Question 2: What is Moral Foundations Theory? What, if anything, would the truth of this theory contribute to philosophical arguments about whether persistent ethical disagreement undermines moral knowledge?

Hints

Your answer should normally focus on a single philosophical argument or objection. To write a good answer you will need to focus on a good argument or objection.

Please also follow the general instructions for Long Essay Questions.

Lecture Notes

This is not an exhaustive list but may help you if you missed something. The list may grow over the weeks as lectures are added. Consider also using the search function.

The following sections contain material relevant to answering this question.

Operationalising Moral Foundations Theory

Moral Foundations Theory: An Approach to Cultural Variation

Moral Pluralism: Beyond Harm

Reading

If you are following the lecture notes and seminars, you should already know what to read. You do not need to consult this list. This is only for people coming to the assignment without using the lecture notes (not recommended).

Atari et al. (2023)

McGrath (2008)

Where to Find the Reading?

In some cases the references section already includes a link to help you find the reading.

If there is no link in the references section, start by searching for the title (and, if that fails, by title and authors) on google scholar. If this fails, the library has resources. If those fail, please check first with others on the course. If you still have problems, you may email your seminar tutor.

References

Atari, M., Haidt, J., Graham, J., Koleva, S., Stevens, S. T., & Dehghani, M. (2023). Morality beyond the WEIRD: How the nomological network of morality varies across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 125(5), 1157–1188. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000470

Doris, J. M., & Plakias, A. (2008). How to argue about disagreement: Evaluative diversity and moral realism. In Moral psychology, Vol 2: The cognitive science of morality: Intuition and diversity (pp. 303–331). Cambridge, MA, US: MIT Press.

Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P., & Ditto, P. H. (2013). Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism. In P. Devine & A. Plant (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 47, pp. 55–130). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-407236-7.00002-4

Graham, J., Nosek, B. A., Haidt, J., Iyer, R., Koleva, S., & Ditto, P. H. (2011). Mapping the moral domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 366–385. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021847

McGrath, S. (2008). Moral disagreement and moral expertise. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 3, 87–107.