Evolutionary ethics and biologically supportable morality
| Abstract | Consider the paradox of altruism: the existence of truly altruistic behaviors is difficult to reconcile with evolutionary theory if natural selection operates only on individuals, since in that case individuals should be unwilling to sacrifice their own fitness for the sake of others. Evolutionists have frequently turned to the hypothesis of group selection to explain the existence of altruism; but group selection cannot explain the evolution of morality, since morality is a one-group phenomenon and group selection is a many-group phenomenon. After spelling out just what the problem is, this paper discusses several ways of solving it. | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesColin McGinn (1979). Evolution, Animals, and the Basis of Morality. Inquiry 22 (1-4):81 – 99.
Nicholas S. Thompson (2000). Shifting the Natural Selection Metaphor to the Group Level. Behavior and Philosophy 28 (1/2):83 - 101.
Scott Woodcock & Joseph Heath (2002). The Robustness of Altruism as an Evolutionary Strategy. Biology and Philosophy 17 (4).
Alejandro Rosas (2009). Levels of Selection in Synergy. Teorema 28 (2):135-150.
Elliott Sober (1980). Holism, Individualism, and the Units of Selection. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980:93 - 121.
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Samir Okasha (2001). Why Won't the Group Selection Controversy Go Away? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (1):25-50.
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