Biology and the foundation of ethics

Jane Maienschein

Much attention has been devoted in recent years to the question of whether our moral principles can be related to our biological nature. This collection of new essays focuses on the connections between biology, in particular evolutionary biology, and foundational questions in ethics. The book asks, for example, whether humans are innately selfish and whether there are particular facets of human nature that bear directly on social practices. The volume is organized historically, beginning with Aristotle and covering such major figures as Hume and Darwin down to the present and the work of Harvard sociobiologist E. O. Wilson. It is one of the first efforts to provide historical perspective on the relationships between biology and ethics, and it has been written by some of the leading figures in the history and philosophy of science, authors whose work is very much at the cutting edge...

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