Paul Ehrlich, the distinguished Stanford University biologist who won the prestigious Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, believes that every ethical system originated in the human mind, a biological entity. He does not think, like many dualist philosophers, that there are moral truths out there, waiting to be discovered, that are distinct and independent of the messy mass of neurons that house the human mind. We are bound to our empirical existence, and our moral sense is therefore grounded firmly in the human world.
Ehrlich concedes that the capacity to construct amoral system is a product of evolution. We can imagine the consequences of our actions, think about alternatives, and imagine what others are feeling. All these are valuable qualities, and with free will are preconditions for creating a moral system. But the content of that system, he believes, is not dependent on our genes. It is an outcome of human culture, and as such can take many different forms.
~ Lord Robert Winston, Human Instinct: How Our Primeval Impulses Shape Our Modern Lives (2002)
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Moral conflict
Posted: May 15th, 2008, 7:13am MDT by Husky
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