Countering the Evolutionary Debunking Argument - David Enoch pt 1/3 #philosophy #ethics #realism

Part 1 of 3 - David Enoch counters Sharon Street's evolutionary debunking argument (EDA), also known as the "Darwinian Dilemma," challenges moral realism—the view that objective moral truths exist independently of human attitudes. The argument posits that natural selection has significantly shaped our moral beliefs for survival advantage, not for their accuracy in tracking independent moral facts, leading to the conclusion that our moral knowledge is likely an illusion if realism is true. David responds to the evolutionary debunking argument by employing a "third-factor" explanation and an argument from deliberative indispensability. He argues that the debunker fails to show that a correlation between moral facts and beliefs is impossible or improbable for the realist. Enoch accepts the premise that evolution has strongly influenced our moral beliefs in ways that promote survival, but he denies that this influence means our beliefs are unreliable regarding objective moral facts. He proposes a "third-factor" (or "pre-established harmony") explanation: - 1. Survival as the Common Factor: Certain objective moral facts (e.g., that survival is good, that pain is bad) are true independently of human attitudes. - 2. Evolutionary Alignment: Evolution selected for creatures who were disposed to believe and act in accordance with these basic facts because doing so enhanced their survival and reproductive success. - 3. Resulting Correlation: The correlation between our moral beliefs and the objective moral facts is not a mere coincidence, but rather a result of both being influenced by this common, objective factor of survival. This response essentially says that evolution did not track the moral facts directly, but rather tracked survival benefits, which in turn align with some fundamental moral truths. David Enoch is a prominent defender of robust moral realism. ---- Many thanks for tuning in! Please support SciFuture by subscribing and sharing! Buy me a coffee? https://buymeacoffee.com/tech101z Have any ideas about people to interview? Want to be notified about future events? Any comments about the STF series? Please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mr9PIfq2ZYlQsXRIn5BcLH2onbiSI7g79mOH_AFCdIk/ Kind regards, Adam Ford - Science, Technology & the Future - #SciFuture - http://scifuture.org