Richard Joyce (born 1966) is a British-Australian-New Zealand philosopher, known for his contributions to the fields of meta-ethics and moral psychology.

The atheist thinks that religious utterances, such as "God loves you," really are truth-evaluable assertions (as opposed to being veiled commands or expressions of hope, etc.

One view is that it is the by-product of other psychological faculties that evolved for other purposes—perhaps a relatively recent cultural phenomenon that emerged when humans started living in large groups.

Joyce hypothesizes that moral thinking evolved in order to strengthen our ancestors' motivation to engage in adaptive cooperative behavior.

If human moral thinking evolved in order to strengthen cooperative bonds among our ancestors, then the question arises as to why we should suppose that it provides us with accurate information.