Ruse on a Biological Foundation for Ethics

Michael Ruth considers that biological science can be used as the basis of morality. (P.297) He first distinguished normative and meta ethical, and then set the stage of normative ethics as a biologically led adaptation function. He then continued to prove his actions by proveing ​​that we should influence our actions according to the biology we encountered the problem. At the beginning of Ruse there is a way for people to feel right and wrong, which has become the moral norm that we follow (p. 299).

Recently E. O. Wilson and scientific philosopher Michael Ruse (1940-) proposed a new moral theory. They refuse the theory that nature claims to prove value as a change of evolution. Because of lack of biological basis, they rejected Julian Huxley's theory. On the contrary, Wilson and Ruth established a relationship between morality and evolution without admitting the error of naturalism. (The idea or value you can get from.) They start with two scientific premises: 1) Social behavior of animals is controlled by genes; 2) Humans are animals. Since these two premises are true, we have chosen the unique biological human morality based on the choice of relatives.

What Wilson and Ruth says is that human beings have evolved altruistic trends in the core and soft core. Evolution and ethics are compatible. But morality does not have absolute grounds, moral beliefs fulfill our reproductive goals and only help us survive. Morality is essentially the illusion that our genes are being used to cooperate with us. If we have a different evolutionary history, our morality will be very different. But this does not lead to moral relativism and the ethical behavior we adopt is essential to our survival. Even without an objective foundation, understanding biology is only the first step in solving problems, as we are confronted with social problems that overwhelm biology. Morality is a legacy of evolution, not a reflection of God's truth.

In their article, Wilson and Ruse argue that evolutionary biology provides a solution to the Is-Ought problem. Contrary to the assertion that moral truth is independent of human nature and human nature, they claim to have "internal moral premise" to rely on "a unique program that started in the brain during evolution" To do. These internal concepts and plans create "strong enough to function as the basis of ethics principle" "right and wrong feelings". By understanding the brains deeply, in the end it will be possible to build a "permanent code" that we can not explain now.

There are two issues to consider when considering whether there is a biological decision in moral acts. Is the human-recognized system of ethics and codes biologically determined? The same distinction can be made about languages. The question of whether the ability of symbolic creative language is determined by our biological properties is different from the specific language we speak - English, Spanish, Chinese etc - Obviously not