Evolution, "Ought", and Ethics

Although evolution is an ancient religion, it has become mostly associated with biology. Well, it had been. Evolutionary thinking have since come to influence many areas, including various philosophies. Using a naturalistic base, people have presumed that evolution is true, and then based worldviews on that belief. Some try to derive ethical behavior from evolution, but cannot account for altruism and self-sacrifice, nor can they deal with innate values of what "ought" to be, which flies in the face of the deterministic view of what "is". The only rational basis for morality is biblical Christianity.

David Hume, by Allan Ramsay

Using "Hume's Guillotine", Brenton H. Cook shows how three evolutionary-based views of ethics are incomplete, and even self-refuting; the Naturalistic Fallacy is persistent.

The problem of establishing an ontological basis for morality has troubled materialistic philosophers since Darwin. This paper demonstrates that three attempts to explain the derivation of human moral norms within a naturalistic paradigm are inadequate. First, it examines Stuart Kauffman’s attempt to derive morality from monkeys. Second, it examines Ayn Rand’s Ethical Egoism. Third, it examines the evolutionary behaviorism model proposed by B.F. Skinner and held by numerous others.

To finish reading this lengthy but thought-provoking article, click on "Hume’s Guillotine and Evolutionary Ethics: Evaluating Attempts to Overcome the Naturalistic Fallacy".