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

哲学中当前最突出的趋势之一是试图将哲学学科自然化，从认识论到伦理学，并用经验科学的工具来解决它们的问题。1660年至1800年间，类似的自然主义趋势也很突出。在这一时期，一大群自称为实验哲学家的人提出了一种研究自然世界、伦理和美学的方法，这种方法基于对实质性先验主张的拒绝，以及对广泛观察和实验的依赖。最初，罗伯特·波义耳、约翰·洛克、早期皇家学会的成员以及法国和意大利志同道合的作家将这种方法应用于物理学和医学中的经验问题，以及形而上学的问题，例如，因果关系的本质和物质世界的基本结构。后来的实验主义者将他们对“第一哲学”的拒绝和对经验方法的应用扩展到伦理学和美学领域。苏格兰和德国作家，如大卫·休谟和j·g·h·费德，主张“将实验哲学应用于道德主体”（休谟），并依靠经验主张来促进感伤主义伦理理论。如今，许多伦理学家赞同18世纪实验哲学家的方法论观点，声称我们应该用“适合于调查自然事实”的方法来研究道德（杰西·普林茨）。我们被告知，功能磁共振成像扫描的结果反驳了义务论（Joshua D. Greene, Peter Singer），实验心理学反驳了道德直觉主义（Walter Sinnott-Armstrong）和美德伦理学（Gilbert Harman, John Doris），休谟的道德情感源于催产素，即“道德分子”（Paul J. Zak, Patricia Churchland）。与此类似，由著名灵长类动物学家、进化生物学家、心理学家和神经科学家撰写的一波流行书籍主张用经验主义的“道德科学”（山姆·哈里斯）、“善恶科学”（迈克尔·谢默）、“道德困境科学”（迈克尔·s·加扎尼加）等来取代纸上谈的伦理学。这个项目的历史部分将增进我们对早期现代实验哲学的理解。这将填补当前对早期现代思想的描述中的一个重大空白，它将为新的研究提供一个框架，它将阐明科学主义道德观的历史根源，这种道德观在哲学家中具有广泛的吸引力，并对公众对科学在文化中的作用的看法产生越来越大的影响。该项目的哲学部分将评估支撑早期现代和最近尝试建立伦理学实证科学的方法论前景的可行性。

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.