How Gene-Culture Coevolution can-but Probably did not-Track Mind-Independent Moral Truth

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3143802
AutoresNathan Cofnas (0000-0002-4145-9956, University of Oxford, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume73
Fascículo2
Páginas414-434
Data de publicação2023-03-21
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqac047
OpenAlexW4293395786
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas47

I argue that our general disposition to make moral judgments and our core moral intuitions are likely the product of social selection-a kind of gene-culture coevolution driven by the enforcement of collectively agreed-upon rules. Social selection could potentially track mind-independent moral truth by a process that I term realist social selection: our ancestors could have acquired moral knowledge via reason and enforced rules based on that knowledge, thereby creating selection pressures that drove the evolution of our moral psychology. Given anthropological evidence that early humans designed rules with the conscious aim of preserving individual autonomy and advancing their collective interests, the theory of realist social selection appears to be attractive for moral realists. The goal of evolutionary debunking arguments should be to show not that our moral beliefs are the product of natural selection, but that realist social selection did not occur

Autonomy · Biology · Coevolution · Epistemology · Group selection · Moral authority · Moral disengagement · Moral psychology · Moral reasoning · Natural selection · Political science · Selection (genetic algorithm · Social cognitive theory of morality · Sociology · Computer Science · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology