Rational learners and metaethics: Universalism, relativism, and evidence from consensus

• Published in: Mind & language Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 67 - 89
• Main Authors: Ayars, Alisabeth, Nichols, Shaun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-02-2020; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: consensus; Ethics; metaethics; moral learning; moral psychology; Morality; Psychology; Reasoning; Relativism; Universalism
• ISSN: 0268-1064; 1468-0017
• DOI: 10.1111/mila.12232

Recent work in folk metaethics finds a correlation between perceived consensus about a moral claim and meta‐ethical judgments about whether the claim is universally or only relatively true. We argue that consensus can provide evidence for meta‐normative claims, such as whether a claim is universally true. We then report several experiments indicating that people use consensus to make inferences about whether a claim is universally true. This suggests that people's beliefs about relativism and universalism are partly guided by evidence‐based reasoning. In a final study, we show that the rejection of universalism does not generate a simple subjectivism but is associated with a more moderate relativism on which highly atypical positions are regarded as mistaken.