Tim Lewens
Biographic Data
| ID | 441113 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tim Lewens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tim |
| FAMILY NAME | Lewens |
| SIGNATURE | LEWENS T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4617-9216 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 91 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Towards a Direct Role for Values in the Heart of Science
Douglas has argued that if values were accorded a “direct” role during the “internal” phases of science, this would amount to “wishful thinking” in place of evidence. This article draws on two claims that jointly threaten this position. First, building a cogent ethical case in favor of a claim about what ought to happen is not a simple matter of saying what one wishes were true; a good ethical case has a kind of discipline to it. Second, some the…
Cultural Selection
Humans learn in ways that are influenced by others. As a result, cultural items of many types are elaborated over time in ways that build on the achievements of previous generations. Culture therefore shows a pattern of descent with modification reminiscent of Darwinian evolution. This raises the question of whether cultural selection-a mechanism akin to natural selection, albeit working when learned items are passed from demonstrators to observe…
The fragility of origin essentialism: Where mitochondrial ‘replacement’ meets the non‐identity problem
Few discussions of the ethics of mitochondrial ‘replacement’ techniques have drawn significant ethical distinctions between the two approaches now legal in the U.K. However, Anthony Wrigley, Stephen Wilkinson and John Appleby have together argued that under some circumstances pronuclear transfer (PNT) may be in better ethical standing than maternal spindle transfer (MST). They base their conclusion on what they allege to be different implications…
Book Forum
Species Natures: A Critique of Neo-Aristotelian Ethics
This paper examines the neo-Aristotelian account of species natures as 'life-forms', which we owe to Philippa Foot, Michael Thompson and their defenders. I begin by developing two problems for their view: a problem of underdetermination and a problem generated by psychological work on 'folk essentialism'. I move on to consider their important transcendental argument, which suggests that claims about life-forms are presupposed by all efforts to de…
Neo-Paleyan biology
The Progress of Moral Evolution
Buchanan and Powell’s book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the evolution of morality. I suggest that they exaggerate the degree to which their view of the evolution of moral progress is committed to a form of moral realism. I also suggest that Darwin’s own approach to the evolution of the moral sense shares more with their view than they may realise. Finally I point to some tensions in their invocation of the concept of the Env…
Why We Disagree About Human Nature
Is human nature something that the natural and social sciences aim to describe, or is it a pernicious fiction? What role, if any, does ‘human nature’ play in directing and informing scientific work? Can we talk about human nature without invoking—either implicitly or explicitly—a contrast with human culture? It might be tempting to think that the respectability of ‘human nature’ is an issue that divides natural and social scientists along discipl…
The Social Construction of Human Nature
What is the job that the term ‘human nature’ is expected to do? Three notions are prevalent but are problematic: (1) Distinguishing what is biological from what is cultural/environmental. Here the term fails. (2) Characterizing the defining features of humanity, thereby allowing us to be distinguished from other species. This stance is tenable but contributes little. (3) Characterizing what is universal or typical about humanity, because of our ‘…
The meaning of science: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
Cultural Evolution: Conceptual Challenges
This book exposes and evaluates a set of conceptual disputes concerning what we might mean by culture, and how we should go about accounting for it. Its particular focus is a set of evolutionary approaches to the genesis of the human capacity for culture, to subsequent cultural change, and to the ways in which genetic and cultural change interact, or 'co-evolve'. Debates over the propriety of cultural evolutionary theory have divided biological a…
The Descent of Culture
Stephen Davies’ book shows admirable sensitivity to the complexities of aesthetic appreciation, the making of art, and evolutionary explanation. Our critical comments focus on his understanding of how the natural and the cultural are to be distinguished. We suggest that recent work on the evolution of cognition undermines any strict distinction between that which is learned, and therefore within the domain of culture or technology, and that which…
KIM STERELNY The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique
From bricolage to BioBricksTM: Synthetic biology and rational design
Human Nature: The Very Idea
Species, essence and explanation
The risks of progress: Precaution and the case of human enhancement
So‐called ‘enhancement technologies’ are technologies that promise to boost human mental and physical capacities beyond the normal upper range found in our species. Here it is argued that some of the most salient questions about the ethics of enhancement concern the ethics of risk, and precaution in particular. This paper uses recent work by John Harris to expose these risk‐based considerations, and it aims to temper Harris’s enthusiasm for enhan…
What Are ‘Natural Inequalities’
The varying demands of justice are often thought to depend on a distinction between natural and social inequalities, but making this distinction has been little discussed, and it has been dismissed by philosophers of biology. It cannot be established by a simple causal criterion, nor by use of the analysis of variance, nor by distinguishing the innate from the acquired. Whether an inequality can be socially controlled provides the most plausible …
The Natures of Selection
Elliott Sober and his defenders think of selection, drift, mutation, and migration as distinct evolutionary forces. This paper exposes an ambiguity in Sober's account of the force of selection: sometimes he appears to equate the force of selection with variation in fitness, sometimes with ‘selection for properties’. Sober's own account of fitness as a property analogous to life-expectancy shows how the two conceptions come apart. Cases where ther…
What Is Wrong with Typological Thinking
What, if anything, is wrong with typological thinking? The question is important, for some evolutionary developmental biologists appear to espouse a form of typology. I isolate four allegations that have been brought against it. They include the claim that typological thinking is mystical; the claim that typological thinking is at odds with the fact of evolution; the claim that typological thinking is committed to an objectionable metaphysical vi…
In Memoriam: Peter Lipton
Peter Lipton, one of the world's best-loved philosophers of science, died from a heart attack on the evening of November 25, 2007, at the age of 53. He had been playing squash-a game which he loved, and which he was very good at. Lipton was known for his humor, for his deep love for his family
Darwinism and Metaphysics
Risk: Philosophical Perspectives
Introduction: Risk and Philosophy Tim Lewens 1. Risk and Ethics: Three Approaches Sven Ove Hansson 2. Towards a Non-Consequentialist Approach to Acceptable Risks Carl Cranor 3. What is the Value of Preventing a Fatality? Jonathan Wolff 4. On Multi-Attribute Risk Analysis Martin Peterson 5. Great Expectations Adam Morton 6. Common Sense Precaution and Varieties of the Precautionary Principle Per Sandin 7. Acting Under Risk D.H. Mellor 8. Towards a…
Darwin (The Routledge Philosophers)
Realism and the Strong Program
The four tenets of the Strong Program are compatible with a scientific realism founded on an externalist epistemology. Such an epistemology allows that appropriate norms of rationality may differ from time to time, and from community to community, and thereby enables the realist to embrace strong forms of the ‘symmetry principle’. It also suggests a fruitful collaborative research program in externalist social epistemology. Some of what the Edinb…
The Trials of Life: Natural Selection and Random Drift
We distinguish dynamical and statistical interpretations of evolutionary theory. We argue that only the statistical interpretation preserves the presumed relation between natural selection and drift. On these grounds we claim that the dynamical conception of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces is mistaken. Selection and drift are not forces. Nor do selection and drift explanations appeal to the (sub-population-level) causes of population le…
Sex and Selection: A Reply to Matthen
Mohan Matthen ([1999]) argues that when reproduction is sexual, natural selection can explain why individual organisms possess the traits they do. In stating his argument Matthen makes use of a conception of individual organisms as receptacles for collections of genes—a conception that cannot do the work Matthen requires of it. Either these receptacles are abstract objects, such as bare possibilities for organisms, or they are concrete. The first…
The Natures of Selection
Elliott Sober and his defenders think of selection, drift, mutation, and migration as distinct evolutionary forces. This paper exposes an ambiguity in Sober's account of the force of selection: sometimes he appears to equate the force of selection with variation in fitness, sometimes with ‘selection for properties’. Sober's own account of fitness as a property analogous to life-expectancy shows how the two conceptions come apart. Cases where ther…
Species, essence and explanation
From bricolage to BioBricksTM: Synthetic biology and rational design
What Is Wrong with Typological Thinking
What, if anything, is wrong with typological thinking? The question is important, for some evolutionary developmental biologists appear to espouse a form of typology. I isolate four allegations that have been brought against it. They include the claim that typological thinking is mystical; the claim that typological thinking is at odds with the fact of evolution; the claim that typological thinking is committed to an objectionable metaphysical vi…
Realism and the Strong Program
The four tenets of the Strong Program are compatible with a scientific realism founded on an externalist epistemology. Such an epistemology allows that appropriate norms of rationality may differ from time to time, and from community to community, and thereby enables the realist to embrace strong forms of the ‘symmetry principle’. It also suggests a fruitful collaborative research program in externalist social epistemology. Some of what the Edinb…
Function talk and the artefact model
Species Natures: A Critique of Neo-Aristotelian Ethics
This paper examines the neo-Aristotelian account of species natures as 'life-forms', which we owe to Philippa Foot, Michael Thompson and their defenders. I begin by developing two problems for their view: a problem of underdetermination and a problem generated by psychological work on 'folk essentialism'. I move on to consider their important transcendental argument, which suggests that claims about life-forms are presupposed by all efforts to de…
Neo-Paleyan biology
The commercial exploitation of ethics
Function talk and the artefact model
Sex and Selection: A Reply to Matthen
Mohan Matthen ([1999]) argues that when reproduction is sexual, natural selection can explain why individual organisms possess the traits they do. In stating his argument Matthen makes use of a conception of individual organisms as receptacles for collections of genes—a conception that cannot do the work Matthen requires of it. Either these receptacles are abstract objects, such as bare possibilities for organisms, or they are concrete. The first…
Development aid: On ontogeny and ethics
Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process Darwinnovation
The Trials of Life: Natural Selection and Random Drift
We distinguish dynamical and statistical interpretations of evolutionary theory. We argue that only the statistical interpretation preserves the presumed relation between natural selection and drift. On these grounds we claim that the dynamical conception of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces is mistaken. Selection and drift are not forces. Nor do selection and drift explanations appeal to the (sub-population-level) causes of population le…
The commercial exploitation of ethics
Is something wrong with bioethics
Realism and the Strong Program
The four tenets of the Strong Program are compatible with a scientific realism founded on an externalist epistemology. Such an epistemology allows that appropriate norms of rationality may differ from time to time, and from community to community, and thereby enables the realist to embrace strong forms of the ‘symmetry principle’. It also suggests a fruitful collaborative research program in externalist social epistemology. Some of what the Edinb…
Darwin (The Routledge Philosophers)
Darwinism and Metaphysics
Risk: Philosophical Perspectives
Introduction: Risk and Philosophy Tim Lewens 1. Risk and Ethics: Three Approaches Sven Ove Hansson 2. Towards a Non-Consequentialist Approach to Acceptable Risks Carl Cranor 3. What is the Value of Preventing a Fatality? Jonathan Wolff 4. On Multi-Attribute Risk Analysis Martin Peterson 5. Great Expectations Adam Morton 6. Common Sense Precaution and Varieties of the Precautionary Principle Per Sandin 7. Acting Under Risk D.H. Mellor 8. Towards a…
In Memoriam: Peter Lipton
Peter Lipton, one of the world's best-loved philosophers of science, died from a heart attack on the evening of November 25, 2007, at the age of 53. He had been playing squash-a game which he loved, and which he was very good at. Lipton was known for his humor, for his deep love for his family
What Is Wrong with Typological Thinking
What, if anything, is wrong with typological thinking? The question is important, for some evolutionary developmental biologists appear to espouse a form of typology. I isolate four allegations that have been brought against it. They include the claim that typological thinking is mystical; the claim that typological thinking is at odds with the fact of evolution; the claim that typological thinking is committed to an objectionable metaphysical vi…
The risks of progress: Precaution and the case of human enhancement
So‐called ‘enhancement technologies’ are technologies that promise to boost human mental and physical capacities beyond the normal upper range found in our species. Here it is argued that some of the most salient questions about the ethics of enhancement concern the ethics of risk, and precaution in particular. This paper uses recent work by John Harris to expose these risk‐based considerations, and it aims to temper Harris’s enthusiasm for enhan…
What Are ‘Natural Inequalities’
The varying demands of justice are often thought to depend on a distinction between natural and social inequalities, but making this distinction has been little discussed, and it has been dismissed by philosophers of biology. It cannot be established by a simple causal criterion, nor by use of the analysis of variance, nor by distinguishing the innate from the acquired. Whether an inequality can be socially controlled provides the most plausible …
The Natures of Selection
Elliott Sober and his defenders think of selection, drift, mutation, and migration as distinct evolutionary forces. This paper exposes an ambiguity in Sober's account of the force of selection: sometimes he appears to equate the force of selection with variation in fitness, sometimes with ‘selection for properties’. Sober's own account of fitness as a property analogous to life-expectancy shows how the two conceptions come apart. Cases where ther…
Human Nature: The Very Idea
Species, essence and explanation
From bricolage to BioBricksTM: Synthetic biology and rational design
The Descent of Culture
Stephen Davies’ book shows admirable sensitivity to the complexities of aesthetic appreciation, the making of art, and evolutionary explanation. Our critical comments focus on his understanding of how the natural and the cultural are to be distinguished. We suggest that recent work on the evolution of cognition undermines any strict distinction between that which is learned, and therefore within the domain of culture or technology, and that which…
KIM STERELNY The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique
Cultural Evolution: Conceptual Challenges
This book exposes and evaluates a set of conceptual disputes concerning what we might mean by culture, and how we should go about accounting for it. Its particular focus is a set of evolutionary approaches to the genesis of the human capacity for culture, to subsequent cultural change, and to the ways in which genetic and cultural change interact, or 'co-evolve'. Debates over the propriety of cultural evolutionary theory have divided biological a…
The meaning of science: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
Why We Disagree About Human Nature
Is human nature something that the natural and social sciences aim to describe, or is it a pernicious fiction? What role, if any, does ‘human nature’ play in directing and informing scientific work? Can we talk about human nature without invoking—either implicitly or explicitly—a contrast with human culture? It might be tempting to think that the respectability of ‘human nature’ is an issue that divides natural and social scientists along discipl…
The Social Construction of Human Nature
What is the job that the term ‘human nature’ is expected to do? Three notions are prevalent but are problematic: (1) Distinguishing what is biological from what is cultural/environmental. Here the term fails. (2) Characterizing the defining features of humanity, thereby allowing us to be distinguished from other species. This stance is tenable but contributes little. (3) Characterizing what is universal or typical about humanity, because of our ‘…
Epistemology (22 works) · Philosophy (22 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Computer Science (15 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Biology (11 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (10 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (10 works) · Political science (8 works) · Environmental ethics (7 works)