Bill Pratt | February 17, 2009
In the previous post, we found significant problems with survival ethics, the ethical theory which claims that “morality is easily explained by evolution and the tendency for biological life to survive and reproduce.” But there are more problems. Survival ethics are merely descriptive, not prescriptive. They describe the behaviors of the past that led to [...]
Bill Pratt | February 16, 2009
Have you ever heard someone say the following? ”Morality is easily explained by evolution and the tendency for biological life to survive and reproduce.” If so, read on because this post will evaluate this position to see whether it can really explain morality. If you would like to understand a little more about the theory before reading [...]
Bill Pratt | February 14, 2009
The final ethical system we will analyze is known as the immanent purpose view. This view holds that “there is no reason why something rather than nothing exists, that there is no purpose for human history, that there is no life after death, and that humans are the result of a blind process of evolution.” The [...]
Bill Pratt | February 13, 2009
Continuing our critique of optimistic humanism, we find that proponents of the view are unable to speak about the subject of morality without contradicting their own ethical system. Proponents of optimistic humanism admit that ethics are relative and changing over time. They assert that there are no absolute, objective moral values that are true for all [...]
Bill Pratt | February 12, 2009
We continue with our analysis of optimistic humanism. In the previous post, we found that optimistic humanism is incapable of condemning obviously immoral acts as objectively or absolutely wrong. In addition, this ethical system cannot explain the “oughtness” inherent in moral norms. But there are additional problems for optimistic humanism. Morality seems to require humans to [...]
Bill Pratt | February 10, 2009
In the previous post, we introduced the ethical theory of optimistic humanism. In this post, we will start to analyze optimistic humanism in order to see whether it can adequately explain morality. Many of the same objections can be cited for optimistic humanism as were cited for social Darwinism because both base their ethics on [...]
Bill Pratt | February 9, 2009
In previous posts, we have built an understanding of seven aspects of morality that seem to be true. Following those posts, we examined a popular ethical system in the early 20th century known as social Darwinism, and we found that it utterly fails to explain what we know of moral norms. But social Darwinism is [...]
Bill Pratt | February 7, 2009
Continuing from yesterday’s post on What Is Wrong With Social Darwinism? Part 1: Fourth, morality is characterized by an “oughtness” that weighs upon us before we act. It is prescriptive, not descriptive. Ethics derived from evolution, however, are only descriptive. Ethicist Francis Beckwith offers the insight that evolutionary ethics only tells us “what behaviors in [...]
Bill Pratt | February 6, 2009
As we saw in the previous post describing social Darwinism, it was a disastrous experiment for mankind in the twentieth century, but need it have been? Certainly some dastardly individuals justified their tyrannical reigns with it, but we must take a sober look at the theory and evaluate its ability to explain the moral truths [...]
Bill Pratt | February 5, 2009
According to an August 2008 poll by Barna Group, they are both far more likely than conservatives and evangelical Christians to engage in behaviors such as unmarried sex, viewing pornography, lying, getting drunk, and gossipping. These results, sadly, are not surprising to me, as previous poll data and personal experience have proven these facts true over [...]
