally relevant (‘species-relativism’). Third, if we adopt Singer’s definition of speciesism, then a limitation of the current debate is that it is not obvious whether the core ethical principle that underlies anti-speciesist positions—the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests—is widely applicable. Arguably, the interests of animals are often too dissimilar to establish what equal consideration amounts to. I underscore the need for integrating philosophical and empirical research, to come to terms with the extent to which the interests of members of different species are alike, and with the question of whether any dissimilarities might be morally relevant.