Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Aristotle on the Biological Roots of Virtue: The Natural History of Natural Virtue
- 2 The Moral Status of Animals in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy
- 3 From Natural Law to Evolutionary Ethics in Enlightenment French Natural History
- 4 French Evolutionary Ethics during the Third Republic: Jean de Lanessan
- 5 The State and Nature of Unity and Freedom: German Romantic Biology and Ethics
- 6 Darwin's Romantic Biology: The Foundation of His Evolutionary Ethics
- 7 Nietzsche and Darwin
- 8 Evolutionary Ethics in the Twentieth Century: Julian Sorell Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson
- 9 The Laws of Inheritance and the Rules of Morality: Early Geneticists on Evolution and Ethics
- 10 Scientific Responsibility and Political Context: The Case of Genetics under the Swastika
- 11 The Case against Evolutionary Ethics Today
- 12 Biology and Value Theory
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Aristotle on the Biological Roots of Virtue: The Natural History of Natural Virtue
- 2 The Moral Status of Animals in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy
- 3 From Natural Law to Evolutionary Ethics in Enlightenment French Natural History
- 4 French Evolutionary Ethics during the Third Republic: Jean de Lanessan
- 5 The State and Nature of Unity and Freedom: German Romantic Biology and Ethics
- 6 Darwin's Romantic Biology: The Foundation of His Evolutionary Ethics
- 7 Nietzsche and Darwin
- 8 Evolutionary Ethics in the Twentieth Century: Julian Sorell Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson
- 9 The Laws of Inheritance and the Rules of Morality: Early Geneticists on Evolution and Ethics
- 10 Scientific Responsibility and Political Context: The Case of Genetics under the Swastika
- 11 The Case against Evolutionary Ethics Today
- 12 Biology and Value Theory
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Summary
It is at this point, I think, that we can best make the comparison between ethics and science, and the insurmountable barrier between them seems to me to lie in this fact, that in science we have such a source of conviction and in ethics we have not. Science rests ultimately on a basis of absolute certainty; ethics, so far at least, has not in general found any basis at all.
Thus asserted “Prof. H. Dingle” (Herbert Dingle) in an article in Nature in 1946, as quoted in “50 Years Ago” in 1996. He continued:
Science can therefore advance with confidence that although it may make mistakes they are not irreparable, and that even though its most trusted structures may come tumbling about its ears, it cannot finally collapse because underneath are the everlasting arms. They are two – reason and experience; on these twin supports science has an indestructible foundation. [Dingle 1996]
Although not everyone would endorse Professor Dingle's confidence about the absoluteness of the certainty in science, few would disagree with the proposition that science and ethics rest on different bases. And many would agree that attempts to provide a compelling epistemic warrant for ethical theory have failed. Indeed, moral theorists have often been willing to give up the search and engage in descriptive and normative ethical discussions, leaving the metatheoretical search to others. Biologists and philosophers of biology have eagerly taken up the challenge. Thus an unabashed program for naturalizing ethics has gained enthusiastic supporters in recent decades. Sociobiology, evolutionary ethics, and genetic determinism have all played their parts.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Biology and the Foundations of Ethics , pp. 1 - 9Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999