Evolutionary Ethics

The Bad, the Worse & the Unpleasant

Every time I teach ethics to undergraduate students, a handful make known their loyalty to full-blooded evolutionary theory, the version that denies God any role at all in organic history. At the beginning of the semester, these students are confident that evolution can (and does) serve as a strong foundation for morality. Evolution is the cornerstone of everything else in biology, so why not of human beings' notions of right and wrong, too?

But as we explore the ethical implications of evolution over the course of the semester, I often sense these students becoming less confident. By the end, some conclude that evolutionary theory actually provides a rather poor basis for morality. They come...