K JEDNÉMU POKUSU O EVOLUČNÉ VYSVETLENIE MORÁLKY

• Authors: Spodniak Stanislav

Title variants

EN

On one attempt to evolutionary explain morals

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

The aim of the paper is to critically analyse one of the many attempts to explain the origin of our morality using evolutionary theory. Specifically, this paper deals with an anthropological theory presented by Curry, Mullins and Whitehouse in which they predict existence of seven universal moral patterns. They assume that these patterns and morality as such are a biological and cultural response to a need to establish cooperation in human societies. Several weaknesses of their moral theory are pointed out with the conclusion that their theory may be able to explain why it is advantageous with respect to natural selection to prefer certain behaviour, but not why we attribute moral evaluations to a given behaviour. Therefore, their theory does not provide a reason to regard moral elements analysed in the paper as evolutionarily acquired adaptations.

Keywords

EN

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY; MORAL NORMS; THEORY OF EVOLUTION

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filozofia (Philosophy)
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 75
• Issue: 7
• Pages: 584 – 595

Contributors

author

Spodniak Stanislav

• UMB v Banskej Bystrici, Katedra filozofie, Tajovského 40, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/filozofia.2020.75.7.6