Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Darwin and the big questions
- Part I Darwin gets religion
- Part II Life after Darwin
- Part III Morality stripped of superstition
- 11 Evolving good
- 12 Remaking morality
- 13 Uprooting the doctrine of human dignity
- 14 Evolution and the death of right and wrong
- Suggestions for further reading
- References
- Index
11 - Evolving good
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Darwin and the big questions
- Part I Darwin gets religion
- Part II Life after Darwin
- Part III Morality stripped of superstition
- 11 Evolving good
- 12 Remaking morality
- 13 Uprooting the doctrine of human dignity
- 14 Evolution and the death of right and wrong
- Suggestions for further reading
- References
- Index
Summary
Scientists and humanists should consider together the possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologized.
E. O. Wilson (1975), p. 562We believe that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, because it is in our biological interests to do so.
Michael Ruse (1988), p. 74Morality is the device of an animal of exceptional cognitive complexity, pursuing its interests in an exceptionally complex universe.
Martin Daly and Margo Wilson (1988), p. 254Evolutionary ethics
Evolutionary theory is unique in its ability to inflame passions and catalyse debate. One particularly heated area of debate concerns the impact of the theory for ethics. Some flatly deny that evolution has any relevance to ethics, a view they support by arguing that values cannot be derived from mere facts about the world. Others dispute this, although among this group there is little consensus about what exactly the moral implications of Darwin's theory might be. Some argue that the theory supports laissez-faire social policies and the abolition of social welfare. Others argue that it forces us to rethink and recalibrate our moral priorities, and to reassess the value we place on the lives of humans v. other animals. Finally there are those who draw a darker conclusion, suggesting that the truth of evolutionary theory undermines morality altogether. In the remaining chapters, we'll consider each of these views in turn.
Before we do that, though, we'll examine the evolutionary underpinnings of morality.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Darwin, God and the Meaning of LifeHow Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Thought You Knew, pp. 201 - 222Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010