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Principles of right and wrong guide the lives of almost all human beings, but we often see them as external to ourselves, outside our own control. In a revolutionary approach to the problems of moral philosophy, Philip Kitcher makes a provocative proposal: Instead of conceiving ethical commands as divine revelations or as the discoveries of brilliant thinkers, we should see our ethical practices as evolving over tens of thousands of years, as members of our species have worked out how to live together and prosper. Elaborating this radical new vision, Kitcher shows how the limited altruistic tendencies of our ancestors enabled a fragile social life, how our forebears learned to regulate their interactions with one another, and how human societies eventually grew into forms of previously unimaginable complexity. The most successful of the many millennia-old experiments in how to live, he contends, survive in our values today.Drawing on natural science, social science, and philosophy to develop an approach he calls "pragmatic naturalism," Kitcher reveals the power of an evolving ethics built around a few core principles-including justice and cooperation-but leaving room for a diversity of communities and modes of self-expression. Ethics emerges as a beautifully human phenomenon-permanently unfinished, collectively refined and distorted generation by generation. Our human values, Kitcher shows, can be understood not as a final system but as a project-the ethical project-in which our species has engaged for most of its history, and which has been central to who we are.

Ethics, Evolutionary. --- Ethics, Naturalistic --- Evolutionary ethics --- Naturalistic ethics --- Ethics --- Ethical relativism --- Ethics, Evolutionary

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Ethics, Evolutionary. --- Ethics, Naturalistic --- Evolutionary ethics --- Naturalistic ethics --- Ethics --- Ethical relativism

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It is certainly the case that morality governs the interactions that take place between individuals. But what if morality exists because of these interactions? This book, first published in 2007, argues for the claim that much of the behaviour we view as 'moral' exists because acting in that way benefits each of us to the greatest extent possible, given the socially structured nature of society. Drawing upon aspects of evolutionary game theory, the theory of bounded rationality, and computational models of social networks, it shows both how moral behaviour can emerge in socially structured environments, and how it can persist even when it is not typically viewed as 'rational' from a traditional economic perspective. This book also provides a theory of how moral principles and the moral sentiments play an indispensable role in effective choice, acting as 'fast and frugal heuristics' in social decision contexts.

Ethics, Evolutionary. --- Moral development. --- Ethics, Naturalistic --- Evolutionary ethics --- Naturalistic ethics --- Ethics --- Ethical relativism --- Ethical development --- Child psychology --- Moral education --- Faith development --- Arts and Humanities --- Philosophy

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Though almost forgotten today, Herbert Spencer ranks as one of the foremost individualist philosophers. His influence in the latter half of the nineteenth century was immense. Spencer's name is usually linked with Darwin's, for it was he who penned the phrase, "survival of the fittest." Today in America he is most often admired for his trenchant essays in The Man Versus the State. But Spencer himself considered The Principles of Ethics to be his finest work. In the second volume, under "Justice," is his final statement on the role of the state. His formula for justice is summed up in these words: "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man."

Ethics, Evolutionary. --- Ethics. --- Ethics, Naturalistic --- Evolutionary ethics --- Naturalistic ethics --- Ethics --- Ethical relativism --- Deontology --- Ethics, Primitive --- Ethology --- Moral philosophy --- Morality --- Morals --- Philosophy, Moral --- Science, Moral --- Philosophy --- Values

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How can the discoveries made in the biological sciences play a role in a discussion on the foundation of ethics? This book responds to this question by examining how evolutionism can explain and justify the existence of ethical normativity and the emergence of particular moral systems. Written by a team of philosophers and scientists, the essays collected in this volume deal with the limits of evolutionary explanations, the justifications of ethics, and methodological issues concerning evolutionary accounts of ethics, among other topics. They offer deep insights into the origin and purpose of human moral capacities and of moral systems.

General ethics --- Bioethics --- Ethics, Evolutionary --- Ethics, Naturalistic --- Evolutionary ethics --- Naturalistic ethics --- Ethics --- Ethical relativism --- Biology --- Biomedical ethics --- Life sciences --- Life sciences ethics --- Science --- Moral and ethical aspects --- Ethics, Evolutionary. --- Bioethics. --- Arts and Humanities --- Philosophy