Evolutionary Ethics

Neil Levy, Florey Neuroscience Institutes, Australia and Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, UK

Contents: Introduction; Part I Precursors to Morality: 'Any animal whatever': Darwinian building blocks of morality in monkeys and apes, Jessica C. Flack and Frans B.M. de Waal. Part II Mechanisms: Psychological altruism, evolutionary origins and moral rules, Philip Kitcher; Summary of: 'Unto Others: the Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior', Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson; Game theory, rationality and evolution of the social contract, Brian Skyrms; If homo economicus could choose his own utility function, would he want one with a conscience?, Robert H. Frank. Part III Altruism: Recent work on human altruism and evolution, Neven Sesardic; Evolution, altruism and cognitive architecture: a critique of Sober and Wilson's argument for psychological altruism, Stephen Stich. Part IV Meta-Ethics: Darwin's nihilistic idea: evolution and the meaninglessness of life, Tamler Sommers and Alex Rosenberg; Evolutionary ethics: a phoenix arisen, Michael Ruse; Darwinian ethics and error, Richard Joyce; A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of values, Sharon Street. Part V Normative Ethics: A defense of evolutionary ethics, Robert J. Richards; Is Darwin right?, Keith Sutherland and Jordan Hughes; Name index.