  Such pragmatic naturalism, as moral epistemology, has strong affinities with the methodologies just canvassed and shares many of their virtues. For example, when discussing cases of moral progress, such as the abolition of slavery in the United States and improvement over the last century in civil status of women in Europe and the United States, Kitcher focuses on the reasons for moral change that were in fact operating in these cases rather than on principles that might rationalize the changes without necessarily explaining them. Like naturalized epistemology the focus is on looking for the reasons that are also causes. Like reflective equilibrium theory and rational choice theory, the focus is sensitive to tensions within moral perspectives both theoretical and practical, such as the apparent contradiction of maintaining the view that women as wives and mothers should not be educated while having to concede, as Mary Wollstonecraft argued (Kitcher 2011a, 148–50), that they would better fulfill their role in their families if they were educated or, as John Woolman pointed out (Kitcher 2011a, 158–61), maintaining a Christian view of the equal worth of every human while tolerating chattel slavery. Kitcher’s argument in these and similar cases is that improvement in moral knowledge was not achieved through the use of general abstract principles but has depended instead on reconciling conflicts of moral values so that their emerging functions are better served. See also Elizabeth Anderson’s discussion of how people learned that slavery is wrong (Anderson 2016). At the same time, because pragmatists, such as Kitcher and Anderson, focus on cases of radical moral change from the status quo, the charge of moral conservatism that faces reflective equilibrium and rational choices theories of moral knowledge tends to be undercut.