The Is And The Ought

Thomas de Zengotita offers a lengthy, searching critique of evolutionary psychology, summarizing a core feature of his argument this way:

It comes down to this: we cannot find truly ethical guidance in a nature shaped by evolution. Natural selection is random—random as to the mutations that produce variation, random as to the accidents of circumstance that make one variant adaptive and another fatal. Natural selection may indeed be responsible for something like a “mother instinct” that inspires tender mammalian behaviors of which we all approve. But natural selection may also be responsible for our instinctive tendency to fear what is strange and attack what is feared, thus contributing to the pageant of slaughter that has been human history. Ethical thought must take into account what Darwinian nature has made of us, and political provision must be made for that. But nothing ethical per se—nothing good or bad or even meaningful is to be found there.

via The Dish http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/04/28/the-is-and-the-ought-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Dish%29