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Darwin’s View of Morality and Its Influence on Ethics

Author: HanYongZhou
Tutor: ZhengHuiZi
School: Henan University
Course: Philosophy of Science and Technology
Keywords: Darwin moral evolution ethics
CLC: B82
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2010
Downloads: 149
Quote: 1
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Abstract

In the process of self-awareness of human beings, the origin and evolution of morality is a controversial issue in academic circle. Standing on different logical starting point, we would come to different conclusions. In many explanations, Darwin’s moral view can be described as unique, so he provides a scientific program for the origin and evolution of moral problem.Darwin’s theory of evolution has proved that man is a product of natural evolution and the continuity between human beings and animals. Darwin’s theory of evolution has changed the traditional knowledge of the relationship between man and nature. Darwin is the first person to scientifically clarify the position of man in the natural sequence. Darwin’s theory of evolution fundamentally changed people’s understanding of their own, breaking all kinds of fictitious binary oppositions between people and animals. It restores human nature on the basis of theory of evolution, so it finds a scientific basis for studying human morality.Darwin study human morality on the basis of theory of evolution. He understood human morality from a more ambitious world of the whole life and under the entire context of social instincts of animals. He found the similarity and continuity between animals and human beings. So he understands the formation and development of human morality in the process of evolution of the whole life and makes his endeavors to find a scientific basis for mankind’s morality. Since Darwin pioneered evolutionary perspective to understand morality, a variety of evolutionary ethicists have been studying morality in the natural world and in the whole life history.If Darwin’s theory of evolution had generated unprecedented and profound changes in the field of biology, moral evolution established a new basis for new ethics. Throughout Darwin’s moral thought, we can see that the purpose of his moral thought is to emphasize the fundamental basis of morality which is social instinct shared by human and animal. Existence and development of morality is the result of survival competition, and natural selection.Darwin’s impact on ethics is enormous. Darwin opened the pioneering work of examining morality from the evolutionary point of view. The first section discusses biological evolution, which is the basis of Darwin’s theory of moral evolution, in order to demonstrate the true spirit of Darwin.The second section discusses the main contents of Darwin’s moral view. It places an emphasis on the origin of morality. It tells how to study ethics in order to clarify the ethical ideas of Darwin.The third part is the influence of Darwin’s morality on ethics .Traditional ethics never studies moral issues from a scientifically perspective. Religious ethics study morality on the basis of theology. It thinks morality that originated from God or God’s will. Rationalist ethics study morality on the basis of universal priori rationality. It give rise to morality from the super-human absolute rationality .Empirical ethics derived morality from human sensibility. The sensibility of happiness and well-being is a moral basis. This kind of ethics is on the basis of philosophy.Darwin has an impact on many aspects of ethics, but this paper from the ethics disciplinary in nature, methodology, origin of morality, relationship between self-interest and altruism, and relations of is-ought in order to illustrate the impacts of Darwin on ethics . Through studying the traditional ethics, the paper illustrates the characteristics of ethics after Darwin. Darwin tried to provide an evolutionary explanation of morality, so he provided a scientific basis for ethics. His moral theory embodies the characteristics of a science, using a scientific and empirical method to examine moral certainty. He provided a scientific point of view for us to explore ethics, and explore people’s moral judgments and moral behavior, so we may go on along this line of thought and perhaps be expected to understand moral nature.

Darwin’s View of Morality and Its Influence on Ethics

Abstract

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