Social Moral Epistemology Research Articles

1. Controversial Speakers, Moral Disagreements, and the Middlebury Moment

Abstract Student protests have developed on campuses throughout the country in response to controversial speakers. Overwhelmingly, these protests have been framed as conflicts over the right to free speech and the importance of free inquiry on college campuses. This essay reframes conflicts like these as moral disagreements over the role of individuals and institutions in producing and disseminating knowledge that supports or undermines justice within a pluralistic, democratic society. Using the specific case of Charles Murray’s visit to Middlebury College in spring 2017 and drawing insight from social moral epistemology, the essay aims to clarify the moral concerns at stake in clashes over controversial speakers and to identify possibilities to advance the moral aims of institutions of higher education in response to such events.

Toward a Naturalistic Theory of Moral Progress

Early liberal theories about the feasibility of moral progress were premised on empirically ungrounded assumptions about human psychology and society. In this article, we develop a richer naturalistic account of the conditions under which one important form of moral progress–the emergence of more “inclusive” moralities–is likely to arise and be sustained. Drawing upon work in evolutionary psychology and social moral epistemology, we argue that “exclusivist” morality is the result of an adaptively plastic response that is sensitive to cues of out-group threat that are detected during development. We conclude with a blueprint for reinforcing and extending inclusivist progress.

The Case for the Moral Permissibility of Amnesties: An Argument from Social Moral Epistemology

This paper makes the case for the permissibility of post-conflict amnesties, although not on prudential grounds. It argues that amnesties of a certain scope, targeted to certain categories of perpetrators, and offered in certain contexts are morally permissible because they are an acknowledgment of the difficulty of attributing criminal responsibility in mass violence contexts. Based on this idea, the paper develops the further claim that deciding which amnesties are permissible and which ones are not should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Against what seems to be an increasingly popular assumption of some international actors, just as "blanket" amnesties (i.e. very broad and general amnesties that foreclose criminal prosecution for all kinds of perpetrators and all kinds of wrongdoing) are impermissible, so is an absolutist rejection of all types of amnesties.

Comment on Karen Jones and François Schroeter

Abstract In this comment I defend my account of moral understanding and its role in morally worthy action and claim that a fully virtuous person would have moral understanding. This means that deference to moral experts is not always appropriate. But there is still room for a social moral epistemology, whereby moral experts pass on moral understanding.

Normative IR Theory and the Legalization of International Politics: The Dictates of Humanity and of the Public Conscience as a Vehicle for Global Justice

This paper explores the relationship between normative international political theory and the politics of international law. It begins by arguing that a gap between the normative (in moral terms) and the moral (in legal and social terms) still exists in the literature before going on to examine an approach to closing this gap. This approach, it is argued, is common to a plurality of theoretical approaches including liberal cosmopolitanism, social constructivism and forms of particularism. In exploring ‘institutional moral reasoning’ or ‘social moral epistemology’ the paper argues that respecting the institutional autonomy of the international legal order is a key component of the approach. In order to test the extent to which the various positions do respect the autonomy of the legal order the paper engages with an analysis of the extent to which human rights have become the key constitutive norm of global politics.

Epistemic Inertia and Epistemic Isolationism: A Response to Buchanan

abstract Allen Buchanan argues that conventional applied ethics is impoverished and would be enriched by the addition of social moral epistemology. The aim here is to clarify this argument and to raise questions about whether such an addition is necessary about how such enrichment would work in practice. Two broad problems are identified. First, there are various kinds and sources of epistemic inertia, which act as an obstacle to epistemic change. Religion is one striking example and seems to pose a deep problem for Buchanan's liberal social moral epistemology. Philosophy also exhibits a distinctive kind of epistemic inertia (metaphilosophical beliefs about the impropriety of applying philosophy are hard to shift), but also suffers from epistemic isolationism: (its arguments and conclusions are isolated from practical influence). It is concluded that not only will a liberal social moral epistemology have to overcome a pernicious epistemic inertia with regard to religious belief, but also a different kind of epistemic inertia closer to home.

Philosophy and Public Policy: A Role for Social Moral Epistemology

abstract Part 1 of this essay argues that one of the most important contributions of philosophers to sound public policy may be to combat the influence of bad Philosophy (which includes, but is not limited to, bad Philosophy produced by accredited academic philosophers). Part 2 argues that the conventional conception of Practical Ethics (CPE) that philosophers bring to issues of public policy is defective because it fails to take seriously the phenomenon of the subversion of morality, the role of false factual beliefs in this subversion, and the vulnerability to the exploitation of our moral powers that our social‐epistemic dependency entails. Given the serious risks of the subversion of morality through the propagation of false factual beliefs, CPE's near exclusive emphasis on identifying sound moral principles greatly constrains its potential contribution to the Negative Task of Practical Ethics, the endeavour to reduce the incidence of the most grievously wrong behaviour. Practical ethicists should focus more on the ethics of believing, and develop a more sophisticated conception of the moral and epistemic virtues of individuals and of institutions, one that includes protective meta‐virtues, whose function it is to guard us against the more frequent and predictable subversions of morality, including those subversions that are facilitated by the processes of belief‐formation that our social institutions and practices foster.

Philosophy, Social Institutions, and the Ethics of Belief: A Response to Buchanan

abstract First, Allen Buchanan, in the version of his paper entitled ‘Philosophy and public policy: a role for social moral epistemology’ that he presented at the workshop on ‘Philosophy and Public Policy’ held at the British Academy in London on March 8th 2008, seems to imply that professional, academic philosophers have had little impact upon public policy. I mention an area where it can be argued in response that they have had a more benign, as well as a more widespread, influence on society than Buchanan acknowledges in that version of his paper: in legislation concerning animal welfare. Second, I question whether or not the liberal commitment to freedom of religion is compatible with the ethics of belief that Buchanan appears to advocate.

Lack of Character? Situationism Critiqued

Of late philosophers have begun to write about the implications of research in social and personality psychology for the study of ethics. The spirit of this movement is that ethics should be founded on a realistic conception of human nature and that social and personality psychology have important things to say about these matters. Examples of philosophers involved in this movement are, inter alia, and most prominently, Doris, Flanagan, Harman, and Vranas. On the psychologists’ side, Ross and Nisbett are the most prominent examples of those attempting to insure that the findings of psychology find their way into our conception of human nature. We want to sign up for this movement too. But we are afraid that these philosophers and psychologists have drawn wrong conclusions from psychological results. We believe the lesson to be learned is substantially narrower than the movement seems to believe.

Social moral epistemology.

The distinctive aim of applied ethics is to provide guidance as to how we ought to act, as individuals and as shapers of social policies. In this essay, I argue that applied ethics as currently practiced is inadequate and ought to be transformed to incorporate what I shall call social moral epistemology. This is a branch of social epistemology, the study of the social practices and institutions that promote (or impede) the formation, preservation, and transmission of true beliefs. For example, social epistemologists critically evaluate the comparative advantages of adversarial versus inquisitorial criminal proceedings as mechanisms for the discovery of truth.