Synonyms
Definition
Objectivity – the quality of existing independently of a subject’s beliefs or desires. Not dependent for its properties on any person’s subjective experience. Typically discoverable by publicly available and evaluable means.
Introduction
For purposes of this entry, a domain of facts is objective if those facts both (a) exist and (b) are mind-independent, meaning they do not depend for their existence on any human beliefs, attitudes, or desires (though for simplification, this article will only refer to beliefs in what follows). Accordingly, moral facts are objective just insofar as they both exist and are mind-independent. Here, the focus will be on how evolutionary considerations bear on the objectivity of morality. This article will not consider other ways in which evolutionary considerations bear on other moral phenomena, including how they might have shaped core moral emotions such as compassion or shame or widespread...
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Colebrook, R., Sarkissian, H. (2018). Objectivity. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_534-1
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