What makes us Moral? Crossing the Boundaries of Biology

Is our motivation to be moral determined totally by our genes, or are there other factors at work? Moral philosopher Neil Levy tackles the complex issues behind this question, addressing the relationship between the often conflicting fields of science and morality to find the middle road between them.

The only book to examine the field in its entirety, What Makes Us Moral? starts with Darwin and moves on to explore how morality could have evolved, and what we can learn from the discovery of so-called genes for human behavior. His powerful conclusion argues that while our moral motives are products of evolution, so are our immoral ones. We are truly human only when we rise above our ?selfish genes?.

Neil Levy is a research fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne.

?This is an interesting book on a timely topic ? well-written and representing much careful research.? Michael Ruse, Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University,Tallahassee


CONTENTS
Preface vii
1 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF DARWINISM 1
Descent with modification 2
Denying Darwin 4
Darwin?s defenders 7
Eugenics 14
Assessing social Darwinism and eugenics 17
Social Darwinism and the naturalistic fallacy 29
The return of eugenics? 34

2 THE EVOLUTION OF MORALITY 39
What is morality? 41
Evolutionary explanations of morality 45
What is altruism? 47
Kin selection 56
Reciprocal altruism and game theory 59
The prisoner?s dilemma iterated 66
The moral emotions 72
?Altruism? or altruism? 77
Morality on other planets 86
Evolved morality is real morality 88

3 THE STONE AGE MIND 91
Modularity 100
The evolution of desire 106
The claims of evolutionary psychology 107
Sexuality 108
Infanticide 117
Rape 119
Empathy and systemizing ability 122
4 A CLEAN SLATE? 127
Genetic determinism 128
The naturalistic fallacy 131
Assessing the claims of evolutionary psychology 139
Evolutionary psychology and human sexuality 140
Baron-Cohen?s male brain 147
Rape as an adaptation 150
Evolutionary psychology and social norms 154

5 GENETIC FALLACIES 167
The genetics of behavior 170
Genethics 172
Genes ?for? traits 179
Genes and environment 182
Heredity 184
Remaking ourselves 195

CONCLUSION: HUMAN NATURE 199

Further reading 207
Notes 213
Index 231