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"Ethics, Evolutionary."
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The ethical project
In a revolutionary approach to the problems of moral philosophy, Philip Kitcher makes a provocative proposal: Instead of conceiving ethical commands as divine revelations or as the discoveries of brilliant thinkers, we should see our ethical practices as evolving over tens of thousands of years.
Book
The evolution of moral progress : a biocultural theory
The idea of moral progress played a central role in liberal political thought from the Enlightenment through the nineteenth century but is rarely encountered in moral and political philosophical discourse today. One reason for this is that traditional liberal theorists of moral progress, like their conservative detractors, tended to rely on underevidenced assumptions about human psychology and society. For the first time in history, we are developing robust scientific knowledge about human nature, especially through empirical psychological theories of morality and culture that are informed by evolutionary theory. In addition, the social sciences now provide better information about which social arrangements are feasible and sustainable and about how social norms arise, change, and come to shape moral thought and behavior. Accordingly, it is time to revisit the question of moral progress. On the surface, evolutionary accounts of morality paint a pessimistic picture, suggesting that certain types of moral progress are unrealistic or inappropriate for beings like us. In brief, humans are said to be “hard-wired” for rather limited moral capacities. However, such a view overlooks the great plasticity of human morality as evidenced by our history of social and political moral achievements. To account for these changes while giving evolved moral psychology its due, we develop a dynamic, biocultural theory of moral progress that highlights the interaction between adaptive components of moral psychology and the cultural construction of moral norms and beliefs; and we explore how this interaction can advance, impede, and reverse moral progress.
eBook
Evolutionary Ethics: Understanding its Transition
This paper offers a descriptive account of the transition in evolutionary ethics with reference to some major works from ethics, sociobiology, moral psychology, and primatology. The causes and nature of the transition are discussed by making a distinction between traditional and recent trends in evolutionary ethics enabling us to understand the significance of contemporary evolutionary ethics. The study is gradually directed toward a crucial question of ethics that is the place of reason in morality and what evolutionary ethics implies for Kantian ethics in the question of reason. Many advocates of evolutionary ethics and evolutionary moral psychology claim that reason plays no role or plays a very insignificant role in morality. Such assertion often leads to a rejection of Kantian ethics in particular and cognitivism in general. In this backdrop, the scope of reconciling evolutionary ethics with Kantian ethics as proposed by Frederick Rauscher is analyzed. This paper is thus an attempt to expose the significance of evolutionary ethics with reference to the relation of reason and morality.
Journal Article
Moral development and reality : beyond the theories of Kohlberg and Hoffman
Moral Development and Reality: Beyond the Theories of Kohlberg and Hoffman explores the nature of moral development, social behavior, and human interconnectedness. By comparing, contrasting, and going beyond the works of pre-eminent theorists Lawrence Kohlberg and Martin Hoffman, author John C. Gibbs addresses fundamental questions: What is morality? Can we speak validly of moral development? Is the moral motivation of behavior primarily a matter of justice or of empathy? Does moral development, including moments of moral inspiration, reflect a deeper reality? Moral Development and Reality elucidates the full range of moral development from superficial perception to a deeper understanding and feeling through social perspective-taking. Providing case studies and chapter questions, Gibbs creates a unique framework for understanding Kohlberg′s and Hoffman′s influential contributions.
eBook
The Maternal Factor
In this provocative new book, renowned educator and philosopher Nel Noddings extends her influential work on the ethics of care toward a compelling objective—global peace and justice. She asks: If we celebrate the success of women becoming more like men in professional life, should we not simultaneously hope that men become more like women—in caring for others, rejecting violence, and valuing the work of caring both publicly and personally? Drawing on current work on evolution, and bringing concrete examples from women’s lived experience to make a strong case for her position, Noddings answers this question by locating one source of morality in maternal instinct. She traces the development of the maternal instinct to natural caring and ethical caring, offering a preliminary sketch of what a care-driven concept of justice might look like. Finally, to advance the cause of caring, peace, and women’s advancement, Noddings urges women to abandon institutional, patriarchal religion and to seek their own paths to spirituality.
eBook
Naturalized Bioethics
Naturalized bioethics represents a revolutionary change in how health care ethics is practised. It calls for bioethicists to give up their dependence on utilitarianism and other ideal moral theories and instead to move toward a self-reflexive, socially inquisitive, politically critical, and inclusive ethics. Wary of idealisations that bypass social realities, the naturalism in ethics that is developed in this volume is empirically nourished and acutely aware that ethical theory is the practice of particular people in particular times, places, cultures, and professional environments. These essays situate the bioethicist within the clinical or research context, take seriously the web of relationships in which all human beings are nested, and explore a number of the different kinds of power relations that inform health care encounters. Naturalized Bioethics aims to help bioethicists, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, disability studies scholars, medical researchers, and other health professionals address the ethical issues surrounding health care.
eBook