Empirically Engaged Evolutionary Ethics

A growing body of evidence from the sciences suggests that our moral beliefs have an evolutionary basis. To explain how human morality evolved, some philosophers have called for the study of morality to be naturalized, i.e., to explain it in terms of natural causes by looking at its historical and biological origins. The present literature has focused on the link between evolution and moral realism: if our moral beliefs enhance fitness, does this mean they track moral truths? In spite of the growing empirical evidence, these discussions tend to remain high-level: the mere fact that morality has evolved is often deemed enough to decide questions in normative and meta-ethics. This volume starts from the assumption that the details about the evolution of morality do make a difference, and asks how. It presents original essays by authors from various disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, developmental psychology, and primatology, who write in conversation with neuroscience, sociology, and cognitive psychology.

Johan De Smedt has co-authored A natural history of natural theology. The cognitive science of theology and philosophy of religion (MIT Press, 2015) and The Challenge of Evolution to Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and published empirically-informed philosophy of science, religion, and art.

Helen De Cruz is holder of the Danforth Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University, Missouri, US. Her publications are in empirically-informed philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of religion, social epistemology, and metaphilosophy. She is author of, recently, Religious Disagreement (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and co-editor of Philosophy through Science Fiction Stories. Exploring the Boundaries of the Possible (Bloomsbury, 2021).