Arguments Against Empirical Rationalism

Empirical Rationalism claims that it can be clearly observed that a person’s moral judgements come directly from his or her rational capacity. In other words, it claims that based on observation, it is evident that our moral judgements come from reason. This opposes to sentimentalists’ theories which claim that our moral judgments come from our emotions. Shaun Nichols affirms that research done on psychopaths proves empirical rationalism wrong. For example, he states that psychopaths’ ability to make moral judgements might be disturbed, but that this is not a rational defect and rather an emotional fault. The evidence he provides for his claim is that experiments and surveys that have been performed on children and people with mental disabilities
One of those objections is based on evidence that proves that psychopaths do suffer a significant rational defect. She presents excerpts from texts that account for different examples of psychopaths acting in order to satisfy their immediate desires. This leads to the conclusion that just as some children at certain stages do not have enough self-control to abstain from performing actions that will lead them to immediate satisfaction but that may not be the most morally correct actions or smartest choices considering long-term goals, psychopaths seem to have issues concerning self-control as well. If psychopaths, as grown adults, had intact rational capacities, they should be able to abstain themselves from performing actions that will cause long-term suffering even if those actions will also cause immediate satisfaction or pleasure. Considering that many psychopaths cannot abstain themselves from performing such actions and noting that “self-control involves a cognitive capacity to keep one’s long term goals in view” (Hare 1993, 142), it can be concluded that psychopaths do suffer from a mental discontinuity and therefore a rational
For example, it has been proven by experiments that psychopaths experience significantly lower levels of distress in response to seeing a person suffer than non-psychopaths do. Although this may seem like an emotional deficit, since they do not experience the same levels of empathy as any other person would, Kennett explains that the responses to seeing people suffer presented by children are exactly what sets off the development of some rational capacities that rationalists consider crucial for moral judgement. This proves that if a psychopath’s deficit is affective or emotional, it does not mean that his deficit cannot be rational as well, since such affective deficit can be the cause of his rational