Methods of Ethics and the Descent of Man: Darwin and Sidgwick on Ethics and Evolution

Darwin's writings on ethics and evolution have generated a wide variety of responses among moral philosophers. In this paper, I shall focus on responses by moral philosophers to the question of whether the application of Darwin's theory of natural selection to the moral faculty gives us any reason to question the epistemic credentials of our ethical beliefs. 1 1 I shall be using the term 'epistemic credentials' throughout this paper to signify the status an ethical belief has to the extent that it merits our confidence as a judgement. I shall take this understanding of epistemic credentials to be relatively neutral with respect to i) the metaphysical question of what in the world (such as the existence of moral or other facts) would ultimately explain such credibility as our ethical beliefs may have, and ii) any purely pragmatic value (such as making its holder feel better about him or herself) that may be associated with holding any individual ethical belief. For further discussion of the issues mentioned in i) and ii), see Lillehammer 2003 and Street 2006).