Ethics

is it possible to have an empirical theory of ethics?

Comments

Sure. There can be an empirical theory of how moral judgments and reasoning develop in children for example, as presented by Lawrence Kohlberg and his successors (including Carol Gilligan). And there can be an empirical theory of how -- in reponse to features of human psychology and of the human natural environment -- prevalent conceptions of morality evolve in societies or in the human species. Philosopher David Hume presents a fascinating empirical theory of the latter sort in Books II and III of his Treatise of Human Nature, somewhat recast in his later Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. A different broadly empirical theory of this kind is offered by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his Genealogy of Morals. Kohlberg's empirical theory was written with the intent to vindicate a certain universalistic style of moral reasoning, and Hume took his theory to vindicate the moral commonsense of his time. By contrast, Nietzsche wrote with deflationary intent: once we fully understand the causal mechanisms that lead human beings to develop certain practices of moral judgment, we cannot take these judgments seriously and will want to free ourselves of the herd morality of our society in favor of a self-created ethic.

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