#404 Hanno Sauer: Ethics, Moral Realism, Moral Progress, and Human Rationality
RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 30th 2020.
Dr. Hanno Sauer is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University. His main research interests are in moral psychology and empirically informed metaethics. He is interested in whether and how we can bring empirical data from diverse disciplines such as social psychology, neuroscience or cognitive science to bear on questions of normative and/or metaethical interests, and what the limits of this approach are. He is the author of Moral Judgments as Educated Intuitions (2017), Debunking Arguments in Ethics (2018), and Moral Thinking, Fast and Slow (2018).
In this episode, we tackle lots of approaches, challenges and arguments in (meta)ethics. We basically go through some of the biggest questions that ethics and moral philosophy try to answer. We deal with the relationship between science and ethics, and the is-ought gap. We discuss intuitionism, moral realism, evolutionary psychology and moral relativism, and moral nihilism. We address the recent literature on human rationality. We talk about the anti-rationalist and the emotionist challenge. We touch on Moral Foundations Theory, and the implications it might have for ethics and moral philosophy. We get into the argument from agreement and the argument from disagreement, and the challenges they pose to moral realism. We also talk about the educated intuitions account of morality. Finally, we discuss if moral progress really exists.
Time Links:
Why it is not a good idea to speculate about the moral nature of the human mind without scientifically investigating how it works
Is there a way to bridge the is-ought gap?
Does all ethics boil down to intuitions?
Is there still any room for moral realism nowadays?
Does evolutionary psychology force us to accept moral relativism?
Moral nihilism
Are humans rational?
The emotionist challenge
Moral Foundations Theory, and the possible implications for moral philosophy
The argument from agreement, and the argument from disagreement
The educated intuitions account of morality
Does moral progress really exist?
Follow Dr. Sauer’s work!
Follow Dr. Sauer’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/3iaOmhS
Website: https://bit.ly/3lctdWH
PhilPeople profile: https://bit.ly/33fPnRF
Debunking Arguments in Ethics: https://amzn.to/2G2MWcr
Moral Judgments as Educated Intuitions: https://amzn.to/3ieoilZ
Moral Thinking, Fast and Slow: https://amzn.to/3cGywum