Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Darwin and the big questions
- Part I Darwin gets religion
- Part II Life after Darwin
- Part III Morality stripped of superstition
- 11 Evolving good
- 12 Remaking morality
- 13 Uprooting the doctrine of human dignity
- 14 Evolution and the death of right and wrong
- Suggestions for further reading
- References
- Index
12 - Remaking morality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Darwin and the big questions
- Part I Darwin gets religion
- Part II Life after Darwin
- Part III Morality stripped of superstition
- 11 Evolving good
- 12 Remaking morality
- 13 Uprooting the doctrine of human dignity
- 14 Evolution and the death of right and wrong
- Suggestions for further reading
- References
- Index
Summary
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
Herbert Spencer (1868), p. 349Just because natural selection created us doesn't mean we have to slavishly follow its peculiar agenda. (If anything, we might be tempted to spite it for all the ridiculous baggage it's saddled us with.)
Robert Wright (1994), p. 37The nagging thought remains that Darwinism does have unsettling ethical consequences. The philosopher's reassurance that there will be no problem if we only remember to distinguish ‘ought’ from ‘is’ seems altogether too quick and easy. I believe this feeling of discomfort is justified.
James Rachels (1990), pp. 92–3Moral guidance for the modern primate
In the last chapter, we saw that evolutionary theory sheds light on why we think that certain things are right and others wrong. But does it shed any light on what actually is right and wrong? A lot of people think that it does, or worry that it might. Since the nineteenth century, many thinkers have attempted to wrest moral principles from evolutionary theory. Some have concluded that the theory converges with Genesis in suggesting that we should be fruitful and multiply – in other words, that we should do whatever we can to survive and reproduce. Others have concluded that Darwin's theory supports a might-makes-right ethic, in which ruthlessness and selfishness are given the sanction of nature.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Darwin, God and the Meaning of LifeHow Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Thought You Knew, pp. 223 - 257Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010