Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2021
Dividing moral questions into those of substantive ethics, what should I do, and those of metaethics, why should I do what I should do, the mechanistic/Darwinian approach has little novel to say at the level of substantive ethics. One possible exception is that it is doubted we have equal moral obligations to all humans indifferently. We have special obligations to our children and other family members, and more to our friends and our countrymen than to others. We have obligations to the starving poor in Africa, but charity begins at home. Metaethically, the Darwinian can offer no justification. That would be to violate the naturalistic fallacy, going from claims about matters to claims about values. For the Darwinian the world has not intrinsic value. This means that the Darwinian is a moral non-realist. It does not mean they have no substantive ethics, but that these are psychological not grounded in external supports, natural or non-natural (like Platonic forms or the will of God). We objectify morality, thinking substantive claims do have support, are objective, otherwise we would all begin to cheat and the whole system breaks down. Ultimately, however, face to face, Darwinism demands a dramatic rethinking of common sense and the assumption of the ages, at least in western civilization.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.