Our moral beliefs are opaque to introspection

The contrarian submits that Our moral beliefs are opaque to introspection.

We’d be better able to move on from these disputes in productive ways—and thus to make moral progress—if we could better understand our own moral beliefs. But how can we do this when our beliefs seem so opaque to introspection? It’s easy to feel passionate about our beliefs, but how can we see behind our emotions, to find out where our beliefs came from and whether they are leading us to where we want to go? 


If we want to reduce violence within our society, for example, we shouldn’t deny the fact that humans have psychological adaptations for violence. We should instead acknowledge this fact, while recognizing that we also have adaptations for peaceful dispute resolution Then we should learn as much as we can about how both kinds of adaptations work, so that we can better design our culture to encourage deployment of the peaceful adaptations and discourage deployment of the violent ones.


Evolutionary science provides the key to such moral progress