The Social Turn in Moral Psychology (The MIT Press)

Description

An argument that moral psychology can benefit from closer integration with the social sciences, offering a novel ethical theory bridging the two. In this book, Mark Fedyk offers a novel analysis of the relationship between moral psychology and allied fields in the social sciences. Fedyk shows how the social sciences can be integrated with moral philosophy, argues for the benefits of such an integration, and offers a new ethical theory that can be used to bridge research between the two. Fedyk argues that moral psychology should take a social turn, investigating the psychological processes that motivate patterns of social behavior defined as ethical using normative information extracted from the social sciences. He points out methodological problems in conventional moral psychology, particularly the increasing methodological and conceptual inconsilience with both philosophical ethics and evolutionary biology. Fedyk's “causal theory of ethics” is designed to provide moral psychology with an ethical theory that can be used without creating tension between its scientific practice and the conceptual vocabulary of philosophical ethics. His account aims both to redirect moral psychology toward more socially realistic questions about human life and to introduce philosophers to a new form of ethical naturalism―a way of thinking about how to use different fields of scientific research to answer some of the traditional questions that are at the heart of ethics. Contents Acknowledgments 1 Introduction Why Should You Care? Two Guiding Philosophical Assumptions Realized Norms and Structural Explanations References 2 Biology and Evolutionary Moral Psychology Proximate and Ultimate Explanations Evolution, Morality, and Violations of Mayr’s Lemma Conclusion References 3 The Social and the Psychological Dimensions of Ethics The Social and Psychological Parts of Games Applying the Framework to Philosophical Ethics Summary and Next Steps References 4 Methodological Lessons from Philosophical Ethics Moral Psychology and Normative Ethics Metaethics and Moral Psychology References 5 Inconsilience between ADJDM Moral Psychology and Philosophical Ethics Moral Psychology as ADJDM ADJDM-style Moral Psychology Is Philosophically Implausible Conclusion References 6 Moral Dumbfounding Moral Dumbfounding? The Experiments Setting the Record Straight Conclusion References 7 The Causal Theory of Ethics Social Institutions and Outcomes Fourteen Theses Conclusion References 8 Hard-Question Social Theory From Institutions to Answers to Hard Questions Socially Realistic Normative Theory and Its Relevance to Moral Psychology Conclusion References 9 Descriptive Moral Psychology What’s New Here? The Container Test Microsystem Moral Psychology Conclusion References 10 Normative Moral Psychology Enabling Knowledge and Functional Virtues Empirical Evidence Objections, Responses, and Other Methodological Matters Conclusion References 11 Conclusion Being “Biological” in Moral Psychology Universal Ethical Truths and Biology Reducing Epistemic and Moral Risk What about Choice, Freedom, Responsibility, Moral Motivation, and All the Psychological Phenomena That Are Traditionally within What about the Special Evidential Role of Intuitions in Moral Philosophy? Final Words Reference Index