Defending Moral Judgment

Abstract

Wide-ranging debunking arguments aim to support moral skepticism based on empirical evidence (particularly of evolutionary pressures, framing effects, automatic emotional heuristics, and incidental emotions). But such arguments are subject to a debunker’s dilemma: they can identify an influence on moral belief that is either substantial or defective, but not both. When one identifies a genuinely defective influence on a large class of moral beliefs (e.g. framing effects), this influence is insubstantial, failing to render the beliefs unjustified. When one identifies a main basis for belief (e.g. automatic heuristics), the influence is not roundly defective. There is ultimately a trade-off for sweeping debunking arguments in ethics: identifying a substantial influence on moral belief implicates a process that is not genuinely defective. We thus lack empirical reason to believe that moral judgment is fundamentally flawed. Our dual process minds can yield justified moral beliefs despite automatically valuing more than an action’s consequences.