The Evolution of Morality and the Morality of Evolution

October 25th, 2010

St Anne’s College, Oxford 8-11 July.

Confirmed Plenary Speakers include:

Edward J. Larson (Pepperdine University)

Ronald L. Numbers (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Stephen J. Pope (Boston College)

Michael Ruse (Florida State University)

Naomi Beck (Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Studies)

Jeff Schloss (Westmount College, CA)

Source: Ian Ramsey Centre, Cambridge, UK.

In 1876, the great utilitarian philosopher Henry Sigwick announced that the theory of evolution ‘has little bearing on ethics’.   This opinion held sway among philosophers and biologists for almost 100 years, bolstered by the belief that the naturalistic fallacy had foreclosed on this question.  From the 1970s, however, new work on kin selection, altruism, and co-operation reopened the debate.  The same period witnessed growing interest from elements of the philosophical community interested in exploring questions raised for moral philosophy by evolutionary psychology and ethology.  Theologians, too, have been concerned to assess whether this burgeoning field has implications for traditional theological doctrines.  As a consequence of these developments evolutionary ethics is now a lively interdisciplinary field that seeks to address both the explanation of moral behaviours and their justification.   This conference seeks to explore these new developments concerning the evolution of morality and their broader ramifications.

In addition to the evolution of morality, this conference also seeks to explore what might be called ‘the morality of evolution’.  While moral philosophers have only recently begun to take an interest in evolutionary theory, from the nineteenth century onwards evolution had been associated with various ideological movements, including what might loosely be termed ‘Social Darwinism’.   Furthermore, critics of evolution have often claimed that it has undesirable moral consequences, linking it to racism, imperialism, rampant capitalism and eugenics.  Papers offering accounts of the appropriation of evolutionary thinking for social programmes, or addressing the role of moral issues in anti-evolutionary rhetoric are also invited.