Experimental moral psychology and its normative implications

Diplôme Thèse Experimental moral psychology and its normative implications eng 2013-03-04 author Bruni Tommaso 733450 director Fantini Bernardino 27215 director Baertschi Bernard 0000-0001-9890-0311 22835 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:27488 urn:nbn:ch:unige-274881 L. 777 This thesis explores the relationships between experimental moral psychology and normative ethics. It specifically examines neuromoral theories, according to which a deeper understanding of the machinery for moral judgments could lead humans to make better moral judgments. In this thesis I use the widely discussed neuromoral theory by Joshua Greene as a case study. I first examine Greene's descriptive claims in experimental moral psychology (Ch. 2). Then I review descriptive hypotheses concerning human moral cognition that are alternative to Greene's and I conclude that the data available so far are not sufficient to rule all alternatives out. Theories in experimental moral psychology are presently underdetermined by the data. In Ch. 4 I critically delve into Greene's neuromoral theory, highlighting its problematic points. Greene derives normative consequences from empirical results through the Argument from Morally Irrelevant Factors. This argument is not persuasive because it is not backed by an analysis of judgments about moral relevance of factors, such as "Spatial distance is a moral irrelevant factor", which are key premises in Greene's argument. I argue that these judgments cannot be taken for granted because they are often deeply controversial. Greene also falls in a recurring problem, i.e. the so-called ‘meta-normativity problem'. It is not clear what kind of normativity neuromoral theorists are referring to when they say that empirical science could help humans make better moral judgments. These shortcomings make Greene's neuromoral theory unconvincing. However, Greene's descriptive work has greatly contributed to further the understanding of the machinery for moral judgments. Moral psychology Neuroethics Greene Dewey 100/501 Dewey 174.957 89 Département de philosophie 3G false 0dba0dff-bd03-4678-a076-66dfa32c4124 Thesis Public Bruni_PhD_Geneva.pdf 1507115 application/pdf openAccess Faculté des lettres / Département de philosophie

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Bruni, Tommaso