A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value

Abstract

Contemporary realist theories of value claim to be compatible with natural science. In this paper, I call this claim into question by arguing that realism can give no satisfactory account of the relation between evolutionary influences on our evaluative attitudes, on the one hand, and the independent evaluative truths that realism posits, on the other. Antirealist theories, in contrast, permit us to reconcile our understanding of evaluative truth with our understanding of the many nonrational causes that have played a role in shaping our evaluative judgments. The paper also contains an extended discussion of pain and its reason-giving status.