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Toward A Science Of Morals, Ross Taylor Colebrook

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Morality is not merely a social construction or a convenient fiction. Nor is it supernatural or non- natural. Rather, ethics could eventually be studied as a branch of the social sciences, concerned with empirically discovering the many and diverse best ways of living. There are moral facts (like “murder is wrong”), and these facts are natural, objective, and universal. In other words, moral realism is true.

Philosophers often assume that moral realism matters because it is a commitment of common sense. Drawing on new work in the psychology of metaethics, I argue that ordinary people are not in fact moral …