Ethics and Moral Philosophy Morality and Evolution 3: Apes and populations 4 May 201422 May 2014 [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 apes (chimp, bonobo, gorilla, orang-utan, gibbons x 2), we fall squarely within the great ape clade. As such, we might expect that we share with… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Morality and evolution 2: Moral facts 1 May 201422 May 2014 [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 there can be moral facts that evolution by selection tracks. Their argument is that moral reasoning is complex, and relies upon rapid judgements (what Daniel… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Morality and Evolution 1: The Milvian Bridge 29 Apr 201422 May 2014 [Morality and Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7] A while back I gave a talk to a group of theologians on the question of Darwinian accidents. It had no ethics content. The first question I was asked was “If you are an atheist, how can you have moral rules?” Like many others who talk… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy On knowing the rules 17 Oct 201317 Oct 2013 The reader may have become aware of some examples of sexual harassment on the interwubs lately. I do not propose to get involved or to make detailed comment as I do not know much about the cases apart from what has been mentioned online. I take it as read these… Continue Reading
Cognition Are emotions 2D? 7 Oct 20137 Oct 2013 I recently became aware that there is a new development in emotion classification. Previously, as far as I knew, emotions were thought to be human universals, give or take some variation (such as the emotion “metagu” among the Ifaluk islanders, see Linquist 2007) and researchers like Paul Ekman, who works as… Continue Reading
Biology Evopsychopathy 5: Conclusion 2 Jan 20133 Jan 2013 The criticisms of evolutionary psychology and its predecessors sociobiologies 1 through 3 focus on three major points: 1. It is adaptively-biased; 2. It is gene-centric (or biological determinist, which amounts to the same thing); 3. It is culturally biased in favour of the privileged classes of the people making the… Continue Reading
Biology Evopsychopathy 1. Conditions for sociobiology 6 Dec 201218 Sep 2017 Well I better put up or shut up, I guess. Here are my ruminations, excretions, and expressions regarding evolutionary psychology, or, as we might call it, evopsychopathy. I am, as I have said, a born again sociobiologist, so I guess that makes me an evopychopath. Let’s get a few things… Continue Reading
Biology Why is Darwin’s theory so controversial? 24 Nov 2012 So asks this essay and gets the whole thing wrong. Darwin’s theories (plural) are not controversial because they imply that species are mutable. This was a widely held view by preachers, moralists, Aristotelians, naturalists, breeders, formalists, folk biology, and even biblical translators. Darwin was not controversial because he implied racist… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Evolution quotes: Social Darwinism by Haldane 23 Oct 201223 Oct 2012 The actual application of Darwinism to contemporary capitalist society is quite clear. The poor leave more offspring behind them in each generation than the rich. So they are fitter from a Darwinian point of view. And if, on the average, they differ genetically from the rich, their innate characteristics are… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Jack Smart has died 7 Oct 201211 Oct 2012 The Twitterverse is reporting that Jack (J. J. C.) Smart has died at the age of 92. Smart was a very influential philosopher who, although born in the UK, was regarded as an Australian materialist. Smart held that mind and brain are identical, along with another UK philosopher turned Australian,… Continue Reading