From a talk to the Oxford Karl Popper Society.
Abstract
What is morality? And how ought you behave? These questions, until recently exclusively philosophical, are now becoming scientific. According to the theory of 'morality as cooperation’, morality is the name we give to our attempts to solve cooperative problems. This theory makes testable predictions about the nature, content and structure of morality – predictions have been tested, and have (thus far) passed the tests. On this account then, you ought to cooperate; in situations in which you have to choose between alternative cooperative options (as in moral dilemmas) you ought to choose the more cooperative option; and, better still, you ought to search for new and better solutions to cooperative problems. Thus moral problems are empirical problems, with objective answers, that can be solved by standard scientific method. Adopting this method explicitly will make moral discussions more constructive, and accelerate the pace of moral progress.