Evolutionary altruism, psychological egoism, and morality: disentangling the phenotypes

In Matthew H. Nitecki & Doris V. Nitecki (eds.), Evolutionary Ethics. SUNY Press. pp. 199--216 (1993)
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Abstract

I want to explain some of the gaps I see between the concepts of morality and altruism. Indeed, there are three concepts here that need to be disentangled, not just two. Evolutionists use the terms “altruism” and “selfishness” in a way that differs from the usage found in ordinary parlance. So my goal is to separate evolutionary altruism, psychological altruism, and morality. Morality includes a variety of characteristics. There is more to morality than altruism. If we can avoid the mistake of thinking we have explained the whole when we have explained only the part, we may yet be able to advance our understanding of what morality is and where it came from.

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Elliott Sober
University of Wisconsin, Madison

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