Empirically Informed Ethics: Morality between Facts and Norms

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. What Is Empirically Informed Ethics?

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Outlining the Field – A Research Program for Empirically Informed Ethics

      • Markus Christen, Mark Alfano

      Pages 3-27

   3. What Kind of Ethics? – How Understanding the Field Affects the Role of Empirical Research on Morality for Ethics

      • Johannes Fischer

      Pages 29-43

   4. Moral Behavior and Moral Sentiments – On the Natural Basis for Moral Values

      • Adriano Naves de Brito

      Pages 45-62

3. Investigating Origins of Morality

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 63-63

      PDF

   2. Morality as a Biological Adaptation – An Evolutionary Model Based on the Lifestyle of Human Foragers

      • Carel van Schaik, Judith M. Burkart, Adrian V. Jaeggi, Claudia Rudolf von Rohr

      Pages 65-84

   3. Precursors of Morality – Evidence for Moral Behaviors in Non-human Primates

      • Sarah F. Brosnan

      Pages 85-98

   4. Where Do Morals Come From? – A Plea for a Cultural Approach

      • Jesse J. Prinz

      Pages 99-116

4. Assessing the Moral Agent

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 117-117

      PDF

   2. Moral Intelligence – A Framework for Understanding Moral Competences

      • Carmen Tanner, Markus Christen

      Pages 119-136

   3. Moral Brains – Possibilities and Limits of the Neuroscience of Ethics

      • Kristin Prehn, Hauke R. Heekeren

      Pages 137-157

   4. Using Experiments in Ethics – Ethical Conservatism and the Psychology of Moral Luck

      • Shaun Nichols, Mark Timmons, Theresa Lopez

      Pages 159-176

5. Justifications Between Rational Reflections and Intuitions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 177-177

      PDF

   2. Intuitions in Moral Reasoning – Normative Empirical Reflective Equilibrium as a Model for Substantial Justification of Moral Claims

      • Ghislaine J. M. W. van Thiel, Johannes J. M. van Delden

      Pages 179-193

   3. Moral Expertise – The Role of Expert Judgments and Expert Intuitions in the Construction of (Local) Ethical Theories

      • Bert Musschenga

      Pages 195-208

   4. Social Variability in Moral Judgments – Analyzing the Justification of Actions Using the Prescriptive Attribution Concept

      • Erich H. Witte, Tobias Gollan

      Pages 209-224

6. Practicing Ethics in the Real World

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 225-225

      PDF

   2. Becoming a Moral Person – Moral Development and Moral Character Education as a Result of Social Interactions

      • Darcia Narvaez, Daniel Lapsley

      Pages 227-238

   3. Ethical Leadership – How to Integrate Empirical and Ethical Aspects for Promoting Moral Decision Making in Business Practice

      • Markus Huppenbauer, Carmen Tanner

      Pages 239-254

This volume provides an overview of the most recent developments in empirical investigations of morality and assesses their impact and importance for ethical thinking. It involves contributions of scholars both from philosophy, theology and empirical sciences with firm standings in their own disciplines, but an inclination to step across borders—in particular the one between the world of facts and the world of norms. Human morality is complex, and probably even messy—and this clean distinction becomes blurred whenever one looks more closely at the various components that enable and influence our moral actions and ethical orientations. In that way, morality may indeed be located between facts and norms—and an empirically informed ethics that is less concerned with analytical purity but immerses into this moral complexity may be an important step to make the contributions of ethics to this world more valuable and relevant. ​

• Empirical Ethics
• Empirically informed ethics
• Intuitions and morality
• Moral agent
• Origins of morality
• moral psychology

• Institute of Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  Markus Christen

• Anthropological Institute & Museum, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  Carel van Schaik

• Institute of Social Ethics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  Johannes Fischer

• University Priority Program Ethics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  Markus Huppenbauer

• Department of Banking and Finance, Centre for Responsibility in Finance, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  Carmen Tanner

Mark Alfano (philosophy) is at the Center of Human Values of Princeton University, Princeton, USA.

 

Sarah F. Brosnan (primatology) is at the Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Georgia, USA.

 

Judith Burkart (anthropology) is at the Anthropological Institute and Museum of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Markus Christen (neuroethics) is at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Johannes Fischer (theological ethics) is at the Institute of Social Ethics of the University of Zurich.

 

Tobias Gollan (social psychology) is at the Psychology Department of the University of Hamburg, Germany.

 

Hauke Heekeren (affective neuroscience) is at the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion”of the Free University of Berlin, Germany.

 

Markus Huppenbauer (ethics) is at the University Priority Program Ethics of the University of Zurich.

 

Adrian Jaeggi (anthropology) is at the Department of Anthropology of the University of California Santa Barbara, California, USA.

 

Antti Kauppinen (philosophy) is at the Department of Philosophy of the Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

 

Tanja Krones (medical ethics and sociology) is at the University Hospital Zurich and the Institute of Biomedical Ethics of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

 

DanielLapsley (moral psychology) is at the Psychology Department of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.

 

Theresa Lopez (moral philosophy) is at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Arizona, Arizona, USA.

 

Bert Musschenga (moral philosophy) is at the Philosophy Department of the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

 

Darcia Narvaez (moral psychology) is at the Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.

 

Adriano Naves de Brito (moral philosophy) is at the Center of Human Sciences, Unisinos University, Brasil.

 

Shaun Nichols (experimental philosophy) is at the Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Arizona, USA.

 

Kristin Prehn (cognitive neuroscience) is at the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion”, Free University of Berlin, Germany.

 

Jesse J. Prinz (moral philosophy) is at the Philosophy Program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, USA.

 

Claudia Rudolf von Rohr (anthropology) is at the Anthropological Institute & Museum of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Carmen Tanner (social psychology) is at the Center for Ethics and Finance at the Institute of Banking and Finance, at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Mark Timmons (moral philosophy) is at the Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Arizona, USA.

 

JohannesJ.M. van Delden (medical ethics) is at the Medical school of Utrecht University, Netherlands.

 

Carel P. van Schaik (anthropology) is at the Anthropological Institute & Museum of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Ghislaine J.M.W. van Thiel (medical ethics) is at the Medical school of Utrecht University, Netherlands.

 

Erich H. Witte (social psychology) is at the Psychology Department of the University of Hamburg, Germany

Policies and ethics