An influential species of evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism holds that since cumulative natural selection shaped the contents of our moral beliefs, those beliefs do not count as knowledge. Critics have taken issue with a range of empirical, epistemic, and metaphysical assumptions that EDAs are said to rely on, which has engendered a complex debate over whether and to what extent the debunking challenge succeeds. However, recently it has been argued that we can reject EDAs without having to enter (...) this thicket of issues. EDAs supposedly fail at the outset, by trading on a glaring misunderstanding about the scope of natural selection explanations. I argue that this objection to EDAs fails, and itself rests on a mistaken view of natural selection explanation and its relation to justification. (shrink)

This article defends the Negative View of natural selection explanation, according to which natural selection cannot explain of any given individual why it has the traits it does. Over the years, this view has been criticized on empirical, metaphysical, and explanatory grounds. I review the debate and offer additional reasons for rejecting the empirical and metaphysical objections. The explanatory objection, which holds that the Negative View is rooted in a flawed account of contrastive explanation, initially seems plausible. However, I argue (...) that a closer consideration of the desiderata of contrastive explanation shows that this objection fails as well. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

There is a substantial literature on evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) in metaethics. According to these arguments, evolutionary explanations of our moral beliefs pose a significant problem for moral realism, specifically by committing the realist to an unattractive pessimism about the prospects of our having moral knowledge. In this paper, I argue that EDAs exploit an equivocation between two distinct readings of their central claim. One is plausibly true but has no epistemic relevance, and the other would have epistemic consequences for (...) realism, but is false. If I'm right, this undermines attempts to use evolutionary explanations to debunk belief in other domains too. (shrink)

What are the consequences, for human moral practice, of an evolutionary understanding of that practice? By ‘moral practice’ we mean the way in which human beings think, talk and debate in moral terms. We suggest that the proper upshot of such considerations is moderate support for anti-realism in ethics.

The explanatory role of natural selection is one of the long-term debates in evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, the consensus has been slippery because conceptual confusions and the absence of a unified, formal causal model that integrates different explanatory scopes of natural selection. In this study we attempt to examine two questions: (i) What can the theory of natural selection explain? and (ii) Is there a causal or explanatory model that integrates all natural selection explananda? For the first question, we argue that (...) five explananda have been assigned to the theory of natural selection and that four of them may be actually considered explananda of natural selection. For the second question, we claim that a probabilistic conception of causality and the statistical relevance concept of explanation are both good models for understanding the explanatory role of natural selection. We review the biological and philosophical disputes about the explanatory role of natural selection and formalize some explananda in probabilistic terms using classical results from population genetics. Most of these explananda have been discussed in philosophical terms but some of them have been mixed up and confused. We analyze and set the limits of these problems. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers accept the Debunking Thesis, according to which facts about natural selection provide debunking explanations for certain of our moral beliefs. I argue that philosophers who accept the Debunking Thesis beg important questions in the philosophy of biology. They assume that past selection can explain why you or I hold certain of the moral beliefs we do. A position advanced by many prominent philosophers of biology implies that this assumption is false. According to the Negative View, natural selection (...) cannot explain the traits of individuals. Hence, facts about past selection cannot provide debunking explanations for any of our moral beliefs. The aim of this paper is to explore the conflict between the Debunking Thesis and the Negative View. (shrink)

A long-running dispute concerns which adaptation-related explananda natural selection can be said to explain. At issue are explananda of the form: why a given individual organism has a given adaptation rather than that same individual having another trait. It is broadly agreed that one must be ready to back up a “no” answer with an appropriate theory of trans-world identity for individuals. I argue, against the conventional wisdom, that the same is true for a “yes” answer. My conclusion recasts the (...) landscape and opens the door to a potential resolution. (shrink)

Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are no (...) grounds for excluding synthetic organisms from having a good also grounded in their teleological organization. However, this comes at a cost; traditional artifacts will also be seen as having a good of their own. We defend this as the best solution to the puzzle about what to say about the good of synthetic organisms. (shrink)

In order to determine whether current (or future) machines have a welfare that we as agents ought to take into account in our moral deliberations, we must determine which capacities give rise to interests and whether current machines have those capacities. After developing an account of moral patiency, I argue that current machines should be treated as mere machines. That is, current machines should be treated as if they lack those capacities that would give rise to psychological interests. Therefore, they (...) are moral patients only if they have non-psychological interests. I then provide an account of what I call teleo interests that constitute the most plausible type of non-psychological interest that a being might have. I then argue that even if current machines have teleo interests, they are such that agents need not concern themselves with these interests. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, current machines are not moral patients. (shrink)

An influential argument due to Elliott Sober, subsequently strengthened by Denis Walsh and Joel Pust, moves from plausible premises to the bold conclusion that natural selection cannot explain the traits of individual organisms. If the argument were sound, the explanatory scope of selection would depend, surprisingly, on metaphysical considerations concerning origin essentialism. I show that the Sober-Walsh-Pust argument rests on a flawed counterfactual criterion for explanatory relevance. I further show that a more defensible criterion for explanatory relevance recently proposed by (...) Michael Strevens lends support to the view that natural selection can be relevant to the explanation of individual traits. (shrink)

Sound like a philosopher’s controversy? I think so. In ‘Evolution,’ I argued that Anti-Individualism was committed to a ‘highly metaphysical’ proposition at odds with the methodology of population genetics. This infelicity gave me reason for rejecting it. In his recent article, Pust takes issue with Neander and me. Until Pust wrote, Sober felt some small pressure from Individualism, and had shifted, albeit microscopically, toward it—he thought that on a very broad conception of causation, there might be some reason to think (...) that selection explains individual traits. He is now convinced that he was right all along. So we are back where we were a few years ago, though with new arguments on each side. Such is the nature of progress in philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to offer some refinements of Individualism. (shrink)

Teleological terms such as "function" and "design" appear frequently in the biological sciences. Examples of teleological claims include: A (biological) function of stotting by antelopes is to communicate to predators that they have been detected. Eagles' wings are (naturally) designed for soaring. Teleological notions were commonly associated with the pre-Darwinian view that the biological realm provides evidence of conscious design by a supernatural creator. Even after creationist viewpoints were rejected by most biologists there remained various grounds for concern about the (...) role of teleology in biology, including whether such terms are: 1. vitalistic (positing some special "life-force"); 2. requiring backwards causation (because future outcomes explain present traits); 3. incompatible with mechanistic explanation (because of 1 and 2); 4. mentalistic (attributing the action of mind where there is none); 5. empirically untestable (for all the above reasons). Opinions divide over whether Darwin's theory of evolution provides a means of eliminating teleology from biology, or whether it provides a naturalistic account of the role of teleological notions in the science. Many contemporary biologists and philosophers of biology believe that teleological notions are a distinctive and ineliminable feature of biological explanations but that it is possible to provide a naturalistic account of their role that avoids the concerns above. Terminological issues sometimes serve to obscure some widely-accepted distinctions. (shrink)

Does natural selection explain why individual organisms have the traits that they do? According to "the Negative View," natural selection does not explain why any individual organism has the traits that it does. According to "the Positive View," natural selection at least sometimes does explain why an individual organism has the traits that it does. In this paper, I argue that recent arguments for the Positive View fail in virtue of running afoul of the doctrine of origin essentialism and I (...) demonstrate that other recent defenses of the Negative View depend upon my own for their plausibility. (shrink)

It has been claimed that certain forms of individual essentialism render the Theory of Natural Selection unable to explain why any given individual has the traits it does. Here, three reasons are offered why the Theory ought to ignore these forms of essentialism. First, the trait-distributions explained by population genetics supervene on individual-level causal links, and thus selection must have individual-level effects. Second, even if there are individuals that possess thick essences, they lie outside the domain of the Theory. Finally, (...) the contingency of sexual reproduction suggests that essentialism is misguided in this arena. 1 The problem 2 A reprise of the controversy 3 Enter individual essences 4 How can selection not have individual-level effects? 5 Why can't we get rid of essences we don't like? 6 Is sex necessary? (shrink)

I have recently argued that origin essentialism regarding individual organisms entails that natural selection does not explain why individual organisms have the traits that they do. This paper defends this and related theses against Mohan Matthen's recent objections.

In this paper I defend an etiological theory of biological functions (according to which the proper function of a trait is the effect for which it was selected by natural selection) against three objections which have been influential. I argue, contrary to Millikan, that it is wrong to base our defense of the theory on a rejection of conceptual analysis, for conceptual analysis does have an important role in philosophy of science. I also argue that biology requires a normative notion (...) of a "proper function", and that a normative notion is not ahistorical. (shrink)

argue that natural selection does not explain the genotypic arid phenotypic properties of individuals. On this view, natural selection explains the adaptedness of individuals, not by explaining why the individuals that exist have the adaptations they do, but rather by explaining why the individuals that exist are the ones with those adaptations. This paper argues that this ‘Negative’ view of natural selection ignores the fact that natural selection is a cumulative selection process. So understood, it explains how the genetic sequences (...) that individuals inherit and that are responsible for their complex (and co-adapted) adaptations first arose in the gene-pool. (shrink)

Ruth Millikan and others advocate theories which attempt to naturalize wide mental content (e.g. beliefs.

Karen Neander’s (1991a, b) Selected Effects (SE) theory of biological proper functions argues that the function of a trait is the action for which it was “caused” to be selected by natural selection. Her life’s work has already left a lasting impact, however SE theory has yet to be more properly formalized as a conceptual analysis of biological functions. Although other SE theories have sought to build upon Neander’s work (e.g., Garson, 2017), there remains an ambiguity in the theory’s use (...) of causal descriptors. For the success of her successors, delineating the function of causality for SE theory is of utmost importance. Here, I systematize Neander’s theory according to the different senses of causation inherent to it. I argue that structuring SE theory in terms of causal transitivity and intransitivity reveals that Neander’s analysis not only supersedes her detractors but likely exposes areas of vulnerability in others’ SE theory derivatives. (shrink)

Thought experiments de facto play many different roles in biology: economical, ethical, technical and so forth. This paper, however, is interested in whether there are any distinctive features of biological TEs as such. The question may be settled in the affirmative because TEs in biology have a function that is intimately connected with the epistemological and methodological status of biology. Peculiar to TEs in biology is the fact that the reflexive, typically human concept of finality may be profitably employed to (...) discover mechanical-experimental causal relations in all living beings—with the obvious caveat that we do not hypostatise and interpret this concept as an ontological quality, since this would land one in an implicitly animistic, pre-Galilean view of nature. From a methodical point of view, the concept of finality is an essential assumption as well as a powerful heuristic tool in the practice of biology, that is, in the investigation of living beings in an intersubjectively testable and reproducible way. (shrink)

To give a causal explanation is to give information about causal history. But a vast amount of causal history lies behind anything that happens, far too much to be included in any intelligible explanation. This is the Problem of Limitation for explanatory information. To cope with this problem, explanations must select for what is relevant to and adequate for answering particular inquiries. In the present paper this idea is used in order to distinguish two kinds of causal explanation, on the (...) grounds of systematic differences in their conditions of relevance and adequacy. It is further argued that these two forms of causal explanation are interdependent and their interaction provides an instrument through which causal knowledge is acquired and enhanced. What we understand causation in the world to be is neither unconditioned regularity, nor counterfactual dependence, but the sum of correct answers to explanatory inquiries of these two interdependent kinds. (shrink)

This article deals with a type of functional explanation, viability explanation, that has been overlooked in recent philosophy of science. Viability explanations relate traits of organisms and their environments in terms of what an individual needs to survive and reproduce. I show that viability explanations are neither causal nor historical and that, therefore, they should be accounted for as a distinct type of explanation.

This paper takes a critical look at the idea that evolutionary theory is a statistical theory. It argues that despite the strong instrumental motivation for statistical theories, they are not necessary to explain deterministic systems. Biological evolution is fundamentally a result of deterministic processes. Hence, a statistical theory is not necessary for describing the evolutionary forces of genetic drift and natural selection, nor is it needed for describing the fitness of organisms. There is a computational advantage to the statistical theory (...) of population genetics, but population genetics succeeds only by eliminating causes from its account of evolutionary change. (shrink)

The “negative view” is the claim that natural selection cannot explain why a particular individual has one trait, rather than another. Here, I modify an example from Lewens to show that this claim is sometimes false. I then advance a variation on the negative view. It is the claim that selection at the organism level within a lineage cannot explain why a particular individual in that lineage has one allele, rather than another. This formulation better describes the explanatory role of (...) selection. (shrink)

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection provided the first, and only, causal-mechanistic account of the existence of adaptations in nature. As such, it provided the first, and only, scientific alternative to the “argument from design”. That alone would account for its philosophical significance. But the theory also raises other philosophical questions not encountered in the study of the theories of physics. Unfortunately the concept of natural selection is intimately intertwined with the other basic concepts of evolutionary theory—such as the (...) concepts of fitness and adaptation —that are themselves philosophically controversial. Fortunately we can make considerable headway in getting clear on natural selection without solving all of those outstanding problems. (shrink)

The thesis that natural selection explains the frequencies of traits in populations, but not why individual organisms have the traits tehy do, is here defended and elaborated. A general concept of ‘distributive explanation’ is discussed.

Though nativist hypotheses have played a pivotal role in the development of cognitive science, it remains exceedingly obscure how they—and the debates in which they figure—ought to be understood. The central aim of this paper is to provide an account which addresses this concern and in so doing: a) makes sense of the roles that nativist theorizing plays in cognitive science and, moreover, b), explains why it really matters to the contemporary study of cognition. I conclude by outlining a range (...) of further implications of this account for current debate in cognitive science. (shrink)

In this paper, using a multilevel approach, we defend the positive role of natural selection in the generation of organismal form. Despite the currently widespread opinion that natural selection only plays a negative role in the evolution of form, we argue, in contrast, that the Darwinian factor is a crucial (but not exclusive) factor in morphological organization. Analyzing some classic arguments, we propose incorporating the notion of ‘downward causation’ into the concept of ‘natural selection.’ In our opinion, this kind of (...) causation is fundamental to the operation of selection as a creative evolutionary process. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that selection history accounts of function can support a fully reductive naturalization of functional properties. I argue that this assumption is false. A problem with the alternative causal role account of function in this context is that it invokes the teleological notion of a goal in analysing real function. The selection history account, if it is to have reductive status, must not do the same. But attention to certain cases of selection history in biology, specifically those (...) involving meiotic drive, shows that selection historical explanations are available in the case of items without any plausible function. Making contributions to goals, here fitness, must be introduced as an additional constraint in the analysis, either explicitly, or implicitly by appeal to individual functions or the selection-of/selection-for distinction. (shrink)

The proper function of the heart is pumping the blood. According to what we call the type etiological view, this is because previous tokens of the type HEART were selected for pumping the blood. Nanay :412–431, 2010) argues that the type etiological view is viciously circular. He claims that the only plausible accounts of trait type individuation use proper functions, such that whenever the type etiological view is supplemented with a plausible account of trait type individuation, the result is a (...) view that uses proper functions to explain proper functions. We refine this objection, and argue that Nanay at most establishes a potentially benign definitional circularity. However, we show that the type etiological view’s reliance on types nevertheless generates a vicious regress. Hence the type etiological view is false. We reject dispositional and modal alternatives to the type etiological view for the reason that they either cannot accommodate malfunction, or do so at the cost of proliferation; and then formulate a novel token etiological view that overcomes both problems because it makes no reference to trait types. (shrink)

This is the second of a two-part essay on the history of debates concerning the creativity of natural selection, from Darwin through the evolutionary synthesis and up to the present. In the first part, I focussed on the mid-late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, with special emphasis on early Darwinism and its critics, the self-styled “mutationists.” The second part focuses on the evolutionary synthesis and some of its critics, especially the “neutralists” and “neo-mutationists.” Like Stephen Gould, I consider the (...) creativity of natural selection to be a key component of what has traditionally counted as “Darwinism.” I argue that the creativity of natural selection is best understood in terms of selection initiating evolutionary change, and selection directing evolutionary change, for example by creating the variation that it subsequently acts upon. I consider the respects in which both of these claims sound non-Darwinian, even though they have long been understood by supporters and critics alike to be virtually constitutive of Darwinism. (shrink)

I consider whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs. Most contemporary discussion in this area is centred on the question of whether debunking implications follow from our ability to explain elements of human morality in terms of natural selection, given that there has been no selection for true moral beliefs. By considering the most prominent arguments in the literature today, I offer reasons to think that debunking arguments of this kind fail. However, I argue that a successful evolutionary debunking (...) argument can be constructed by appeal to the suggestion that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny, much as the horizontal orientation of the whale’s tail reflects its descent from terrestrial quadrupeds. An introductory chapter unpacks the question of whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs, offers a brief historical guide to the philosophical discussion surrounding it, and explains what I mean to contribute to this discussion. Thereafter follow six chapters and a conclusion. The six chapters are divided into three pairs. The first two chapters consider what contemporary scientific evidence can tell us about the evolutionary origins of morality and, in particular, to what extent the evidence speaks in favour of the claims on which debunking arguments rely. The next two chapters offer a critique of popular debunking arguments that are centred on the irrelevance of moral facts in natural selection explanations. The final chapters develop a novel argument for the claim that evolutionary explanations can undermine our moral beliefs insofar as they show that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny. A conclusion summarizes my argument and sets out the key questions that arise in its wake. (shrink)

Un partisan du monisme matérialiste qui souscrit au réalisme intentionnel s’engage à octroyer aux contenus des représentations mentales une efficacité causale dans la production d’effets physiques. Deux difficultés se présentent : d’une part, le caractère extrinsèque des propriétés sémantiques paraît inconciliable avec leur efficacité causale ; d’autre part, comme un matérialiste suppose que toute entité qui exemplifie une propriété sémantique exemplifie simultanément des propriétés physiques, celles-ci risquent de priver celle-là d’efficacité causale . La première section est consacrée au premier problème, (...) et la seconde section au second problème.A philosopher who subscribes jointly to physicalism and to intentional realism is bound to grant content causal efficacy in the causation of physical effects. He must then overcome two problems. First, the extrinsicness of semantic properties seems to deprive them of causal power . Secondly, on minimalist physicalist assumptions, no entity can instantiate a semantic property unless it simultaneously instantiates some physical properties. A representation's semantic property risks therefore to be deprived of causal efficacy by its physical properties . I deal with the first problem in the first section of this paper and with the second problem in the second section. (shrink)

Can selection explain why individuals have the traits they do? This question has generated significant controversy. I will argue that the debate encompasses two separable aspects, to detrimental effect: (1) the role of selection in explaining the origin and evolution of biological traits and (2) the implications this may have for explaining why individuals have the traits they do. (1) can be settled on the basis of evolutionary theory while (2) requires additional, extra-scientific assumptions. By making a distinction between traits (...) affected by a single factor and traits affected by multiple factors I show that selection can, under certain conditions, help explain the origin of traits. Resolving the first aspect enables us to critically assess the various incompatible and independent philosophical commitments made within the second aspect of the debate. (shrink)

In ‘Are biological traits explained by their “selected effect” functions?’, Christie, Brusse, Bourrat, Takacs, and Griffiths argue that selected effect functions only explain the presence of a trait (or the frequency of a trait in a population) in cases in which the selective environment has been uniform, illustrating their point with cases of coevolution, frequency-dependent selection, and bet-hedging. This commentary suggests that selected effect functions are explanatory even in those cases, and that Christie, Brusse, et al. are mistaken about the (...) explanatory aims of the selected effects theory, criticizing it for failing to do something it never set out to do. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Dans la foulée de divers arguments antiphysicalistes visant à montrer que les qualia ne sont pas fonctionnalisables, Ned Block a proposé un autre argument de ce type, qui repose sur son expérience de pensée de la Terre inversée. L’argument de Block montrerait qu’un sujet peut avoir deux expériences de couleur du même type « phénoménal » qui seraient de deux types fonctionnels distincts puisque, selon lui, elles auraient des contenus intentionnels distincts. Il existerait donc une différence fondamentale entre le (...) contenu phénoménal des expériences sensorielles et leur contenu intentionnel et, dans la mesure où le contenu phénoménal ne pourrait être fonctionnalisé, le fonctionnalisme serait ainsi réfuté, à tout le moins en ce qui concerne les expériences sensorielles. Je soulève une objection qui, si elle est correcte, montre que la distinction que Block tente d’établir entre le contenu phénoménal et le contenu intentionnel des expériences est incohérente. ABSTRACT Following the popular trend of antiphysicalist arguments which aim at showing that qualia cannot be functionalized, Ned Block has suggested yet another antiphysicalist argument, on the basis of his Inverted Earth thought experiment. The purpose of his argument is to show that a subject could have two color experiences which are of the same phenomenal type but of different functional types, insofar as they have different intentional contents. This argument would support the idea that there exists a substantial distinction between the phenomenal content of sensory experiences and their intentional content, and that functionalism is false, at least with respect to sensory experiences. I raise an objection to Block's argument which, if correct, shows that the distinction he proposes between the phenomenal and the intentional content of sensory experiences is incoherent. (shrink)