From Moral Twin Earth to Pleasure in Eden

Neil Sinhababu (National University of Singapore)

Abstract: Many popular works of science fiction involve humans and aliens meeting for the first time and disagreeing with each other about moral questions. Unfortunately, the causal theory of reference renders such disagreements impossible, as Moral Twin Earth cases show. To account for the breadth of possible disagreement, I offer a new theory of moral concepts and how they represent reality. I offer a theory of representation based on empathy, according to which moral feelings like guilt, horror, and admiration represent their objects in virtue of shared phenomenal character. This version of the Edenic account of representation described by David Chalmers provides a new argument for ethical hedonism.