Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in evolutionary debunking arguments directed against certain types of belief, particularly moral and religious beliefs. According to those arguments, the evolutionary origins of the cognitive mechanisms that produce the targeted beliefs render these beliefs epistemically unjustified. The reason is that natural selection cares for reproduction and survival rather than truth, and false beliefs can in principle be as evolutionarily advantageous as true beliefs. The present volume brings together fourteen essays that examine evolutionary debunking arguments not only in ethics and philosophy of religion, but also in philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, and epistemology. The essays move forward research on those arguments by shedding fresh light on old problems and proposing new lines of inquiry. The book will appeal to scholars and graduate students interested in the possible skeptical implications of evolutionary theory in any of the above domains.

Offers the first book-length discussion of debunking arguments in ethics and the reliability of moral judgment.

What if the loving relationships of the Trinity are the ultimate, objective source for living morally? Adam Lloyd Johnson injects a fresh yet eternal reality into the thriving debate over the basis of moral absolutes. While postmodernism's moral relativism once temporarily disrupted the footing of classic moral theories like natural law and divine command, many nontheistic philosophers assert that morality must rest on something real and objective. Divine Love Theory proposes a grounding for morality not only in the creator God but as revealed in the Christian Scriptures--Father, Son, and Spirit eternally loving one another. Johnson contends that the Trinity provides a remarkably convincing foundation for making moral judgments. One leading atheistic proposal, godless normative realism, finds many deficiencies in theistic and Christian theories, yet Johnson shows how godless normative realism is susceptible to similar errors. He then demonstrates how the loving relationships of the Trinity as outlined in historic Christian theology resolve many of the weakest points in both theistic and atheistic moral theories. "Johnson leaves no stone unturned, his research is exceptional, and his topic and treatment of it are first-rate. I very strongly recommend this book." --J. P. Moreland, distinguished professor of philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University "Divine Love Theory is an important and original contribution to the on-going contemporary debate between theists and non-theists over the foundations of morality. It is a work that will be of interest to theologians and philosophers alike." --Erik Wielenberg, professor of philosophy, DePauw University "Johnson's own proposal is a refreshing and insightful address that is often missed in the moral debate of mere theism: Trinitarianism. Divine Love Theory is at once more consistent with the largest theistic population, Christians, but also provides greater explanatory power over competitors, theistic and atheistic alike." --Corey Miller, President of Ratio Christi

Are there objective moral truths (things that are morally right or wrong independently of what anybody thinks about them)? To answer this question more and more scholars have recently begun to appeal to evidence from scientific disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, biology, and anthropology. This book investigates this novel scientific approach in a comprehensive, empirically focused, partly clarificatory, and partly metatheoretical way. It argues for two main theses. First, it is possible for the empirical sciences to contribute to the moral realism/anti-realism debate. And second, most appeals to science that have so far been proposed are insufficiently empirically substantiated. The book’s main chapters address four prominent science-based arguments for or against the existence of objective moral truths: the presumptive argument, the argument from moral disagreement, the sentimentalist argument, and the evolutionary debunking argument. For each of these arguments Thomas Pölzler first identifies the sense in which its underlying empirical hypothesis would have to be true in order for the argument to work. Then he shows that the available scientific evidence fails to support this hypothesis. Finally, he also makes suggestions as to how to test the hypothesis more validly in future scientific research. Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences is an important contribution to the moral realism/anti-realism debate that will appeal both to philosophers and scientists interested in moral psychology and metaethics.

There are contrasting theories that deal with different aspects of human religiosity - some focus on religious beliefs, while others focus on religious actions, and still others on the origin of religious ideas. While these theories might share a similar focus, there is plenty of disagreement in the explanations they offer. This volume examines the diversity of new scientific theories of religion, by outlining the logical and causal relationships between these enterprises. Are they truly in competition, as their proponents sometimes suggest, or are they complementary and mutually illuminating accounts of religious belief and practice?

Contemporary discussions in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind are dominated by the presupposition of naturalism. Arguing against this established convention, Jim Slagle offers a thorough defence of Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism (EAAN) and in doing so, reveals how it shows that evolution and naturalism are incompatible. Charting the development of Plantinga's argument, Slagle asserts that the probability of our cognitive faculties reliably producing true beliefs is low if ontological naturalism is true, and therefore all other beliefs produced by these faculties, including naturalism itself, are self-defeating. He critiques other well-known epistemological approaches, including those of Descartes and Quine, and deftly counters the many objections against the EAAN to conclude that metaphysical naturalism should be rejected on the grounds of self-defeat. By situating Plantinga's argument within a wider context and showing that science and evolution cannot entail naturalism, Slagle renders this most common metaphysical view irrational. As such, the book advocates an important reconsideration of contemporary thought at the intersection of philosophy, science and religion.

This book offers to the international reader a collection of original articles of some of the most skillful historians and philosophers of biology currently working in Latin American universities. During the last decades, increasing attention has been paid in Latin America to the history and philosophy of biology, but since many local authors prefer to write in Spanish or in Portuguese, their ideas have barely crossed the boundaries of the continent. This volume aims to remedy this state of things, providing a good sample of this production to the English speaking readers, bringing together contributions from researchers working in Brazilian, Argentinean, Chilean, Colombian and Mexican universities. The stress on the regional provenance of the authors is not intended to suggest the existence of something like a Latin American history and philosophy of biology, supposedly endowed with distinctive features. On the contrary, the editors firmly believe that advances in this field can be achieved only by stimulating the integration in the international debate. Based on this assumption, the book focuses on two topics, life and evolution, and presents a selection of contributions addressing issues such as the history of the concept of life, the philosophical reflection on life manipulation and life extension, the structure and development of evolutionary theory as well as human evolution. Life and Evolution – Latin American Essays on the History and Philosophy of Biology will provide the international reader with a rather complete picture of the ongoing research in the history and philosophy of biology in Latin America, offering a snapshot of this dynamic community. It will also contribute to contextualize and develop the debate concerning life and evolution, and the relation between the two phenomena.

Oxford Studies in Metaethics is the only publication devoted exclusively to original philosophical work in the foundations of ethics. It provides an annual selection of much of the best new scholarship being done in the field. Its broad purview includes work being done at the intersections of ethical theory with metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. The essays included in the series provide an excellent basis for understanding recent developments in the field; those who would like to acquaint themselves with the current state of play in metaethics would do well to start here.

Challenges to Moral and Religious Belief contains fourteen original essays by philosophers, theologians, and social scientists on challenges to moral and religious belief from disagreement and evolution. Three main questions are addressed: Can one reasonably maintain one's moral and religious beliefs in the face of interpersonal disagreement with intellectual peers? Does disagreement about morality between a religious belief source, such as a sacred text, and a non-religious belief source, such as a society's moral intuitions, make it irrational to continue trusting one or both of those belief sources? Should evolutionary accounts of the origins of our moral beliefs and our religious beliefs undermine our confidence in their veracity? This volume places challenges to moral belief side-by-side with challenges to religious belief, sets evolution-based challenges alongside disagreement-based challenges, and includes philosophical perspectives together with theological and social science perspectives, with the aim of cultivating insights and lines of inquiry that are easily missed within a single discipline or when these topics are treated in isolation. The result is a collection of essays—representing both skeptical and non-skeptical positions about morality and religion—that move these discussions forward in new and illuminating directions.

Moral skepticism is at present a vibrant topic of philosophical inquiry. Particularly since the turn of the millennium, the debates between moral skeptics of various stripes and their opponents have gained renewed force not only by taking account of innovative ideas in moral philosophy, but also by drawing on novel positions in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language as well as on recent findings in empirical sciences. As a result, new arguments for and against moral skepticism have been devised, while the traditional ones have been reexamined. This collection of original essays will advance the ongoing debates about various forms of moral skepticism by discussing such topics as error theory, disagreement, constructivism, non-naturalism, expressivism, fictionalism, and evolutionary debunking arguments. It will be a valuable resource for academics and advanced students working in metaethics and moral philosophy more generally.