PANEL 14 / THE SCIENCES OF ETHICS AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
CONVENOR: JOÃO PINHEIRO (University of Lisbon)
All enquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected].
Moral/ethical theory is most commonly associated with prescriptive/first-order normative theorising, i.e., theorising about what we should do. However, descriptive ethics is no lesser part of it, albeit frequently (and purposefully) neglected by normative theorists. In recent decades, advancements in the social, human, and behavioural sciences have led to the emergence of a new field within descriptive ethics that we may aptly name the “ethical science”. This field is concerned with the integration of a panoply of scientific approaches to the study of ethical phenomena broadly understood. It integrates hypotheses for how morality evolved, holocultural moral psychology, experimental metaethics, behavioural game theory, ethnography of normative phenomena, neurobiology of moral cognition and conation, inter alia. At present, the integration of descriptive and prescriptive ethics faces outstanding issues. These can generally be thought of as (1) metanormative issues about the role of normativity in descriptive ethics and (2) issues about the import of the sciences of ethics for prescriptive ethics. This panel illustrates that we have much to gain from an empirically-informed or scientifically-savvy approach to moral and political philosophy, and, more generally still, from an integrated moral theory.
• Our first talk illustrates this point with reference to a classical theme from the philosophy of science, namely “Values in Science”. It highlights how a sociology of value may contribute to a better understanding of scientifically-informed policy-making, raising issues of legitimacy during this reflection.
• The second talk is invocative of a social psychological approach to morality. In particular, it confronts a rising problem of our contemporary world, namely how disinformation may affect moral responsibility, and how some of our doxastic beliefs, whilst possibly misinformed, may further play social functions, such as signalling our group of belonging.
• The third talk invites us to rethink a founding tradition from the sciences of ethics, namely “Social Darwinism”. It argues for the inevitability of weighing justice evolutionarily, all the while dissociating this topic from the antiquated understanding of the evolutionary sciences still evoked by the “Social Darwinism” label.
• Our fourth talk illustrates this novel understanding of contemporary Social Darwinism in practice by examining some recent instances of policy-making that have been informed by the latest developments in cultural evolutionary theory. Simultaneously, its principal contribution also illustrates the central theme of the first talk, seeing as it pinpoints a way in which cultural evolutionary theory and policy-making may be culturally biased.
• The fitfh talk analyses an idea that is in the background of much policy-making, namely that moral progress is tenable. In particular, it dabbles in results from experimental moral philosophy and empirical ethics to further our understanding of this concept.
• Our last talk, in turn, tackles with the very concept of morality by investigating whether moral norms are a subset of so-called “social norms”, Bicchieri-style, and can therefore be formalised as being conditional on expectations.
Finally, this panel serves a secondary aim: to advertise an international, monthly-assembling, online reading group held under the same title, co-organized by its convenor, and with its panelists among its participants.
All enquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected].
Moral/ethical theory is most commonly associated with prescriptive/first-order normative theorising, i.e., theorising about what we should do. However, descriptive ethics is no lesser part of it, albeit frequently (and purposefully) neglected by normative theorists. In recent decades, advancements in the social, human, and behavioural sciences have led to the emergence of a new field within descriptive ethics that we may aptly name the “ethical science”. This field is concerned with the integration of a panoply of scientific approaches to the study of ethical phenomena broadly understood. It integrates hypotheses for how morality evolved, holocultural moral psychology, experimental metaethics, behavioural game theory, ethnography of normative phenomena, neurobiology of moral cognition and conation, inter alia. At present, the integration of descriptive and prescriptive ethics faces outstanding issues. These can generally be thought of as (1) metanormative issues about the role of normativity in descriptive ethics and (2) issues about the import of the sciences of ethics for prescriptive ethics. This panel illustrates that we have much to gain from an empirically-informed or scientifically-savvy approach to moral and political philosophy, and, more generally still, from an integrated moral theory.
• Our first talk illustrates this point with reference to a classical theme from the philosophy of science, namely “Values in Science”. It highlights how a sociology of value may contribute to a better understanding of scientifically-informed policy-making, raising issues of legitimacy during this reflection.
• The second talk is invocative of a social psychological approach to morality. In particular, it confronts a rising problem of our contemporary world, namely how disinformation may affect moral responsibility, and how some of our doxastic beliefs, whilst possibly misinformed, may further play social functions, such as signalling our group of belonging.
• The third talk invites us to rethink a founding tradition from the sciences of ethics, namely “Social Darwinism”. It argues for the inevitability of weighing justice evolutionarily, all the while dissociating this topic from the antiquated understanding of the evolutionary sciences still evoked by the “Social Darwinism” label.
• Our fourth talk illustrates this novel understanding of contemporary Social Darwinism in practice by examining some recent instances of policy-making that have been informed by the latest developments in cultural evolutionary theory. Simultaneously, its principal contribution also illustrates the central theme of the first talk, seeing as it pinpoints a way in which cultural evolutionary theory and policy-making may be culturally biased.
• The fitfh talk analyses an idea that is in the background of much policy-making, namely that moral progress is tenable. In particular, it dabbles in results from experimental moral philosophy and empirical ethics to further our understanding of this concept.
• Our last talk, in turn, tackles with the very concept of morality by investigating whether moral norms are a subset of so-called “social norms”, Bicchieri-style, and can therefore be formalised as being conditional on expectations.
Finally, this panel serves a secondary aim: to advertise an international, monthly-assembling, online reading group held under the same title, co-organized by its convenor, and with its panelists among its participants.
