Normativity in Ethics as ‘Crane’: Building from the Rusean Evolutionary Metaethics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me13.335Keywords:
evolutionary metaethics, evolutionary ethics, philosophical naturalism, moral psychology, metacognitionAbstract
Michael Ruse's evolutionary perspective on morality is characterized by combining two apparently contradictory aspects: on the one hand, a metaethical skepticism and, on the other hand, a defense of normative ethics. Following Daniel Dennett's distinction between explanations with 'sky hooks', which appeal to supernatural entities, and with 'cranes', which conform to the theory of evolution by natural selection, Ruse's proposal seeks to bring understanding of ethics and metaethics in the key of 'crane' to its ultimate consequences. Now, the Rusean proposal seems to reach an aporia. This is because, although in his proposal a defense of normative ethics is proposed, Ruse assigns a prominent role to 'innate mental dispositions' (linked to what in moral psychology is understood as moral intuitions or emotions), still apparently leaving an end loose from his philosophy: how to capture, without diluting, or minimizing, the normativity of such ethics (which the author sometimes calls 'substantive' in contrast to metaethics). In this article we intend to preserve the understanding of morality in the 'crane' key proposed by Ruse but, at the same time, recover a notion of moral reasoning with greater interference in ethical normativity. To do this, we will resort to the concept of 'metacognition' which, once defined, will allow us to show how knowledge of one's own cognitive processes and products can play a role in moral reasoning aimed at inhibiting egotistical dispositions.
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