Subject: 
        Re: [evol-psych] Evolutionary psychology, dualism and ethics
   Date: 
        Wed, 13 Feb 2002 11:40:31 -0800 (PST)
   From: 
        "Christopher diCarlo" 
     To: 
        [email protected], [email protected]
    CC: 
        John Cartwright 




Hume was among the first to make the Is/Ought
distinction. And he basically meant that there is
nothing in nature which really 'tells us' how we
should act in any discoverable way. What we do, is add
at least one premiss to the is (or descriptive)
observations in order to get an ought (or
prescriptive) normative position. But there is no
discoverable prescription in nature itself. 

As a philosopher, I've thought about the Is/Ought gap
a fair bit and it has occurred to me that it may be as
Hume describe. That is, there really does not seem to
be discoverable actions of normative behaviour.
However, there certainly are patterns of behaviour
within design space that show regularity e.g. care for
offspring, truth-telling/lying/deception, avoidance of
injury/death, etc. These are parameters within which
we act. 

Now, on the one hand, Hume is right in his account.
But on the other, since it was nature itself which
produced us big-brained creatures who are capable of
conscious normative reflection, we have the capacity
to acknowledge our biological constraints and act
otherwise. But it is an understanding of the
biological constraints which may give us a better
perspective of why/how we behave. So it does seem as
though, in this respect at least, the naturalistic
fallacy, is itself fallacious. There is much to be
gleaned--morally--from an understanding of our species
(and others)--biologically. I have never understood
why so many philosophers (and others) want to fight
this. 

Christopher diCarlo

=====
Dr. Christopher diCarlo
Department of Philosophy,University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1

Visiting Scholar
Department of Anthropology,Harvard University
11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Mass., 02138-2019