Out Of Their Depth?
leaving UB as a candidate for a “substantive normative truth.” Such a conclusion, of
course, strongly supports the case for hedonistic utilitarianism, which LRS
advocate. In this paper, I argue that LRS fail to resolve the dualism because UB’s
justification, like RE’s, is debunkable.
Evolution and UB: The Contamination Problem
I agree with LRS’ contention in chapter seven of their book: what evolution selects
for is likely closer to RE than UB. But that does not mean that UB is
uncontaminated by evolutionary influences and immune to evolutionary debunking.
I will discuss three potential contaminants that may frustrate the attempt to derive
UB using reason alone.
The first are Haidtian “moral foundations.” Perhaps the self -evidence of UB
depends on certain emotional attitudes identified by Jonathan Haidt, whose
justification Andes (2019) shows to be debunkable. The second is partial
benevolence. Kahane (2011, p. 119) writes in passing that universal altruism (what
UB prescribes) represents a “reasoned extension” of more partial forms of altruism
that evolution is expected to produce. Perhaps the self-evidence of UB depends on
contaminated intuitions about partial benevolence. The third is a welfare theory.
Perhaps the self-evidence of UB depends on having a contaminated welfare theory.
These contaminants threaten UB’s justification in the same way. If UB rests
on contaminated foundations, Andes’ Garbage In, Garbage Out problem arises:
however rational our moral algorithms are, still “ Evolutionarily influenced
considerations go in, and they also come out” (2019, p. 374) when we justify UB.
LRS seem to accept the logic behind “GIGO,” 1 so I will not donate more ink to it.
What they do not accept, of course, is the claim that UB rests on
contaminated foundations. As they note, Sidgwick claimed to arrive at UB not by
building on any of these debunkables, but by finding it “self - evident” that “the good
1 “ We accept that if a starting point can be debunked, it cannot lend support to a more general or less arbitrary version of itself,” they write, before showing why UB is not a “reasoned extension” of partial benevolence (p. 191).
Volume VI (2023)
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