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This book introduces readers to the application of evolutionary ideas to moral thinking and justification, presenting contrasting perspectives on controversial issues.
List of contents
Introduction Michael Ruse and Robert J. Richards; Part I. Historical: 1. Ethics, evolution and the a priori: Ross on Spencer and the French sociologists Hallvard Lillehammer; 2. Nietzsche's rejection of nineteenth-century evolutionary ethics Jeffrey O'Connell; 3. American pragmatism, evolution, and ethics Trevor Pearce; 4. The path to the present Abraham H. Gibson; 5. Social Darwinism and market morality: a modern-day view for evolutionary ethics Naomi Beck; Part II. For Evolutionary Ethics: 6. Darwinian evolutionary ethics Michael Ruse; 7. Human morality: from an empirical puzzle to a metaethical puzzle Richard Joyce; 8. Evolution and the epistemological challenge to moral realism Justin Horn; 9. Evolutionary naturalism and valuation Richard A. Richards; 10. Evolutionary ethics, a theory of moral realism Robert J. Richards; 11. Moral mismatch and abolition Ben Fraser; Part III. Against Debunking Arguments: 12. Moral realism and evolutionary debunking arguments Russ Shafer-Landau; 13. Why Darwinism does not debunk objective morality William J. FitzPatrick; 14. Debunking arguments: mathematics, logic, and modal security Justin Clarke-Doane; 15. Evolution and the missing link (in debunking arguments) Uri D. Leibowitz and Neil Sinclair; 16. Better than our nature? Evolution and moral realism, justification and progress Michael Vlerick; Part IV. Elaborations: 17. Darwinian ethics: biological individuality and moral relativism Frédéric Bouchard; 18. Evolutionary psychology, feminist critiques thereof, and the naturalistic fallacy Lynn Hankinson Nelson; 19. A theological evaluation of evolutionary ethics Michael L. Peterson.
About the author
Michael Ruse is Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University. His publications include The Philosophy of Human Evolution (Cambridge, 2012), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought (Cambridge, 2013), and Science, Evolution, and Religion (2016).Robert J. Richards is Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor in the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago. His publications include Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (1987), Was Hitler a Darwinian? Disputed Questions in the History of Evolutionary Theory (2013), and Debating Darwin (2016).
Summary
Recently there has been a major revival of interest in the connections between evolutionary theory, especially that of Darwin, and moral reasoning and action. This wide-ranging and clearly written book traces the history of evolutionary ethics and takes readers through the arguments involved.
