• DOI:10.1080/0951508042000202354
• Corpus ID: 15114919

After objectivity: an empirical study of moral judgment

@article{Nichols2004AfterOA,
  title={After objectivity: an empirical study of moral judgment},
  author={Shaun Nichols},
  journal={Philosophical Psychology},
  year={2004},
  volume={17},
  pages={26 - 3}
}

• Shaun Nichols
• Published 1 March 2004
• Psychology
• Philosophical Psychology

This paper develops an empirical argument that the rejection of moral objectivity leaves important features of moral judgment intact. In each of five reported experiments, a number of participants endorsed a nonobjectivist claim about a canonical moral violation. In four of these experiments, participants were also given a standard measure of moral judgment, the moral/conventional task. In all four studies, participants who respond as nonobjectivists about canonical moral violations still treat such violations in typical ways on the moral/conventional task. In particular, participants who give moral nonobjectivist responses still draw a clear distinction between canonical moral and conventional violations. Thus there is some reason to think that many of the central characteristics of moral judgment are preserved in the absence of a commitment to moral objectivity.