Metamorality without Moral Truth
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Metamorality without Moral Truth Steven R. Kraaijeveld
&
Hanno Sauer
Received: 26 February 2018 / Accepted: 19 June 2018 / Published online: 21 July 2018 # The Author(s) 2018
Abstract Recently, Joshua Greene has argued that we need a metamorality to solve moral problems for which evolution has not prepared us. The metamorality that he proposes is a utilitarian account that he calls deep pragmatism. Deep pragmatism is supposed to arbitrate when the values espoused by different groups clash. To date, no systematic appraisal of this argument for a metamorality exists. We reconstruct Greene’s case for deep pragmatism as a metamorality and consider three lines of objection to it. We argue that, in the end, only one of these objections seriously threatens Greene’s position. Greene has to commit to the nonexistence of moral truth in order for his argument for the need of a metamorality to get off the ground. This, however, leads to a tension in his overall argument for deep pragmatism: ultimately, it casts his rejection of antiutilitarian moral intuitions into doubt. Keywords Metamorality . Moral truth . Deep pragmatism . Dual-process theory . Metaethics . Utilitarianism Introduction Empirical findings are increasingly brought to bear on long-standing philosophical claims and theories [1, 2]. S. R. Kraaijeveld (*) Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] H. Sauer Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Joshua Greene has been at the forefront of this movement, introducing empirical evidence into debates that had been reserved for traditional moral philosophy. In his earlier work, Greene examined the underlying human brain structures involved in making different kinds of moral judgments [3–5]. Some of this research informs his version of a dual-process model of moral judgment [3, 6–8], which holds that characteristically deontological judgments are Bpreferentially supported by automatic emotional responses,^ while characteristically consequentialist judgments are Bpreferentially supported by conscious reasoning and allied processes of cognitive control^ [9]. One negative argument that Greene has maintained, in tandem with his dual-process model, is that deontological moral judgments are primarily driven by knee-jerk emotional responses and therefore ought to be mistrusted [10]. This line of research, and Greene’s dual-process model especially, has received much critical attention in the literature [11–14]. Much less attention has been devoted, on the other hand, to the positive argument that Greene makes to complement his dualprocess model, which he develops at length in his monograph Moral Tribes [15]. Here, he argues for the need of a metamorality that he calls deep pragmatism, which is meant to arbitrate when the values of different groups clash—analogous to the way morality serves to temper selfish impulses within tribes. To date, there have been no article-length discussions of deep pragmatism. That Greene’s argument should be sound is impor
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