Does Moral Psychology Have Anything to Teach Moral Philosophy?

PHIL 4010: Senior Seminar Paper Due November 3

Professor Ron Mallon

The following are merely suggested topics. In addition to the following, you may write on any topic from Topic List 1, provided the topic is sufficiently distinct from the one you wrote your first paper on. E.g. if you wrote your first paper on Searle , you may write your second on Doris.

Topic List 2:

1. Mackie offers two arguments against the objectivity of moral facts: the argument from relativity and the argument from queerness. Explain and assess these arguments.

2. Greene argues that there is nothing to make moral facts true or false. Explain and assess his argument.

3. Greene discusses Haidt’s social intuitionist model of moral judgment, and he suggests that it supports his projectivist account of moral judgment. Does it?

4. Greene argues that a person can be moral2 without endorsing moral1. Explain and assess Greene’s view.

4. Animals sure are cute, but are they moral agents? Argue for or against a view by appeal to psychological evidence.

5. Argue that animals have, or fail to have, any morally important property (e.g. autonomy). Support your claim with evidence and consider objections.