Ethical evidence

This paper argues that ethical propositions can legitimately be used as evidence for and against empirical conclusions. Specifically, I argue that this thesis is entailed by several uncontroversial assumptions about ethical metaphysics and epistemology. I also outline several examples of ethical-to-empirical inferences where it is extremely plausible that one can rationally rely upon their ethical evidence in order to gain a justified belief in an empirical conclusion. The main upshot is that ethical propositions can, under perfectly standard conditions, play both direct and indirect evidential roles in (social) scientific inquiry.

Automated summary

This paper argues that ethical propositions can be legitimately used as evidence for or against empirical conclusions. It is supported by uncontroversial assumptions about ethical metaphysics and epistemology. The paper also provides examples of ethical-to-empirical inferences where one can reasonably rely on ethical evidence to gain justified beliefs in empirical conclusions. The main conclusion is that, under standard conditions, ethical propositions can play direct and indirect evidential roles in (social) scientific inquiry.