Two Accounts of Moral Diversity: the Cognitive Science of Pluralism and Absolutism

Psychology is relevant to judging moral theories. Ever since G. E. Moore's discussion of the naturalistic fallacy (1903), many philosophers have denied this, but the charge of irrelevancy overlooks the fact that the assumptions on which a moral position rests often include non-moral elements. If the non-moral bits are wrong, the moral position will often be undermined. This paper concerns some of the descriptive assumptions of value pluralism and absolutism, and the prospects for cognitive science evaluating those assumptions. Pluralism's descriptive assumptions are that there are moral conflicts and that they sometimes cannot be resolved in a way which all participants would find fully persuasive. Possibly, I could never be persuaded that the moral principles recognized in some other culture reflect obligations, even if I can understand to an extent (empathetically or rationally) how others might think that they do, and that at least some of the members of that other culture find themselves in the same position with regard to my principles. Expose all of us to the relevant non-moral facts as much as you will, have us engage in civil debate appealing to reason as best we can, boost our respective intelligences as far as humanly possible or select among us equally for moral genius, resolution would nonetheless not occur. Either each side would see nothing compelling in the other's values, or they would perceive something compelling, but it would not be enough to persuade them to change their values. Richard Brandt usefully distinguishes three claims comprising " moral relativism " (1968), although his " moral relativism " is what I here call " pluralism. " The claims are: that there are