PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE COLLOQUIUM, John Collier

Department of History and Philosophy of Science Eotvos University Budapest, Pazmany P. setany 1/A PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE COLLOQUIUM (http://hps.elte.hu/seminar) ________________________________________________ 15 April 4:00 PM 6th floor 6.54 (Language: English) Evolutionary Moral Realism John Collier Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Altenberg, Austria Moral realism is the view that moral kinds, such as values, obligations, rights, duties and the like, are objective kinds that ground moral "oughts". Moral naturalism is the view that moral kinds can best be explained in naturalistic terms. The evolutionary version of moral naturalism holds that evolutionary explanations are central to satisfactory naturalistic explanations of morality. Evolutionary moral realism holds that there are moral natural kinds that can ground moral "oughts", and that these kinds are best explained in evolutionary terms. In previous work we have argued that evolutionary naturalism can be objective: John Collier and Michael Stingl, "Evolutionary Naturalism and the Objectivity of Morality", Biology and Philosophy 8 (1993): 47-60, reprinted in Paul Thompson, ed., Issues in Evolutionary Ethics, SUNY Press, Albany, 1995, pp. 409-429. In this talk I will discuss what is at stake, and how our view differs from other moral naturalisms that try to reduce or eliminate moral kinds. In particular, I will discuss why giving an evolutionary explanation of morality does not need to commit the "is/ought" fallacy. ___________________ The organizer of the seminar: László E. Szabó -- Laszlo E. Szabo Department of Theoretical Physics Department of History and Philosophy of Science Eotvos University, Budapest H-1518 Budapest, Pf. 32, Hungary Phone/Fax: (36-1)372-2924 Home: (36-1) 200-7318 Mobil/SMS: (36) 20-366-1172 http://hps.elte.hu/~leszabo