Morality and natural selection: a defense of evolutionary ethics

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to demonstrate how evolutionary ethics manages to overcome the empirical and conceptual challenges that are imposed on it. Contemporary evolutionary ethics endorses a methodological naturalist perspective, and can be characterized as a theoretical project that seeks to explain human morality from considerations of the theory of evolution. However, for this project to be carried out satisfactorily, it is necessary to overcome the challenges that have traditionally been posed to it, namely, the problem of altruism and the challenges of the naturalistic fallacy and Hume's law. At a first moment, it will be shown that the problem of altruism can be minimized from the theories of reciprocal altruism and kin selection. In a second moment, it will be shown that conceptual problems are minimized from the descriptivist character of evolutionary ethics. Finally, we will argue that, although pertinent challenges have been raised, evolutionary ethics manages to offer strong answers and consolidate itself as an important theoretical alternative and as a scientifically informed philosophical project.