Empirical Science in Moral Realism/Anti-Realism Debate

[Veritas Aequitas]

Here is the conclusion from this paper;

Can the empirical sciences contribute to the moral realism/anti-realism debate?
by Thomas Pölzler

6 Conclusion

Can the empirical sciences contribute to the moral realism/anti-realism debate?
In this paper I considered four prominent general objections against such contributions:

• (1) science-based arguments for moral realism and anti-realism impermissibly derive normative from descriptive propositions,
  (2) such arguments beg the question against non-naturalist moral realism,
  (3) science cannot inform conceptual accounts of moral judgements, and
  (4) the conceptual is logically prior to the empirical.

It turned out that none of these objections succeed in ruling out the empirical sciences’ relevance for the moral realism/anti-realism debate.

However, they suggest four important general requirements for arguments of this kind. Such arguments

• .. should not deduce normative from exclusive descriptive propositions,
  .. should not beg the question against non-naturalism,
  .. should only appeal to studies that address robust rather than surface intuitions,
  .. and should consider any contingency of their scientific hypotheses on the meaning of the term “moral judgement”.

As the above requirements have not always been met, and as realist and anti-realist appeals to scientific evidence tend to suffer from various other flaws as well, the significance of such evidence has so far been rather modest.

However, most problems of science-based arguments can (and likely will) be solved.

I therefore believe that in the end the most reasonable approach to the moral realism/anti-realism debate is ecumenical.

In order to further increase our understanding of the existence of objective moral truths both traditional philosophical and scientific evidence about this issue must be taken into account, and must be integrated into a reflective equilibrium involving evidence about related non-moral issues as well.

After reviewing existing literatures Thomas Pölzler is optimistic the Empirical Sciences can contribute to establish objective moral truths.
Note the two terms 'ecumenical' i.e. multi-disciplinary and "reflective equilibrium" are very critically relevant.

Personally I have already dug into depth on the incorporating of the relevance of empirical facts into a Moral Framework and System in generating objective Moral facts. I had already presented some basic arguments [not the deeper grounds yet] to support my views.

Your views?