HUXLEY'S EVOLUTION AND ETHICS IN SOCIOBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract. T. H. Huxley's essay and prolegomena of 1894 argued that the process and products of evolution are morally unacceptable and act in opposition to the ethical progress of humanity. Modern sociobiological insights and studies of organisms in natural settings support Huxley and justify an even more extreme condemnation of nature and an antithesis of the naturalistic fallacy: what is, in the biological world, normally ought not. Modern biology also provides suggestions on the origin of the human moral impulse and on tactics likely to be effective in the combat against nature urged by Huxley.     

IDENTITY AND DISTINCTION IN SPINOZA'S ETHICS1

Abstract: In Ethics 1p5, Spinoza asserts that “In Nature there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute”. This claim serves as a crucial premise in Spinoza's argument for substance monism, yet Spinoza's demonstration of the 1p5 claim is surprisingly brief and appears to have obvious difficulties. This paper answers the principle difficulties that have been raised in response to Spinoza's argument for 1p5. The key to understanding the 1p5 argument lies in a proper understanding of the substance‐attribute relationship and the principles of metaphysical individuation that Spinoza accepts.     

RELIGIOUS ETHICS AND EMPIRICAL ETHICS

In recent decades, cognitive and behavioral scientists have learned a great deal about how people think and behave. On the most general level, there is a basic consensus that many judgments, including ethical judgments, are made by intuitive, even unconscious, impulses. This basic insight has opened the door to a wide variety of more particular studies that investigate how judgments are influenced by group identity, self‐conception, emotions, perceptions of risk, and many other factors. When these forms of research engage ethical issues, they are sometimes called empirical ethics. This essay argues that the field of religious ethics would benefit from a more robust engagement with empirical ethics than it has thus far undertaken. In doing so, it offers a brief account of how issues of moral psychology and moral anthropology have been treated in religious ethics, and it highlights ways that the scientific findings challenge some prevailing norms in religious ethics. It ends by suggesting avenues by which religious ethics research could productively engage empirical ethics.     

GENRE AND PERSUASION IN RELIGIOUS ETHICS An Introduction

Issues of genre and persuasion are central to ethical thought and practice. Until recently, there has been an asymmetry between religious ethics and moral philosophy in regard to these issues. Renewed attention to these issues in moral philosophy creates a new context for their consideration in religious ethics—one in which the relation of religious ethics and moral philosophy is less determinate than it has been in previous discussions. The four essays that comprise this Focus Section reflect this new context while also making new contributions to perennial concerns of genre in ethical thought and practice.     

THE MORAL REQUIREMENT IN THEISTIC AND SECULAR ETHICS

One of the central tasks of meta‐ethical inquiry is to accommodate the common‐sense assumptions deeply embedded in our moral discourse. A comparison of the potential of secular and theistic ethics shows that, in the end, theists have a greater facility in achieving this accommodation task; it is easier to appreciate the action‐guiding authority and binding nature of morality in a theistic rather than in a secular context. Theistic ethics has a further advantage in being able to accommodate not only this essential conceptual feature of morality, but also the existence of moral requirements and their source of normativity.     

MAX STIRNER's EGOISM

My aim in what follows is to provide and criticise a consistent account of Stirnerian egoism. Despite the many obscurities and complexities surrounding Stirner's conception of self-interested action, a detailed examination of The Ego and Its Own does, I believe, offer us an interpretation that remains true to the overall aims of the book. My main concern throughout will be to focus on the interpretation of Stirner as a psychological egoist. I believe that the textual evidence in favour of viewing Stirner's brand of egoism in these terms is overwhelming. The result of this exegesis is at the same time a reply to David Leopold's claim that, in The Ego and Its Own , the evidence for Stirner's commitment to this version of egoism is scarce and unconvincing. If my understanding of Stirner's book is correct, his advocacy of psychological egoism is an unwelcome consequence for the Stirnerian viewpoint, given the weaknesses of psychological egoism as a theory of human motivation. It is also damaging for Stirner's conception of selfhood.     

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICAL EGOISM

Accepting the controversial thesis that Aristotle is an ethical egoist, I argue that Aristotle's brand of ethical egoism is immune to four important objections to such a position. I analyse the causes of the four objections showing (a) that Aristotle does not have a conception of happiness which would give rise to the first three, and (b) that his account of practical reasoning, of which I provide an original interpretation, can deal with the fourth.     

ETHICS AND SOCIOBIOLOGY

Abstract. Sociobiologists make large claims for their subject. Knowing about the genetic underpinnings of human society will, they claim, enable us to understand all of human behavior and even to solve the ancient philosophical questions of how we ought to live. This essay assesses the significance of sociobiology for ethics. It argues that sociobiologists have misunderstood the relevance of facts to values and that their larger ambitions for their subject are bound to remain unfulfilled. Nevertheless, philosophers are wrong to ignore sociobiology. To give a genetic account of the existence of a widely held value does not justify that value, but it does say something of relevance to the ethical issues. The problem is to work out just what difference such an explanation makes.