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Evolutionary ethics is a term referring equally to a form of descriptive ethics or normative ethics. Descriptive evolutionary ethics consists of biological approaches to ethics (morality) based on the role of evolution in shaping human psychology and behavior. Such approaches may be based in scientific fields such as evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, or ethology with a focus on understanding and explaining observed ethical preferences or choices and their origins. On the other hand, normative evolutionary ethics may represent a more independent attempt to use ''evolution'', alone or partially, to justify an ethical system. This project has not, according to one view, been especially successful; for example, Richard Dawkins describes how we must rise above our selfish genes to behave morally (that is, evolution has endowed us with various instincts, but we need some other moral system to decide which ones to empower or control). Dawkins has since expressed interest in what Sam Harris calls a science of morality, which starts with the assumption that "morality" refers to "facts about the flourishing of conscious creatures". ==History== In the chapter ''On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties During Primeval and Civilised Times'' of The descent of man (1871) Charles Darwin set out to explain the origin of human morality in order to show that there was no absolute gap between man and animals. For Darwin, morality was a problem of natural history. He believed that a moral sense (altruism) would have little selective advantage for the individual, but it would be adaptive for the group. He did not construct a new system of Evolutionary Ethics.〔Paul Lawrence Farber, 1994, ''The Temptations of Evolutionary Ethics'', chapter 1〕 David Hume first described what is now known as the is-ought problem: making unjustified claims about what ''ought'' to be on the basis of statements about what ''is''. The problem is the justification of an ethical system. The problem is not ''what'' we ought to do, but ''why''. Thomas Huxley allows that ethical sentiments have evolved but denies that this provides a basis for morality (''Evolution and Ethics'',1893):
Huxley's criticism alluded to the is-ought problem developed earlier by David Hume and the related naturalistic fallacy developed later by G. E. Moore. The moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) claimed that evolution was irrelevant for ethics because it could not be used as a justification for ethics. British philosopher G. E. Moore (''Principia Ethica'') demonstrated that all systems of naturalistic ethics, including evolutionary ethics, are flawed. He first pointed out that even if evolution is progress, it cannot be concluded that the more advanced organisms are more advanced in every respect. So, it is impossible to infer particular moral judgements from that fact. Furthermore, the view that "we ought to move in the direction of evolution simply because it is the direction of evolution" was invalid because it was an example of the ''naturalistic fallacy'', that is the fallacy of defining 'the good' by reference to some other thing. American philosopher William James wrote about natural selection: "The entire modern deification of survival per se, survival returning into itself, survival naked and abstract, with the denial of any substantive excellence in what survives, except for more survival still, is surely the strangest intellectual stopping-place ever proposed by one man to another".〔Quoted by Farber, 1994, p. 112〕 John Dewey was also a critic of evolutionary ethics, although both philosophers accepted the fact of evolution. Dewey added that the discovery of the evolutionary origin of particular moral sentiments is not identical with the discovery of the foundation of an ethical system.〔Farber, 1994, p.111-117〕 Evolutionary biologist and geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky was highly critical of evolutionary ethics: "No theory of evolutionary ethics can be acceptable unless it gives a satisfactory explanation of just why the promotion of evolutionary development must be regarded as the summum bonum" and "even if the direction of evolution were demonstrated to be "good", man is likely to prefer to be free rather than to be reasonable".〔Theodosius Dobzhansky, ''The Biological Basis of Human Freedom'', Columbia University Press, 1956, p. 128-129.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「evolutionary ethics」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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