/v2451/blackwell/journals/misp_v31_i1/misp_148 Can Moral Obligations Be Empirically Discovered?

These are good days for empirically minded philosophy. It is now common tosee philosophers cite laboratory studies in support of their theories, and a growing number of philosophers are conducting their own psychological experi-ments. From a worm’s eye perspective, it looks a little bit like there is a method-ological revolution taking place. Gone are the days when philosophers had to read psychology journals covered in discrete bindings so as to hide a perverse interest in the latest sexy results. At least that is true in most areas of philosophy. Lately, the methodological revolution has been gaining ground in ethics. Philosophers now routinely site the burgeoning empirical literature on moral judgment.The majority of this work has been descriptive in nature. Psychology and neuroscience are being used to determine what goes on in people’s heads when they decide that something is morally right or morally wrong. Traditionally minded ethicists continue to feel insulated from the onslaught of empirical moral psychology. Ethics has long been in the business of telling us how we ought to behave, rather than merely describing how we do behave. Such normative claims appear to have a kind of immunity to empirical investigation. Psychology can reveal what we morally detest, but i