How close can these monkeys come to morality?

Peter Railton in the NYT:

So, are the optimistic Darwinians wrong, and impartial morality beyond the reach of those monkeys we call humans? Does thoroughly logical evolutionary thinking force us to the conclusion that our love, loyalty, commitment, empathy, and concern for justice and fairness are always at bottom a mixture of selfish opportunism and us-ish clannishness? Indeed, is it only a sign of the effectiveness of the moral camouflage that we ourselves are so often taken in by it?

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Author: Huenemann

Curious about the ways humans use their minds and hearts to distract themselves from the meaninglessness of life.

One thought on “How close can these monkeys come to morality?”

  1. “Human culture, not natural selection, accomplished these changes, and yet it was natural selection that gave us the capacities that helped make them possible…the point is that we have done this with our imperfect, partial, us-ish native endowment. Kant was right to be impressed.”

    Very cool. I like his perspective.

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