Commentators and philosophers often use arguments that are rooted in evolutionary biology. When convenient, they will choose this method of analysis from among alternatives, as if it is one tool in their tool-box. A conservative who wants to make some point about gender roles may argue that men are evolved to hunt and women are evolved to raise children. A nutritionist may argue that humans are evolved to eat a diet of primarily wild berries. A statistician might argue that humans are evolved to weight threatening events differently from beneficial events. In countless fields, thinkers will use Darwinian thinking to justify their ideas if and when it is convenient to do so.
In reality, evolutionary thinking is much more important. It should be regarded as a constraint on all knowledge. Any piece of information that cannot be explained or understood in an evolutionary context should be viewed with deep suspicion. This is because unlike other tools and modes of analysis, evolutionary thinking is not simply one tool in the toolbox. There is not a set of analytical techniques, each equally valid and simply suited to different contexts, and our minds can simply carry them around with no preference to one or the other. Our minds are designed to think in a certain way, and to survive in a harsh world. The toolbox of ideas is not an empty vessel. It has been formed in a biological crucible to carry a specific kind of tool, and the others it may carry are baggage or bonuses. Evolutionary thinking is not a tool. It is the toolbox.
Building ethics from first principles of evolutionary biology will depend a lot on your view of Kin selection vs. Group selection. With kin selection, you can best 'propogate your genes' by dying for two brothers of eight cousins. With group selection, you could best propagate your genes by dying with at Gettysburg to preserve the Union while being an only child and widowing a childless wife. Like the many ants that are reproductively sterile lay down their life for the colony ultimately promotes their individual 'will' into the future.
ReplyDeleteThe modern human is one that is civilization-based, and his success relies on his civilization succeeding. If you take that reality as the new 'biological crucible' acting as a selection driver within evolution, I think your toolbox expands to include many more ethics systems, many of these being classical philosophies.