On Some Conceptual and Explanatory Difficulties of Evolutionary Ethics

Prolegomena 4 (1):49-70 (2005)
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Abstract

In the article it is argued that contemporary evolutionary ethics – to the extent it accepts sociobiological strategies of naturalizing human morality – faces some serious conceptual and explanatory difficulties. Conceptual difficulty consists in recognizing that “morality” is not the same as “altruism”, but rather comprises several specific elements which distinguish it from both evolutionary and psychological altruism. Explanatory difficulty consists in recognizing that the phenomenon of morality appropriately conceptualized cannot be incorporated into standard sociobiological explanations without endangering some basic assumptions of those explanations, primarily the assumption of “gene selectionism”, as well as the assumption of “evolutionarily stable strategies”. The basic argument is that one cannot retain both the appropriate concept of human morality and key assumptions of sociobiological explanations.

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Author Profiles

Tomislav Bracanovic
University of Zagreb
Tomislav Bracanovic
Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb

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References found in this work

Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature.Philip Kitcher & J. H. Fetzer - 1987 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (3):389-392.
The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism.Robert L. Trivers - 1971 - Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1):35-57.
Evolutionary altruism, psychological egoism, and morality: disentangling the phenotypes.Elliott Sober - 1993 - In Matthew Nitecki & Doris Nitecki (eds.), Evolutionary Ethics. Suny Press. pp. 199--216.
The Expanding Circle.Anthony Manser & Peter Singer - 1983 - Philosophical Quarterly 33 (132):305.

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