Evolutionary ethics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In sociobiology and philosophy, evolutionary ethics concerns approaches to ethics based on the role of evolution in shaping human behavior and instinct.[1] These approaches have sought first to understand ethical (or altruistic) behavior and, in some cases, to use that understanding in an attempt to justify metaethical claims. The writings of Thomas Huxley, E. O. Wilson, Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse have had significant influence in the field.
Contents |
[edit] Views
In his 1893 book Evolutionary Ethics, Thomas Huxley allows that ethical sentiments have evolved but denies that this provides a basis for morality:
The propounders of what are called the "ethics of evolution," when the "evolution of ethics" would usually better express the object of their speculations, adduce a number of more or less interesting facts and more or less sound arguments, in favour of the origin of the moral sentiments, in the same way as other natural phenomena, by a process of evolution. I have little doubt, for my part, that they are on the right track; but as the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, there is, so far, as much natural saction for the one as the other. The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropost. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before.[2]
Huxley's criticism alludes to the is-ought problem developed earlier by David Hume and the related naturalistic fallacy developed later by G. E. Moore.
In 1986, Michael Ruse summarized the role of evolution as the source of ethical feelings:
Our moral sense, our altruistic nature, is an adaptation—a feature helping us in the struggle for existence and reproduction—no less than hands and eyes, teeth and feet. It is a cost-effective way of getting us to cooperate, which avoids both the pitfalls of blind action and the expense of a superbrain of pure rationality.[3]
In applying science to metaethics, Ruse writes:
In a sense . . . the evolutionist's case is that ethics is a collective illusion of the human race, fashioned and maintained by natural selection in order to promote individual reproduction. . . . ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Ruse 1993, p. 133: "Evolutionary ethics [is] the project which argues that for a full understanding of the nature and grounds of morality one must turn to the process and theories of the evolutionist."
- ^ Huxley, p. 66
- ^ Ruse 1986, p. 230
- ^ Ruse 1986, p. 235
[edit] References
- Huxley, Thomas (1893), "Evolutionary Ethics", in Nitecki, Matthew H. & Doris V. Nitecki, Evolutionary Ethics, Albany: State University of New York, 1993, ISBN 0-7914-1499-X
- Ruse, Michael (1995), "Evolutionary Ethics: A Poenix Arisen", in Thompson, Paul, Issues in Evolutionary Ethics, Albany: State University of New York, ISBN 0-7914-2027-2
- Ruse, Michael (1993), "The New Evolutionary Ethics", in Nitecki, Matthew H. & Doris V. Nitecki, Evolutionary Ethics, Albany: State University of New York, ISBN 0-7914-1499-X
