Hopes of applying the findings and speculations of evolutionary theorizing to the problems of ethics have yielded a program with a bad reputation. At the level of norms – substantival ethics – it has been a platform for some of the more grotesque socio-politico-economic suggestions of our times. At the level of justification – metaethics – it has opened the way to some of the more blatant fallacies in the undergraduate textbook. Recently, however, a number of people, philosophers and biologists, (...) have sensed that a more adequate evolutionary ethics might be possible. United in the conviction that it simply has to matter that we humans are modified monkeys rather than the creation of a Good God, in His image, on the Sixth Day, they argue that recent developments in evolutionary biology, especially those dealing with the genetic basis of social behavior, open the way to a satisfactory biological understanding of morality. (shrink)

Evolutionary epistemology takes various forms. As a philosophical discipline, it may use analogies by borrowing concepts from evolutionary biology to establish new foundations. This is not a very successful enterprise because the analogies involved are so weak that they hardly have explanatory force. It may also veil itself with the garbs of biology. Proponents of this strategy have only produced irrelevant theories by transforming epistemology's concepts beyond recognition. Sensible theories about “knowledge and biology” should presuppose that various long-standing problems concerning (...) relations between the mental and the physical are solved. Such problems are wrongly disregarded by evolutionary epistemologists. (shrink)

The reception so far of Kitcher's Vaulting Ambition reminds me of the old saw about the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. Looking at the same glass of water, the former sees it as half full while the latter sees it as half empty. Some have seen Kitcher's book as a vindication of the possibility of an evolutionary science of human behavior; others have seen it as a devastating critique of the most influential efforts to date to construct such (...) a science. As in the joke about the water glass, both assessments have their point. Sociobiology is a research program, not a unified theory. What one can do is test particular hypotheses within this program and see whether they live up to reasonable standards of rigor and evidence. This is what Kitcher does, with great energy and care. (shrink)

Humans appear to be possible candidates for group selection because they are often said to live in bands, clans, and tribes. These terms, however, are only names for conceptual categories of people. They do not designate enduring bounded gatherings of people that might be “vehicles of selection.” Hence, group selection has probably not been a major force in human evolution.

What is the relation of the biological to the social sciences? Fierce battles are being currently fought over this question and much hangs on the answer. If society (or culture) is taken as an irreducible category which can only be understood in its own terms, the social sciences can feel safe from the sinister designs of other disciplines. Yet it is a commonplace that cultures vary, and we humans are prone to look at the differences rather than the similarities between (...) them. The result can be a thoroughgoing relativism. If culture cannot be understood by means of any non-cultural categories, cultural differences themselves can be accepted as the ultimate truth about man. When everything is cultural, even the notion of a non-cultural category can seem to be a ludicrous contradiction in terms. The categories with which we think are the product of our culture, or so we are told. Instead of our being able to understand culture in terms of anything beyond itself, our understanding appears totally moulded by the society to which we belong. Any theory can thus be seen as merely the expression of the beliefs of a particular society. (shrink)

Edward O. Wilson's forays into human sociobiology have been the target of persistent, vehement attack by his Harvard colleague in evolutionary biology, Richard C. Lewontin. Through examination of existing documents in the case, together with in-depth personal interviews of Wilson, Lewontin, and other biologists, the reasons for Wilson's stance and Lewontin's criticisms are uncovered. It is argued that the dispute is not primarily personally or politically motivated, but involves a conflict between long-term scientific-cum-moral agendas, with the reductionist program as a (...) key issue. It is concluded that it is in the interest of both disputants to keep the controversy alive. (shrink)

Many of the commentaries cohere around two major points of criticism. The first is that we have omitted discussion of the mechanisms that are assumed to operate at levels 2, 3, and 4.Campbell, Cloak, Dewsbury, Eckberg, Mundinger, Pulliam, Richerson & Boyd, Slobodkin, Simon, Williams, andWahlstenall make comments that bear on this point. The second point is that we have omitted discussion of the fact that "organisms change the environment by their activities" and thereby modify the selection pressures that act on (...) them. Apart from Lewontin, this point has been raised in different forms byBarkow, Chase, Hull, Perzigian, Ruyle, and less directly bySlobodkin. Stemming from these two basic omissions there is a third general criticism. Numerous commentators have pointed out that we have failed to discuss sufficiently either the extent or nature of the constraints that may or may not be operating on supraordinate evolutionary processes as a function of their nested relationships to subordinate evolutionary processes within our scheme. We start by acknowledging these three basic omissions. We agree that they exist and that they are serious. (shrink)

Evolutionary ethics has recently become popular again. Some of its representatives elaborate new attempts to derive ethics from evolutionary biology. The attempts, like previous ones, fail because they commit the naturalistic fallacy. Premises from evolutionary biology together with normative premises also do not justify ethical principles. Other representatives argue that evolutionary considerations imply that ethics cannot be justified at all. Their arguments presuppose an unacceptable form of foundationalism. In principle, evolutionary biology might explain some aspects of morality, but in practice (...) explanations are hard to come by. All this does not imply that evolutionary theory is irrelevant in normative settings. To the contrary, it may help us devise guidelines in environmental policy and health care policy. It is to be hoped that evolutionary ethicists will divert their research efforts to the elaboration of such guidelines. (shrink)

O conceito freudiano de "impulso", ou "instinto" (Trieb), é reconhecidamente um dos conceitos mais fundamentais da psicanálise. No entanto, seu sentido ainda é objeto de controvérsia. Originalmente definido por Freud em um sentido biológico ou quase biológico, sua recepção em muitas das diversas tradições pós-freudianas tendeu, frequentemente, a recusar essa filiação epistemológica inicial. Um dos sinais dessa reorientação doutrinária é a recusa da tradução de "Trieb" por "instinto" e a preferência pelo neologismo "pulsão", de origem francesa e comum na literatura (...) psicanalítica escrita em várias das línguas neolatinas, inclusive em português. O objetivo deste artigo é criticar essa tendência. Para tanto, são examinados os principais argumentos normalmente apresentados contra uma visão biológica do Trieb freudiano, a saber, 1) a alternativa terminológica entre os termos alemães "Trieb" e "Instinkt" e o modo como estes são utilizados por Freud; 2) a crítica freudiana de uma redução da sexualidade humana à função reprodutiva; 3) o conceito de "Todestrieb" ("instinto de morte" ou "pulsão de morte") formulado por Freud por volta de 1920 e central na etapa final de seu pensamento. Procura-se argumentar que essas formulações não impedem uma interpretação biológica do conceito de "Trieb". Essa interpretação, por sua vez, abre uma via de diálogo entre a psicanálise e a biologia, a qual é também enfática e explicitamente defendida por Freud. Esta primeira parte do trabalho introduz a questão e também aborda o problema da relação entre sexualidade e reprodução na psicanálise e na biologia. Uma segunda parte, a ser publicada em uma próxima edição de Scientiae Studia, será dedicada ao problema da agressividade e da autodestrutividade nessas duas áreas do conhecimento. Freud's concept of "drive" or "instinct" ("Trieb") has been widely acknowledged as one of the most fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis. However, its meaning is still a matter of controversy. It was originally defined by Freud in a biological or quasi-biological sense, but its reception in many different post-Freudian traditions has often tended to reject this early epistemological affiliation. One sign of this theoretical reorientation has been to refuse the translation of "Trieb" as "instinct" and to favor instead the neologism "pulsion" ("drive"), which has French origins and became common in the psychoanalytic literature written in many neo-Latin languages, including Portuguese. The objective of this paper is to criticize this trend. For that, the main arguments usually presented against a biological view of Freud's "Trieb" are discussed, namely: (1) the terminological alternative between the German words "Trieb" and "Instinkt" and how these terms are employed by Freud; (2) Freud's critique of the reduction of human sexuality to the reproductive function; (3) the concept of "Todestrieb" ("death instinct" or "death drive"), formulated by Freud around 1920 and central in the last stage of his thought. It is argued that these formulations do not preclude a biological interpretation of the concept of "Trieb". Such interpretation, in turn, opens the way for dialogue between psychoanalysis and biology, a dialogue which was also emphatically and explicitly supported by Freud. This first part of the paper is an introduction to this issue, and approaches the problem of the relationship between sexuality and reproduction in psychoanalysis and biology. A second part will be published in a forthcoming issue of Scientiae Studia; it will be dedicated to the problem of aggression and self-destructiveness in these two fields of knowledge. (shrink)