The Essence of Morality: A Teleological-Formalist Conception of Moral Progress

This thesis considers the problem of how people should deal with moral change. I examine various conceptions of morality and induce the essence of morality, or the set of formal features that is fundamental to all moralities. In particular, I claim that the essence of morality consists of four features: (1) it performs some function (namely, solving the problem of cooperation); (2) it is prescriptive; (3) it is regarded as universalized; and (4) it is regarded as possessing overriding authority over other normative systems. From this, I derive a metamorality or standard of moral progress with which to evaluate moral change, namely the teleologicalf-ormalist conception of morality, which holds that morality progresses if and only if it increasingly exhibits its formal features. This is important because it allows philosophers and policymakers more generally to evaluate moral change and steer moral progress. Subject Categories Behavioral Economics | Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms | Ethics and Political Philosophy | Social Psychology | Theory and Philosophy This article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/ppe_honors/6 THE ESSENCE OF MORALITY: A TELEOLOGICAL-FORMALIST CONCEPTION OF MORAL PROGRESS Daniel L. Zhang A THESIS in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors 2015 Supervisor of Thesis Co-Supervisor of Thesis __________________ ___________________ Jan Willem Lindemans Sumantra Sen Postdoctoral Fellow Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies THE ESSENCE OF MORALITY COPYRIGHT 2015 Daniel Ling Zhang This work is licensed under the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ny-sa/2.0/ To my parents For giving everything and more