Overview

Evolutionary ethics is a field that explores how evolutionary theory can bear on our understanding of ethics and morality. It asks: Did morality evolve? And if so, does that debunk it?

Core Idea

The core idea is that our moral instincts (empathy, fairness, shame) are adaptations that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce in social groups.

Formal Definition

  • Descriptive Evolutionary Ethics: Explaining why we have the moral beliefs we do (biology/psychology).
  • Normative Evolutionary Ethics: Trying to derive what we ought to do from evolution (often criticized).

Intuition

  • The Selfish Gene: Why do we care for our children? Because they carry our genes. Why do we help friends? Reciprocal altruism (“I scratch your back, you scratch mine”).
  • The Trolley Problem: Our intuition to not push the fat man might be an evolved aversion to physical violence, whereas pulling the lever feels different because it’s abstract.

Examples

  • Incest Taboo: Most cultures ban incest. Evolution explains this as a mechanism to avoid genetic defects (Westermarck effect).
  • Group Selection: Groups with more altruists outcompeted groups of selfish individuals.

Common Misconceptions

  • Misconception: Evolution makes “might makes right” correct.
    • Correction: That is the Naturalistic Fallacy. Just because nature is cruel doesn’t mean we should be.
  • Misconception: It proves morality is fake.
    • Correction: It explains the origin of morality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean moral truths don’t exist (Genetic Fallacy).
  • Social Darwinism: A discredited ideology applying “survival of the fittest” to human society.
  • Naturalistic Fallacy: Deriving an “ought” from an “is.”
  • Debunking Arguments: Arguments that if morality is just an evolutionary tool, objective moral truth is unlikely.

Applications

  • Psychology: Understanding moral intuitions.
  • Animal Ethics: Recognizing the roots of morality in other primates (Frans de Waal).

Criticism and Limitations

  • The Is-Ought Gap: Evolution tells us what is (we are tribal), not what ought to be (we should be cosmopolitan).
  • Reductionism: Can complex things like “justice” really be reduced to “survival strategies”?

Further Reading

  • The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
  • The Evolution of Morality by Richard Joyce
  • Primates and Philosophers by Frans de Waal