Conscience, Human Nature and the Evolutionary Challenge

In this dissertation I will attempt to rebut some skeptical arguments in moral epistemology by appealing to philosophical resources in the work of some late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century European philosophers. The skeptical arguments I will be countering are grounded in the perspective of contemporary biology. Put quickly, our evolutionary history is said to undermine our claims to moral knowledge because the process by which our capacity for such knowledge developed was determined by adaptive and reproductive fitness, which cannot be expected to align with standards of objective moral value