ABSTRACT
The sentimentalist argument purports to show that moral judgments are likely constituted by (dispositions to have) emotions. This claim is likely true, the argument’s proponents believe, because it best explains moral judgments’ close empirical association with emotions. In this chapter, I address whether moral judgments are indeed closely empirically associated with emotions. First, I explain in which sense the hypothesis would have to be true in order for the sentimentalist argument to work. Then I show that recent psychological and neuroscientific research fails to support the hypothesis (among others, because it lacks in internal and external validity).
