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Which Causes of Moral Beliefs Matter?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Elizabeth O’Neill
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Abstract

I argue that information about the distal causes of moral beliefs, such as evolution, is only relevant for assessing the epistemic status of moral beliefs in cases where we cannot determine whether the proximal processes producing these beliefs are reliable just by examining the properties of these proximal processes. Any investigation into the epistemic status of moral beliefs given their causes should start with a look at proximal causes—not at evolution. I discuss two proximal psychological influences on moral beliefs—disgust and sympathy—to demonstrate the feasibility of drawing epistemic conclusions from an examination of proximal causes alone.

Type
Psychology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1070 - 1080
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I wish to thank Edouard Machery, James Woodward, Karl Schafer, Kieran Setiya, Daniel Kelly, and Yoichi Ishida for comments on previous versions of this article, as well as audiences at the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology 2013 meeting, a 2014 Work in Progress talk at the University of Pittsburgh, the 2014 Conference on Value Inquiry, the 2014 Midsouth Philosophy Conference, the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2014 meeting, and the Philosophy of Science Association 2014 meeting for helpful discussion.

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