Human morality: From an empirical puzzle to a metaethical puzzle

Joyce investigates human moral thinking as both an empirical and metaethical puzzle. Empirically, humans uniquely evaluate actions, people, and events morally—a capacity absent in other intelligent social species. He distinguishes moral thinking as either an adaptation shaped by natural selection or as a byproduct of other evolved cognitive traits, emphasizing that current evidence cannot decisively favor either account. Both approaches converge on the view that moral cognition promotes social cohesion and cooperation, highlighting its functional significance irrespective of truth. Moving to metaethics, Joyce explores the implications for moral skepticism. He argues that evolutionary explanations of moral thinking can be endorsed by moral error theorists, suggesting that our moral beliefs may lack epistemic justification. Examining reliabilism, coherentism, intuitionism, and conservatism, he shows how genealogical considerations challenge the epistemic status of moral beliefs across these frameworks.