Subject: 
             Re: [evol-psych] Darwin & Hume's moral sense
        Date: 
             Fri, 15 Feb 2002 12:31:10 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
       From: 
             Irwin Silverman 
 Organization: 
             York University
         To: 
             Larry Arnhart 
         CC: 
             [email protected]




On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Larry Arnhart wrote:

>      Edward Westermarck's account of incest avoidance shows that our
> moral emotions of aversion to incest manifest the same  pattern of
> natural regularity and cultural variability that one sees in color
> vocabularies 
(snip)
> Like color vocabularies, there is cultural variation, but there is also 
> a natural regularity that reflects our biological human nature.  

        It seems to me that most moral strictures, rather than
"reflecting" natural processes in the sense that you describe above, 
tend to limit them - certainly for basic processes like sex, aggression, 
acquisitiveness, etc.  This makes sense to me - why a moral imperative 
if there is a natural process in place for the development of an 
adaptation ... waste of brain function.
        Regarding the Westermarck example, the same process of incest 
avoidance has been observed in various rodent species (see Bevc & 
Silverman, E&HB, 2000, for refs) without any apparent moral intervention. 
Furthermore, incest avoidance mechanisms are part of the "biological
nature" of most sexually reproducing species, though they would seem 
devoid of anything even roughly compatible with human moral systems. 
        I find Alexander's and E.O. Wilson's models more convincing -
moral systems as distinctly human mechanisms which operate in the service
of gaining covert competitive advantages.
         


>      Evolutionary psychologists could make important contributions to
> our understanding of morality by following the pattern of Westermarck's
> biological explanation of the incest taboo to explain other areas of our
> moral experience.  Generally, however, they have not done this, because
> they adhere to a rigid Kantian view of morality as expressing a
> transcendent "ought" that must be separated from the empirical facts of
> natural human desires. 

        
        Actually EPs, like Alexander and E.O. Wilson, have had a good deal
to say about the adaptive function of moral systems.  But if you are
saying that the "empirical facts of natural human desires" can testify
to the "correctness" of specific moral positions, than the EPs are
perfectly justified, both scientifically and morally, in their rigid
Kantian perspective.  Your Westermarck example is a case in point.  It can
explain by the "empirical facts" why incest sometimes "naturally" occurs
(as in siblings separated for a significant time span during the critical
period)  Would we then conclude that it is thereby morally correct in
these circumstances?  Of course not.  They are separate domains.