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A Justification of the Evolutionary Debunking Argument A Justification of the Evolutionary Debunking Argument Duncan Wilson A thesis submitted for the degree of Masters of Arts in Philosophy The University of Otago Dunedin New Zealand March 2016 Abstract In recent decades the debate over the metaethical conclusion from the theory of evolution has intensified. Michael Ruse’s epistemological argument has been taken up by Richard Joyce, Guy Kahane and Sharon Street and formalised into the Evolutionary Debunking Argument: Causal Premise: Our evolutionary history explains why we have the moral beliefs we have. Epistemic premise: Evolution is not a truth-tracking process with respect to moral truth. Metaphysical Assumption: Objectivism gives the correct account of moral concepts and properties. Therefore, Moral Scepticism: None of our moral beliefs are justified. Moral realists have attempted to attack this argument through attacking any one of these premises. In this thesis I will argue that with slight modifications we can justify each of the premises of the EDA and construct a sound argument that will establish moral scepticism. I will justify the causal premise through an inference to the best explanation of the phenomena of moral belief relying on our best currently available empirical data. I will justify the epistemic premise by ruling out any potential relation between evolutionary forces and moral truth. The metaphysical assumption will be justified by turning it into an epistemological assumption and using a reconstruction of G. E. Moore’s Open Question Argument. This will allow us to recreate the EDA into a sound argument: Revised Causal Premise: Human moral judgements are unavoidably influenced by human evolutionary history. Epistemic Premise: Evolution is not a truth-tracking process with respect to moral truth. Epistemological Assumption: Objectivism gives the only justifiable account of moral concepts and properties. Therefore, Moral Scepticism: None of our moral beliefs are justified. I will conclude by pointing out possible avenues for the moral realist to object to the revised EDA I establish. However, I will also point out why each of these avenues is likely to fail and, for the moment, moral scepticism is the most plausible position. i Acknowledgements First, a big thank you to my supervisors Charles Pigden and James Maclaurin. You were constant sources of information that provided me with the answers to my many questions and pointed out when I was going off-track. Second, thank you to the philosophy department as a whole, and those who I shared an office with in particular, your efforts to create a productive and enjoyable working environment were immensely beneficial to completing this thesis. Finally, thank you to my parents who housed and fed me throughout the completion of this thesis. Having a dinner prepared when I got home late after staying to complete just one more task helped with my motivation. ii Contents 1. Introduction to Morality, Natural Selection and the Evolutionary Debunking Argument.................. 2 1.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 The Problems of Early Evolutionary Ethics and How the EDA Solves Them ............................. 4 1.3 Companions in Guilt for the EDA................................................................................................. 9 1.4 Guy Kahane’s Framework and Basic Challenges....................................................................... 13 1.5 Sharon Street’s Response............................................................................................................ 16 1.6 Moral Objectivism ...................................................................................................................... 21 1.7 Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 23 2. The Metaethical Assumption of Objectivism.................................................................................... 26 2.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 26 2.2 Is Objectivism necessary for Moral Realism?............................................................................. 27 2.3 The Naturalistic Fallacy Reconstructed ...................................................................................... 32 2.4 The Impossibility of an Empirical Account of Morality............................................................. 37 2.5 Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 43 3. Justification of the Causal Premise ................................................................................................... 45 3.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 45 3.2 Potential Problems with the Causal Premise............................................................................... 46 3.3 The Force of Natural Selection on Moral Judgements................................................................ 48 3.4 The Unavoidable Connection Between Natural Selection and Moral Judgements..................... 53 3.5 Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 59 4. Justification of the Epistemic Premise .............................................................................................. 61 4.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 61 4.2 The Possibility of Denying a Relation between Moral Facts and Evolutionary Forces.............. 62 4.3 The Possibility of Asserting a Relation between Moral Facts and Evolutionary Forces ............ 64 4.4 Asserting a Relation: Objective, Acausal Properties................................................................... 67 4.5 Asserting a Relation: Moral Naturalism...................................................................................... 69 4.6 Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 74 5. Conclusion......................................................................................................................................... 77 References............................................................................................................................................. 82 1 Introduction to Morality, Natural Selection and the Evolutionary Debunking Argument 1.1 Introduction This opening chapter will set the scene for the Evolutionary Debunking Argument (or EDA) and establish exactly what claims this argument makes and the premises it relies on. To do so I will start by going back to the original debate over the metaethical conclusions of the theory of evolution to contrast the EDA with these failed ideas and establish what the EDA does not claim. For a long time the idea that the theory of evolution had any metaethical implications was discredited by the philosophical community. This status originated from errors in the original interpretation of the theory, most importantly, the claim that it had metaphysical importance. In particular, Herbert Spencer’s ill-informed and damaging thesis of Social Darwinism was guilty of using the facts of evolution to derive facts about the metaphysical nature of moral truths (Spencer 1857). Thankfully, as I will show, this thesis was thoroughly discredited. David Hume’s No Ought From Is thesis pointed out the logical impossibility of deriving a moral principle from facts about the world without an analytic bridge principle (Hume 2006). Additionally, G. E. Moore’s naturalistic fallacy directly attacked the idea that one can identify facts about goodness with facts about evolution (Moore 1980). The combined application of these ideas pointed out the logical and normative errors that are present when using facts about evolution to derive facts about morality. Further, as will become clear, this is not just a historical worry, but an important point that will become crucial later in this thesis when I analyse objectivism and moral naturalism as a response to the EDA in later chapters. Up to this point I will have looked at what the EDA is not, it is not in the business of making metaphysical claims, the remainder of this chapter will then be concerned with establishing what the EDA is. In particular I will look at the efforts of Michael Ruse to resurrect the idea of evolution in the field of metaethics not as metaphysically, but as epistemologically, relevant (Ruse 1986). Although I will argue that Ruse’s work is rough and in certain areas problematic, I will also show that the ideas of the EDA I wish to explore are present and Ruse’s work will provide the beginning of my analysis of the ideas present in the EDA. Before I go onto these more formal and sophisticated interpretations of the EDA however, I will stop and explore the idea that the EDA is a general epistemological worry that applies to multiple fields and is not unique to ethics. This analysis will rely on a simplified 2 general interpretation of the EDA rather than the ethical EDA I will be concerned with later, but will help
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