Ethics without Free Will

Moral theories typically rest upon the assumption that conscious deliberation plays a causal role in action; however, a growing body of scientific evidence supports a physicalist account of causation that leaves no causal role for mental activity. In response, I develop a moral theory (including moral truth, motivation, and meaning) that excludes considerations of conscious free will. I then consider how an acceleration in social evolution compared with biological evolution affected our moral knowledge and motivations. The idea of a normative model is offered to replace normative ethical theorizing, and finally various problems of the theory are identified for future work.