Evolutionary Biology and the Determinants of Morality

Abstract

The Darwinian approach to Ethics, which views morality as an innate biological trait, and views Ethics as the evolutionary explanation(s) of the biological mechanisms underlying moral behaviour, is grossly inadequate for dealing with the fundamental concerns of traditional Ethics, such as the analysis of morality and what it requires of humans. In this biological approach, elaborate explanations of biological mechanisms of moral behaviour are presented as Ethics. Against the background of traditional ethics, this paper examined morality as a product of human effort and training, in contrast to its view as an outcome of mere human biological constitution. Conscientious training of the moral faculties, together with the requisite socialization process, enables the human moral nature to be actualized, instead of lying dormant in humans as mere biological potentials, or the so-called innate morality.