Experimental philosophy and empirical ethics: a historical reconstruction and philosophical assessment

One of the most prominent current trends within philosophy is represented by the attempts to naturalize philosophical disciplines, from epistemology to ethics, and to tackle their problems with the tools of empirical sciences. An analogous naturalistic trend was prominent between 1660 and 1800. In this period, a large group of self-proclaimed experimental philosophers promoted an approach to the study of the natural world, ethics, and aesthetics which was based on the rejection of substantive a priori claims and the reliance on extensive observation and experimentation.

Initially, Robert Boyle, John Locke, members of the early Royal Society and like-minded authors in France and Italy applied this approach to empirical issues within physics and medicine and to metaphysical questions concerning, for instance, the nature of causation and the basic structure of the material world. Later experimentalists extended their rejection of 'first philosophy' and application of empirical methods to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Scottish and German authors, like David Hume and J. G. H. Feder, advocated the 'application of experimental philosophy to moral subjects' (Hume) and relied on empirical claims to promote sentimentalist ethical theories.

Nowadays, many ethicists endorse the same methodological outlook of eighteenth-century experimental philosophers, claiming that we should study morality with methods 'suitable to the investigation of natural facts' (Jesse Prinz). We are told that the results of fMRI scans refute deontologism (Joshua D. Greene, Peter Singer), that experimental psychology refutes moral intuitionism (Walter Sinnott-Armstrong) and virtue ethics (Gilbert Harman, John Doris), and that Humean moral sentiment derives from oxytocin, 'the moral molecule' (Paul J. Zak, Patricia Churchland). Along similar lines, a wave of popular books by well-known primatologists, evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and neuroscientists advocates the replacement of armchair ethics with an empirical 'science of morality' (Sam Harris), 'the science of good and evil' (Michael Shermer), 'the science of our moral dilemmas' (Michael S. Gazzaniga), and so on.

The historical component of the project will improve our understanding of early modern experimental philosophy. This will fill a significant gap in current accounts of early modern thought, it will provide a framework for new research, and it will shed light on the historical roots of a scientistic moral outlook which has broad appeal among philosophers and an increasing influence on public perception of the role of science within culture. The philosophical component of the project will assess the viability the methodological outlook underpinning early modern and recent attempts to build an empirical science of ethics.

The primary non-academic beneficiary of the proposed research is the general public. Many people regard science as the pre-eminent form of learning and scientific knowledge as the most prized form of knowledge. This belief has been strengthened by the publication of several popular books in which scientists and intellectuals explain how brain scans, psychological discoveries or evolutionary biology provide the foundations of a new, empirical science of morals. Discussions of this topic have attracted a large non-academic audience. For instance, neuroscientist Sam Harris' TED talk 'Science Can Answer Moral Questions' has been watched more than a million times. The project will address this large audience with the aim of providing accessible, philosophically informed, and soundly argued contributions to the public understanding of the ways in which science and philosophy address ethical questions. In doing so, the project will help the public appreciate the roles of science and philosophy within society.

A second group of non-academic beneficiaries are those advocating the importance of philosophy and the humanities to policymakers and the wide public. The project will highlight the difficulty of establishing normative claims on the basis of empirical evidence and will warn against the tendency to formulate all-too-quick arguments from scientific evidence to normative ethical claims. By vindicating a role for traditional, armchair ethical reflection, the research will provide arguments that can be used by a wide range of groups advocating the importance of philosophy and the humanities:

- the six 'beacon' centres set up by the British National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement to promote public engagement with higher education;
- the Committee for the Public Understanding of the Humanities of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences;
- organizations that promote the introduction of philosophy in schools, like the Philosophy Foundation in the UK, PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization) in the US, and the Federation of Australasian Philosophy in Schools Association.
- individual academics, like Angie Hobbs and Stephen Mumford, who actively promote the public understanding of philosophy and the humanities.

Finally, the historical component of the project will be of interest to professionals in the communication of science and its history, especially science journalists and curators of museums and exhibitions. The potential for public engagement of the historical component of the project is shown by the success of an exposition of early modern and rare books entitled 'Experimental Philosophy: Old and New'. The exposition was held for three months at the Central Library of the University of Otago in 2011. The opening was attended by approximately 100 people and about 600 visitors accessed the online version of the exhibition in the first two weeks.