Moral progress, knowledge and error: Do people believe in moral objectivity?
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Date
2022-09-16
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Abstract
A prevalent assumption in metaethics is that people believe
in moral objectivity. If this assumption were true then people
should believe in the possibility of objective moral progress,
objective moral knowledge, and objective moral error. We
developed surveys to investigate whether these predictions
hold. Our results suggest that, neither abstractly nor concre tely, people dominantly believe in the possibility of objective
moral progress, knowledge and error. They attribute less
objectivity to these phenomena than in the case of science
and no more, or only slightly more, than in the cases of social
conventions and personal preferences. This finding was
obtained for a regular sample as well as for a sample of
people who are particularly likely to be reflective and
informed (philosophers and philosophy students). Our
paper hence contributes to recent empirical challenges to
the thesis that people believe in moral objectivity
Description
Keywords
folk moral objectivism; moral progress; moral knowledge; moral error; experimental philosophy; moral psychology; metaethics