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contractualist OP t1_j92h4wd wrote

Reply to comment by Daotar in The Ontology and Epistemology of Morality by contractualist

Kant certainly wasn't providing a descriptive account, whereas Rawls didn't make his views very clear. Evolution is useful for explaining our desires, but it doesn't justify why these desires should be respected or what we should do given these desires.

There are no "should" statements when examining morality through a pure evolutionary lens and morality would be the same (the derivatives of the values of freedom and reason) even if we had evolved differently and developed different desires. Given a different evolutionary trajectory, our moral rules might be different, but meta-ethics remains the same.

That being said, science is useful for discovering the moral principles of the social contract, but it doesn't play a role in the first principles discussion that I'm focusing on.

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Daotar t1_j92lyjh wrote

> There are no "should" statements when examining morality through a pure evolutionary lens

If you really think that, I'd suggest picking up either Mackie's Ethics, Kitcher's The Ethical Project, or Joyce's The Evolution of Morality.

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contractualist OP t1_j92rg6n wrote

Its not even morality, just logic. You can't get a "should" conclusion from "is" premises. This is just the naturalistic fallacy.

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Daotar t1_j92vx8z wrote

> You can't get a "should" conclusion from "is" premises.

Not according to Mackie, Kitcher, and Joyce. The naturalistic fallacy is an extremely controversial position that has gone out of favor in recent decades due to critiques from people like Rawls, Rorty, and Mackie.

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bumharmony t1_j92milh wrote

Kant compromises his theory of ethics for sure. No statist system can be apriori.

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