Can Moral Obligations Be Empirically Discovered?

Abstract

hese are good days for empirically minded philosophy .It is now common tosee philosophers cite laboratory studies in support of their theories , and agrowing number of philosophers are conducting their own psychological experi-ments .F rom a wormOs eye perspective ,it looks a little bit like there is a method-ological revolution taking place .Gone are the days when philosophers had to readpsychology journals covered in discrete bindings so as to hide a perverse interest inthe latest sexy results .At least that is true in most areas of philosophy .Lately ,themethodological revolution has been gaining ground in ethics . Philosophers nowroutinely site the burgeoning empirical literature on moral judgment. T he majorityof this work has been descriptive in nature .Psychology and neuroscience are beingused to determine what goes on in peopleOs heads when they decide that somethingis morally right or morally wrong .T raditionally minded ethicists continue to feelinsulated from the onslaught of empirical moral psychology .Ethics has long beenin the business of telling us how we ought to behave ,rather than merely describinghow we do behave .Such normative claims appear to have a kind of immunity toempirical investigation. Psychology can reveal what we morally detest, but itcannot reveal what we should detest. Or so it would seem. In this chapter ,I wantto explore this supposition and argue that empirical methods can actually shedlight on what we ought to do .Along the way ,I will also make some other contro-versial claims .I will say that morality has an emotional basis ,and I will endorse aform of relativism. Of course ,such conjectures require much more discussion thanI can of fer here .My arguments will be preliminary ,and I will content myself withhaving shown how ,in principle ,one might go about trying to discover obligationsMidwest Studies in Philosophy , XXXI (2007)© 2007 Copyright T he A uthorsJournal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing ,Inc .271