This article is a reexamination of the author’s understanding of pedagogy, aimed at developing an increased awareness of the provinciality, limits and blind spots of the pedagogy and knowledge systems of colonial modernity. It engages with particular Indigenous epistemological theorisations of non-human agency, with Haraway’s notion of multispecies entanglement, and with the Australian Great Barrier Reef in an inquiry aimed at noticing absences and hauntings of pedagogies of modernity, including the absence of ways of knowing and being without separability and (...) determinacy and the damage that has come of this. This opens space for contemplating separability and determinacy as ontological difficulties contributing to socio-ecological crises of our time. The article is intended as a move by the author toward developing greater capacity to stay with the trouble of educating and living on a damaged planet that is fast becoming uninhabitable. (shrink)

Ever since proposals for generalizing the theory of natural evolution have been put forward, the aims and ambitions of both proponents and critics have differed widely. Some consider such proposals as merely metaphors, some as analogies, some aim at a real generalization and unification, and some have even proposed to work out full reductions. In this paper it is argued that these different forms of generalizing the theory of evolution can be systematically re-framed as different approaches for transferring justification from (...) the natural to the cultural realm, and that their differences are basically a matter of degree. With the help of such a classification it should become clearer what to expect, but also what not to expect from the different approaches. (shrink)

Human aesthetic preferences towards a certain landscape type, a certain bodily traits of the opposite sex, a figurative style rather than another, are embedded in what we call “aesthetic experience”, a complex network of instinctive reactions, emotions, feelings, thoughts, and judgements. Are these preferences universal and species-specific, that is to say are they the same for every member of a particular species? Evolutionary psychologists advocate the universality and species-specificity of the aesthetic preferences. Going back to Darwin's writings, in particular to (...) his Notebooks, Bartalesi and Portera attempt to provide an alternative explanation for the emergence and development of human aesthetic preferences, beyond the dichotomy of nature and culture. (shrink)

Sociological, economic and evolutionary paradigms of human agency have often seen social agents either as the rational controllers of their fate or as marionettes on the strings of historical, functional or adaptive necessity. They found it therefore difficult to account for the variability, intentionality and creativity of human behaviour and for its frequently redundant or harmful results. This paper argues that human agency is a product of evolution, but that genetic variation and inheritance can only provide a limited explanation of (...) its complex nature. The primary evolutionary problem which human agents face while they are alive is not to adapt to stable environments, but to respond flexibly and creatively to a contingent, uncertain world. Variation and selection therefore take two connected but distinct forms, one external, genetic, and inherited across generations, the other internal and cognitive, and operating during the lifetime of individuals. An examination of this lived part of evolution provides a better understanding of key properties of agency. (shrink)

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2012v16n1p1 A teoria darwinista tem contribuído para a discussão de problemas nos mais diversos campos filosóficos, entre os quais se inclui a ética e a teoria moral. A sociobiologia e a psicologia evolucionista elucidaram muitos aspectos do comportamento social de diversas espécies animais, a partir de mecanismos como a seleção de parentesco e o altruísmo recíproco que, contudo, são insuficientes para explicar a cooperação no caso humano. Como alternativa, a teoria da dupla herança busca explicar o comportamento humano considerando tanto (...) a biologia quanto as ciências sociais. Segundo esta abordagem, a psicologia social humana é caracterizada por instintos sociais tribais e marcadores simbólicos, que resultam em uma mente que pressupõe princípios morais inatos e universais, selecionados para a vida em grupos orientados por normas sociais, mas que são plasticamente moldados à realidade cultural de cada sociedade. (shrink)

Ever since The Origin of Species, but increasingly in recent years, parallels and analogies have been drawn between biological and cultural evolution, and methods, concepts, and theories that have been developed in evolutionary biology have been used to explain aspects of human cultural change (e.g., Muller 1870; Darwin [1871] 2003; Pitt-Rivers 1875; James 1880; Huxley 1955; Gerard et al. 1956; Campbell 1975; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Durham 1992; Henrich and McElreath 2003; Mesoudi et al. 2004, 2006; Boyd and Richerson 2005; (...) Richerson and Boyd 2005). Many others, however, while accepting the need for some form of evolutionary approach to culture, have consistently emphasized the differences between biological and cultural evolution (e.g., Gabora 2004; Sperber and Claidiere 2006; Tëmkin and Eldredge 2007), with these differences often presented as being problematic for existing evolutionary analyses of culture. Here I argue that this is largely a false debate, given that its protagonists agree on the majority of key points. Apparent disagreement may stem partly from simple differences in emphasis, and partly from the diversity of both biological and cultural evolutionary processes. (shrink)

The evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s integrated the study of biological microevolution and biological macroevolution into the theoretically consistent and hugely productive field of evolutionary biology. A similar synthesis has yet to occur for the study of culture, and the social sciences remain fragmented and theoretically incompatible. Here, it is suggested that a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can promote such a synthesis. Earlier non-Darwinian theories of cultural evolution, such as progress theories, lacked key elements of a Darwinian (...) theory of cultural evolution that are necessary to promote a synthesis, while other contemporary theories of cultural evolution, such as memetics, make too stringent neo-Darwinian assumptions that are inconsistent with evidence regarding cultural transmission. Several examples are given which indicate the beginnings of an evolutionary synthesis for culture, where patterns of cultural macroevolution have been explained in terms of underlying cultural microevolutionary forces. Finally, it is argued that experimental simulations of cultural evolution can play an important role in this emerging synthesis. (shrink)

Political philosophers have been concerned for some time with the epistemic caliber of the general public, qua the body that is, ultimately, tasked with political decision-making in democratic societies. Unfortunately, the empirical data paints a pretty dismal picture here, indicating that the public tends to be largely ignorant on the issues relevant to governance. To make matters worse, social psychological research on how ignorance tends to breed overconfidence gives us reason to believe that the public will not only lack knowledge (...) on the relevant issues, but also wisdom, in the Socratic sense of an awareness of your ignorance. It might be thought that an obvious remedy would be to increase the knowledge and wisdom of the public. However, as far as sound political decision-making and action is concerned, there is nothing particularly valuable about knowledge or wisdom per se—irrespective of what account of wisdom available in the literature we opt for. In fact, it might just be that what the public needs is nothing but the most basic epistemic good: true belief. (shrink)

While Aristotle’s proposition that "Man is by nature a political animal" is often assumed to entail that, according to Aristotle, nonhuman animals are not political, some Aristotelian scholars suggest that Aristotle is only committed to the claim that man is more of a political animal than any other nonhuman animal. I argue that even this thesis is problematic, as contemporary research in cognitive ethology reveals that many social nonhuman mammals have demonstrated that they are, in fact, political in the Aristotelian (...) sense, as they possess a sense of both general and special justice. Keeping this in mind, I conclude that some nonhuman animal communities very well might be identified as highly political communities, leading us to question whether it is really the case that humans are more political than socially complex, group-living nonhuman animals. (shrink)

This chapter offers an overview of four key debates about the roles of emotion in morality. First, many believe that emotions are an important psychological mechanism for explaining altruistic behavior and moral conscience in humans. Second, there is considerable debate about the causal role of affective reactions in moral judgment. Third, some philosophers have argued that emotions have a constitutive role in moral thought and even moral facts. Finally, philosophers disagree about whether affective influence undermines the justification of moral beliefs (...) or, in suitable circumstances, guides us toward moral truth. (shrink)

In this chapter, we will investigate the ramifications of moral knowledge for naturalism (roughly, the view that all that exists is the natural world). Specifically, we will draw attention to a certain problem we face if the world is purely naturalistic. We will then show how theism provides resources for solving this problem. We’ll argue that the fact that we have lots of moral knowledge fi ts better with theism than with naturalism. Specifically, we’ll present reasons to think that (1) (...) naturalists who think we have lots of moral knowledge will have trouble rationally maintaining both their naturalism and their belief that we have such knowledge and (2) theism better explains the fact that we have lots of moral knowledge than naturalism does. (shrink)

Unlike in physics, the category of thought experiment is not very common in biology. At least there are no classic examples that are as important and as well-known as the most famous thought experiments in physics, such as Galileo’s, Maxwell’s or Einstein’s. The reasons for this are far from obvious; maybe it has to do with the fact that modern biology for the most part sees itself as a thoroughly empirical discipline that engages either in real natural history or in (...) experimenting on real organisms rather than fictive ones. While theoretical biology does exist and is recognized as part of biology, its role within biology appears to be more marginal than the role of theoretical physics within physics. It could be that this marginality of theory also affects thought experiments as sources of theoretical knowledge. Of course, none of this provides a sufficient reason for thinking that thought experiments are really unimportant in biology. It is quite possible that the common perception of this matter is wrong and that there are important theoretical considerations in biology, past or present, that deserve the title of thought experiment just as much as the standard examples from physics. Some such considerations may even be widely known and considered to be important, but were not recognized as thought experiments. In fact, as we shall see, there are reasons for thinking that what is arguably the single most important biological work ever, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, contains a number of thought experiments. There are also more recent examples both in evolutionary and non-evolutionary biology, as we will show. Part of the problem in identifying positive examples in the history of biology is the lack of agreement as to what exactly a thought experiment is. Even worse, there may not be more than a family resemblance that unifies this epistemic category. We take it that classical thought experiments show the following characteristics: They serve directly or indirectly in the non-empirical epistemic evaluation of theoretical propositions, explanations or hypotheses. Thought experiments somehow appeal to the imagination. They involve hypothetical scenarios, which may or may not be fictive. In other words, thought experiments suppose that certain states of affairs hold and then try to intuit what would happen in a world where these suppositions are true. We want to examine in the following sections if there are episodes in the history of biology that satisfy these criteria. As we will show, there are a few episodes that might satisfy all three of these criteria, and many more if the imagination criterion is dropped or understood in a lose sense. In any case, this criterion is somewhat vague in the first place, unless a specific account of the imagination is presupposed. There will also be issues as to what exactly “non-empirical” means. In general, for the sake of discussion we propose to understand the term “thought experiment” here in a broad rather than a narrow sense here. We would rather be guilty of having too wide a conception of thought experiment than of missing a whole range of really interesting examples. (shrink)

Is the ability to speak a language an acquired skill? Leading proponents of the generative approach to human language—notably Chomsky (2000) and Pinker (2003)—have argued that the thesis that language capacities are skills is hopelessly confused and at odds with a range of empirical evidence, which suggests that human language capacities are grounded in a biologically inherited set of language instincts or a Universal Grammar (UG). In this paper, we argue that resistance to the claim that human language capacities are (...) skills has been fostered by naïve and implausible conceptions of the nature of skilled action. Correcting these misconceptions about the nature of skilled action breathes new life into the old idea that human language competences are particular kinds of skills and does so in a way that is fully consistent with appeals to the central importance of UG, broadly construed. More generally, we argue that by taking human language capacities to be skills, we capture what is right about the generative program while at the same time avoiding its most serious pitfalls. (shrink)

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has produced prophets and prophecies announcing that the age of artificial consciousness is near. Not only does the mere idea that any machine could ever possess the full potential of human consciousness suggest that AI could replace the role of God in the future, it also puts into question the fundamental human right to freedom and dignity. This position paper takes the stand that, in the light of all we currently know about brain evolution (...) and the never-stopping formation of adaptive neural circuitry for learning, memory, decision making and, ultimately, fully conscious reasoning and creativity in the human species, the idea of an artificial consciousness appears misconceived. The paper highlights some of the major reasons why. While awareness to external stimuli for processes such as perception, recognition, and operational problem solving is under the direct control of functionally specific brain networks associated with sensory and cognitive functions across animal species, consciousness is a unique property of the human mind. (shrink)

One general principle in the construction of classification schemes is that of grouping phenomena to be classified according to their shared origin in evolution or history (phylogenesis). In general schemes, this idea has been applied by several classificationists in identifying a series of integrative levels, each originated from the previous ones, and using them as the main classes. In special schemes, common origin is a key principle in many domains: examples are given from the classification of climates, of organisms, and (...) of musical instruments. Experience from these domains, however, suggests that using common origin alone, as done in cladistic taxonomy, can produce weird results, like having birds as a subclass of reptiles; while the most satisfying classifications use a well balanced mix of common origin and similarity. It is discussed how this could be applied to the development of a general classification of phenomena in an emergentist perspective, and how the resulting classification tree could be structured. Charles Bennett's notion of logical depth appears to be a promising conceptual tool for this purpose. (shrink)

Entry for the Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy.

I argue that an evolutionary adaptation for bodily mimesis, the volitional use of the body as a representational devise, is the “small difference” that gave rise to unique and yet pre-linguistic features of humanity such as imitation, pedagogy, intentional communication and the possibility of a cumulative, representational culture. Furthermore, it is this that made the evolution of language possible. In support for the thesis that speech evolved atop bodily mimesis and a transitional multimodal protolanguage, I review evidence for the extensive (...) presence of sound-symbolism in modern languages, for its psychological reality in adults, and for its contribution to language acquisition in children. On a meta-level, the argument is that dividing human cognitive-semiotic evolution into a sequence of stages is crucial for resolving classical dichotomies concerning human nature and language, which are both natural and cultural, both continuous with and discontinuous from those of animals. (shrink)

We contest the unsubstantiated assumption of both materialists and non-materialist that the ontological status they propose applies to all humans and that the competing claim is false for all - ie we reject both the claim of non-materialists that all humans share the same fundamental aspect of having a "non-material consciousness" (nmc), as well as the contrasting claim of materialists that none do (being fully material as according to eliminative materialists/reductive physicalists etc). Instead, the basic proposition of this paper, our (...) ‘ontological conecture’ (OC) - an updated version of our 1998 website article “Mindless Materialists” - is that the central tenets of proponents on both sides are true, but only regarding themselves. A signature feature of nmc is that brains associated to it are capable of knowing of its existence directly, and as a corollary we would propose that if a sophisticated brain does not know it is associated to nmc then most likely this is because it is in fact not so associated. Thus, in accordance with our OC we will consider a brain’s statements on this issue (that it does or does not possess nmc) as not merely its ‘philosophical position’ but as an authoritative statement, a reflection of an ontological fact. Furthermore, we propose that only those who possess nmc are capable of understanding what it is, so that although they are well-qualified to know directly that they themselves possess it, in contrast those who lack nmc and possess only material consciousness (mc) cannot even comprehend what non-materiality means - they will understandably tend to consider it a non-existent absurdity, which contention would be quite correct in a purely-material reality, such as they effectively inhabit. -/- Terminology reflecting ontological status: Since according to our OC those brains which categorize themselves as non-materialists are presumed to indeed be associated to nmc, for usefulness in phraseology we’ll refer to people whose brain is so associated as being nmc’s (not merely “espousing nmc”). Materialists say they are conscious but that theirs is a material consciousness (abbrev: “mc”) , and since according to our OC we accept this self-determination we will refer to them as being “mc’s” or being materialist (not merely “espousing materialism”). -/- Are materialists mindless or are non-materialists delusional? Notoriously, it is impossible to prove that one possesses nmc (which is a sort of corollary to the fact that it is directly self-known) - being non-material, nmc cannot be detected via the scientific method. However just as those with nmc cannot prove they possess it so too one cannot prove or determine via measurement that materialists do not possess it. Nevertheless we feel that our OC is the simplest solution to the conundrum of how there are materialists if a brain can directly sense its associated nmc. In sum, although of course it is impossible to prove that any particular person possesses or lacks nmc, given all the above our OC considers - as stated by the title of this paper - a brain’s self-identification as "materialist" or “non-materialist” (dualist, panpsychist, idealist etc) as reflecting the absence or presence of an associated real non-material awareness/consciousness, rather than merely as a statement of a philosophical stance. An alternative solution is implicit in the above - that all humans possess nmc just that materialists are those whose brains lack the awareness of theirs, or that the brain-aspect which communicates to others has no access to it. -/- Towards developing more constructive dialogue between mc’s/nmc’s, and greater self-confidence and independence among nmc’s in the face of materialist dominance of the intellectual-climate: A large part of the overall paper is devoted to not just pointing out the futility of communication of the sort usually engaged in - ie based on the erroneous underlying assumption that both sides of the debate are ontologically the same - but also suggesting ways to make the debate less frustrating by a recognition of the OC. Greater clarity in discussions can be achieved partly via a deeper understanding of the different meanings the same term might have to nmc’s/mc’s and suggestions relevant the construction of a sort of translation algorithm to utilize in discussions (as a simple example, substituting ‘higher-level cognitive material brain-processes’ for ‘mind’ when that term is used by an mc); by the frank statement by nmc’s engaged in dialogue with mc’s that the existence of nmc is not up for discussion; by learning how the existence of our nmc colors the meaning we give to certain terms in ways we were not aware of, meanings which are absent for mc’s; and in general via the recognition by the nmc that the dialogue is with a person lacking nmc. -/- Perhaps materialists are right: In the interest of ‘reciprocity’, the paper also offers an alternative/opposing view to the central proposition, to the effect that the materialist claim is correct, and it is a defect of brain wiring or structure which is the source of an active illusion of "self-awareness" underlying the philosophical claims of non-materialists. A prospective source of this illusion is offered - an analog of the sense of presence experienced during ‘sleep paralysis’. (shrink)

A darwinian evolutionary approach can contribute to reassess philosophical problems in different fields, including ethics and moral theory. Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology address these issues by presupposing mechanisms such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism. However, these mechanisms can’t account for cooperation in the human species. Dual inheritance theory addresses human cooperation differently, by taking into account the above-mentioned classical biological mechanisms without ignoring, however, relevant knowledge produced by social scientists. According to this approach, human social psychology comprises tribal social (...) instincts and symbolic markers. One implication of this approach is that there are innate and universal moral principles hardwired in the human mind-brain, which where selected through an evolutionary process that makes life possible in large, structured social groups. Although innate, these principles are plastically shaped to meet the demands of different cultural niches in particular societies. (shrink)

ig Brother, the tyrant of George Orwell's 1984, directed his daily Two Minutes Hate against Emmanuel Goldstein, enemy of the people. When I studied evolutionary biology in graduate school during the mid 1960s, official rebuke and derision focused upon Richard Goldschmidt , a famous geneticist who, we were told, had gone astray. Although 1984 creeps up on us, I trust that the world will not be in Big Brother's grip by then. I do, however, predict that during this decade Goldschmidt (...) will be largely vindicated in the world of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Animal technique has occupied a marginal position in reflections on technique, and in the philosophical literature there is no strict definition of it. However, it is of great importance to understand the limits and the distinctive features of our own technique. This work argues that it is possible to establish a solid definition of animal technique based on two definitions of human technique (prosthetic notion of technique and material culture) and one particular dimension of human tools (cognitive tools). This paper (...) takes a naturalistic approach that enables to review different study cases focused on animals’ capacity to make and use tools. (shrink)

Review of Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise, by David Rothenberg. This book proposes that the human sense of rhythm derived in part from insect sounds.

Donald Davidson and John Searle famously differ, among other things, on the issue of animal thoughts. Davidson seems to be a latter-day Cartesian, denying any propositional thought to subhuman animals, while Searle seems to follow Hume in claiming that if we have thoughts, then animals do, too. Davidson’s argument centers on the idea that language is necessary for thought, which Searle rejects. The paper argues two things. Firstly, Searle eventually argues that much of a more complex thought does depend on (...) language, which reduces a distance between himself and Davidson. Secondly, some of Davidson’s suggestions are promising – in particular the idea that we may lack a vocabulary to capture the contents of animal thoughts. Based on this insight, one might, pace Davidson, grant thoughts to animals. However, this does not mean, pace Searle, that it should be possible to construe even the simplest of such thoughts as propositional. Perhaps we need to move beyond Davidson and Searle by developing a theory of nonpropositional thought for animals. (shrink)

Preface to a special section on "Cooperation in nature, science, and society".

While many writers have advocated the importance of narrative as a means of engaging with the problem of extinction, this paper considers what the qualities of visual aesthetics bring to this field. In addressing this question, the discussion turns to the problem of the ethical limits of art raised by Adorno and takes a theoretical turn away from posthumanism to consider how visual responses can redirect attention back to human agency. The focus of visual analysis is on five paintings by (...) the contemporary Iranian artist Naeemeh Naeemaei. Neither exclusively Western nor overtly internationalist in their approach, these artworks refer to the effects of both hunting and the erosion of trans-national habitats as causes of extinction, yet they also show how human affective responses to extinction can extend across geo-political borders to a more global imaginary. As such, Naeemaei’s artworks are regarded as a form of immanent critique of anthropogenic forcing. Her works adapt older traditions in Persian humanism and art to show not only how the human dominion of nonhuman animals has led to extinction, but also how this leads to an almost incalculable sense of human loss. I argue that Naeemaei’s affective imagery of loss is not simply yet another example of how the lifeworld of animals can only be understood from an anthropocentric worldview, but instead points to our inability to yet fully register the immeasurable losses of extinction and what this yet unchartered grief might imply for potential human agency. (shrink)

According to many scholars, prosociality, in particular altruism and empathic concern, is considered an important motivational factor both in adulthood and in the development of morality. So far, a large number of studies have addressed the development of children’s first-party prosociality and their third-party understanding of moral norms separately. In particular, there is much evidence that during the second year of life, young children develop empathic concern and sympathy for others in need in prosocial situations. Moreover, recent findings suggest that (...) 18-month-old infants already show some rudimentary forms of norm understanding in at least dyadic conventional situations. This rudimentary norm understanding is interpreted as second-personal normative expectations. Finally, 3-year-old children not only have descriptive expectations about morality, but also normative ones as suggested by their enforcement of moral norms as unaffected bystanders. However, the interrelation between prosociality and morality, in particular the prosocial motivational source of the early sense of morality remains unclear. This thesis aimed to investigate the developmental origins of morality in young children. In particular, it examines the relation between the two main aspects of uniquely human cooperation – prosociality and morality – from a developmental perspective. These two aspects are of particular importance, not only because they each play a key role in maintaining the unique human capacity for large-scale cooperation but also because of their close relation to each other. The present thesis therefore focused on three guiding questions that are essential for the ontogeny of morality and its relation to young children’s prosocial motivation to understand, adhere to, and enforce moral norms: What are the developmental origins of morality? What is the underlying prosocial motivation for children's normative appreciation of morality? What is the scope of morality? Study 1 investigated the developmental origins of morality in 18-month-old infants. A novel eye-tracking paradigm was used to examine whether infants differentiate between prototypical moral and conventional violations. In a between-subjects-design, children watched the same video clip whose audio stream differed according to condition. In the first two conditions, an instructor told an observer to destroy a picture with a particular tool chosen from two available tools. In the moral violation condition, the instructor forbade the observer to destroy the picture at all. In all three conditions, the observer then grasped tool B and destroyed the picture, which led to three different situations. Infants differentiated between two types of conventional norm situations in their anticipatory looking. Moreover, they showed a larger relative increase in pupil dilation in response to a moral violation than to a conventional violation. These findings suggest that 18-month-old infants have third-party descriptive expectations about the distinction between conventional and moral violation situations. Moreover, they provide the first evidence that empathic concern may be a decisive capacity for the distinction between these two violation situations. Study set 2 looked at the underlying prosocial motivation for the appreciation of morality as a normative notion in 3-year-old children. In three experiments, children were given a third-party fairness task and two different prosocial tasks. To investigate whether the children have a proper norm understanding of fairness by looking not only at norm adherence, but also at norm enforcement, a spontaneous protest paradigm was used. In Experiment 1, children protested and corrected unequal allocations, suggesting a normative understanding of third-party fairness. Experiment 2 assessed whether children’s normative expectations about fairness have a moral dimension. To do so, children observed a distributor who followed or violated an authority’s command to allocate resources unequally. Again, despite the authority’s dictate to act unequally, children protested more against unequal versus equal allocations. In Experiment 3, results show that children enforced fairness norms by altruistic punishment in the sense of restorative justice. While in Experiment 1 and 2 I found a positive relation of protest behavior and emotional sharing, in Experiment 3 children’s altruistic punishment was associated with their own costly sharing behavior. Finally, in Study 3, I explored the scope of morality in 5-to 6-year-old children in a typical intergroup context. Here, I investigated whether decategorization – a candidate mechanism to overcome in-group bias by emphasizing the individual person – would lead preschoolers to treat in-group and out-group members equally when sharing resources in a dictator game. I found that preschoolers shared more resources with an in-group than with an out-group recipient when social category membership was emphasized. When individuating information was emphasized, however, children shared the same with in-group and out-group individuals. Taken together, the empirical studies of this dissertation provide a novel overview of the prosocial roots of children's developing morality. In particular, the present findings suggest that the ability to feel sympathy may be critical for the development of the moral-conventional distinction and that 18-month-old infants, at minimum, have third-party descriptive expectations about that distinction. The ontogeny of fairness norms can be characterized as moral in that it is associated with 3-year-old children’s developing concern for the welfare of others in different contexts. The presentation of out-group members as individuals may be a powerful tool to reduce in-group bias and to foster equal treatment of in-group and out-group members in 5- to 6-year-old preschool children. (shrink)

This Ph.D. thesis provides a pilosophical account of the structure of the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 40s. The first, more historical part analyses how classical genetics came to be integrated into evolutionary thinking, highlighting in particular the importance of chromosomal mapping of Drosophila strains collected in the wild by Dobzansky, but also the work of Goldschmidt, Sumners, Timofeeff-Ressovsky and others. The second, more philosophical part attempts to answer the question wherein the unity of the synthesis consisted. I argue (...) that it exemplifies a weak of form of explanatory unification. (shrink)

La evidencia comparativa reciente sugiere que algunas especies no humanas sienten empatía hacia otros congéneres, la cual es una capacidad necesaria para la presencia y evolución de la moralidad. Por otro lado, la Hipótesis del Cerebro Social plantea relaciones entre la evolución de la neocorteza cerebral en primates y el tamaño de sus grupos sociales. Este artículo vincula estas ideas al señalar que: (i) la empatía y la moralidad son subproductos de la expansión de la neocorteza cerebral, y (ii) la (...) función de tales capacidades es facilitar la cooperación entre individuos, aumentando su cohesión social. Recent comparative evidence suggests that some nonhuman species feel empathy towards fellow group members and empathy is a necessary capacity for the presence and evolution of morality. On the other hand, the Social Brain Hypothesis suggests relationships between the evolution of brain's neocortex in primates and the size of their social groups. This paper links these ideas by suggesting that (i) empathy and morality are by-products of the expansión of brain's neocortex, and that (ii) the function of such capacities is to facilitate cooperation between individuals, increasing their social cohesion. (shrink)

According to the mental continuity claim (MCC), human mental faculties are physical and beneficial to human survival, so they must have evolved gradually from ancestral forms and we should expect to see their precursors across species. Materialism of mind coupled with Darwin’s evolutionary theory leads directly to such claims and even today arguments for animal mental properties are often presented with the MCC as a premise. However, the MCC has been often challenged among contemporary scholars. It is usually argued that (...) only humans use language and that language as such has no precursors in the animal kingdom. Moreover, language is quite often understood as a necessary tool for having representations and forming beliefs. As a consequence, by lacking language animals could not have developed representational systems or beliefs. In response to these worries, we aim to mount a limited defense of the MCC as an empirical hypothesis. First, we will provide a short historical overview of the origins of the MCC and examine some of the motives behind traditional arguments for and against it. Second, we will focus on one particular question, namely whether language as such is necessary for having beliefs. Our goal is to show that there is little reason to think language is necessary for belief. In doing so, we will challenge a view of belief that is widely accepted by those working in animal cognition, namely representational belief, and we will argue that if belief is non-representational, then different research questions and methods are required. We will conclude with an argument that to study the evolution of belief across species, it is essential to begin the study of subjects in their social and ecological environment rather than in contexts that are not ecologically valid along the social and ecological dimensions. Thus, rather than serving as a premise in an argument 3 in favor of animal minds, the MCC can only be defended by empirical investigation, but importantly, empirical investigation of the right sort.. (shrink)

For more than fifty years, taxonomists have proposed numerous alternative definitions of species while they searched for a unique, comprehensive, and persuasive definition. This monograph shows that these efforts have been unnecessary, and indeed have provably been a pursuit of a will o’ the wisp because they have failed to recognize the theoretical impossibility of what they seek to accomplish. A clear and rigorous understanding of the logic underlying species definition leads both to a recognition of the inescapable ambiguity that (...) affects the definition of species, and to a framework-relative approach to species definition that is logically compelling, i.e., cannot not be accepted without inconsistency. An appendix reflects upon the conclusions reached, applying them in an intellectually whimsical taxonomic thought experiment that conjectures the possibility of an emerging new human species. (shrink)

Skinner has been criticized for advancing essentialist interpretations of meaning in which meaning is treated as the property of a word or a grammatical form. Such a practice is consistent with a "words and things" view that sought to advance an ideal language as well as with S-R views that presented meaning as the property of a word form. These views imply an essentialist theory of meaning that would be consistent with Skinner's early S-R behaviorism. However, Skinner's more developed account (...) of meaning is based on his later selectionist behaviorism, and this account of meaning is aligned in many respects with the views of Darwin, Peirce, F. C. S. Schiller, Dewey, and Wittgenstein. After adopting a selectionist theory of meaning, it was inconsistent for Skinner to maintain essentialist practices although Skinner did so in response to influences that had little to do with his selectionist theory. Skinner's particular contribution to this pragmatic-selectionist tradition of meaning is the integration of meaning within his three-term contingency for operant behavior. In this account, meaning lies in the probabilistic functional relations of verbal behavior rather than in its form. (shrink)

What is Consciousness For? Lee Pierson and Monroe Trout Copyright © 2005 Abstract: The answer to the title question is, in a word, volition. Our hypothesis is that the ultimate adaptive function of consciousness is to make volitional movement possible. All conscious processes exist to subserve that ultimate function. Thus, we believe that all conscious organisms possess at least some volitional capability. Consciousness makes volitional attention possible; volitional attention, in turn, makes volitional movement possible. There is, as far as we (...) know, no valid theoretical argument that consciousness is needed for any function other than volitional movement and no convincing empirical evidence that consciousness performs any other ultimate function. Consciousness, via volitional action, increases the likelihood that an organism will direct its attention, and ultimately its movements, to whatever is most important for its survival and reproduction. (shrink)

Different accounts of Skinner's work are often in conflict. Some interpretations, for example, regard Skinner as a mechanist. Other interpretations regard Skinner as a selectionist. An alternative interpretation is to see Skinner as employing both views with changes in these views and their proportionate relations over time. To clarify these distinctions, it is helpful to see Skinner's work against the background of similar changes that have been taking place in Western Culture. An extended and overlapping shift in cultural values has (...) occurred from modernism to postmodernism. Some key distinctions in this shift are that modernism emphasizes abstract simplicity, permanent necessity, and absolutely certain sources of truth. Postmodernism emphasizes complex and concrete contexts, probability, and explanations of change in terms of consequences. Skinner shows a similarly extended and overlapping shift over time that results in separate sets of responses which may be regarded as two sides or two selves of Skinner: one an organized collection of responses aligned with modernism, another an organized collection of responses aligned with postmodernism. (shrink)

(1) Darwin inherited Lyell’s methodology and applied it to the animate beings. This led him, eventually, to the principle of natural selection. This principle enabled him to expel God from biology. (2) Darwin diverged from Lyell on Man and Morality, presumably because of his experience in Tierra del Fuego. This led him to the thesis of continuity of man and animals, and he noticed the function of morality. (3) The process of Darwin’s theory construction may be likened to gradual evolution. (...) Each element of his theory, by itself, is not revolutionary. But taken together and combined, these elements produced a revolutionary change. (shrink)

A diferencia de otras teorías psicológicas del funcionamiento moral, que no han tomado en cuenta los desarrollos recientes de la neurociencia, la Teoría de la ética triuna intenta aprovechar ciertos hallazgos cruciales sobre las estructuras neurobiológicas del cerebro humano. Esto implica, entre otras cosas, prestar atención no sólo al razonamiento moral deliberativo, y a las decisiones conscientes, sino sobre todo a las posturas emocionales y a los procesos tácitos o intuitivos que motivan, y explican, la mayor parte del comportamiento moral. (...) Basándose en la Teoría del cerebro triuno de MacLean, la TET propone tres sistemas morales distintivos, o motivaciones éticas fundamentales: la ética de seguridad, enfocada en la auto-preservación, y a menudo en la dominación personal o del endogrupo; la ética de conexión, enfocada en los lazos sociales o relaciones afectivas con otros; y la ética de imaginación, enfocada en formas creativas de pensar y actuar socialmente. Además de ofrecer una visión introductoria de las premisas básicas de la TET y de sus tres éticas, el artículo distingue varios tipos y subtipos de personalidad moral, y discute las implicaciones de este enfoque para la comprensión de diversos fenómenos sociales y políticos, o en términos más generales, para nuestra comprensión de un desarrollo moral óptimo. (shrink)