ELFT HÍRADÓ

["Laszlo E. Szabo" <leszabo AT ludens.elte.hu>]

Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Eotvos University
Budapest, Pazmany P. setany 1/A

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE COLLOQUIUM
(http://hps.elte.hu/seminar)
________________________________________________
 15 April 4:00 PM 6th floor 6.54
 (Language: English)

 Evolutionary Moral Realism

 John Collier
 Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research,
 Altenberg, Austria

Moral realism is the view that moral kinds, such as values,
obligations, rights, duties and the like, are objective
kinds that ground moral "oughts". Moral naturalism is the
view that moral kinds can best be explained in naturalistic
terms. The evolutionary version of moral naturalism holds
that evolutionary explanations are central to satisfactory
naturalistic explanations of morality. Evolutionary moral
realism holds that there are moral natural kinds that can
ground moral "oughts", and that these kinds are best explained
in evolutionary terms.

In previous work we have argued that evolutionary naturalism
can be objective: John Collier and Michael Stingl, "Evolutionary
Naturalism and the Objectivity of Morality", Biology and
Philosophy 8 (1993): 47-60, reprinted in Paul Thompson,
ed., Issues in Evolutionary Ethics, SUNY Press, Albany,
1995, pp. 409-429. In this talk I will discuss what is at
stake, and how our view differs from other moral naturalisms
that try to reduce or eliminate moral kinds. In particular,
I will discuss why giving an evolutionary explanation of
morality does not need to commit the "is/ought" fallacy.
___________________
The organizer of the seminar: László E. Szabó


-- 
Laszlo E. Szabo
Department of Theoretical Physics
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Eotvos University, Budapest
H-1518 Budapest, Pf. 32, Hungary
Phone/Fax: (36-1)372-2924
Home: (36-1) 200-7318
Mobil/SMS: (36) 20-366-1172
http://hps.elte.hu/~leszabo