From Sir Leslie Stephen’s 1903 book. “Apology” here means defence (from apologia).
Published 25 Jan 2018
Category: Ethics and Moral Philosophy
Published 5 Mar 2016
Secular Calvinism
Australia is one of the most secular of developed nations. At the last census, 22% of people marked “No religion” as their affiliation, and the…
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Published 25 Sep 2014
On tribalism
Humans evolved in tribes, our species’ equivalent of the general primate troop structure. This meant that members of the tribe benefited from shared resources, the…
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Published 1 Jun 2014
Philosophical works that inspired me
I have been mulling over the philosophical works that were of most influence upon me when I was developing into the warped and twisted thing…
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Published 21 May 2014
Morality and Evolution 7: Conclusion
[Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] So far I have made out the following arguments: Evolution does in fact debunk moral realism, as the fitness bearer for…
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Published 21 May 2014
Morality and Evolution 6: Moral dispositions
[Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] In any field that has statistical variation, it is necessary to isolate the variables. Biology is all about statistical variation of…
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Published 20 May 2014
Morality and Evolution 5: biology and culture
[Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] I should note that there is no set historical sequence implied in the levels 0 to 4, apart from the fact…
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Published 19 May 2014
Morality and evolution 4: Is morality fitness-enhancing?
[Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] If we agree that morality enhances fitness, because it enables cooperation, several questions arise: what sort of fitness enhancement does it…
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Published 4 May 2014
Morality and Evolution 3: Apes and populations
[Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] Humans are apes, evolutionarily speaking. That is, while we are named distinctly in the vernacular usage from the rest of the…
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Published 30 Apr 2014
Morality and evolution 2: Moral facts
[Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] In a forthcoming paper, “Evolution and Moral Realism”, Kim Sterelny and Ben Fraser, of the Australian National University, have argued that…
