[Link] A Darwinian Response to Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape Challenge

TheSurvivalMachine

I noticed that there has been some earlier discussion about Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape Challenge here at LW. As a writer on the Swedish politico-philosophical blog The Inverted Fable of Reality, I would like to share a response to the challenge, written by our main contributor, which I believe is interesting to read even if you are not familiar with The Moral Landscape or its content. See this link for the response and a short explanation of the challenge.

The response takes a different approach to most responses to the challenge. It is divided into four parts and starts by asking which ethic is most compatible with science and reality and finally tries to answer this question.

None of your propositions reflect any claims made by ethical fitnessism.

Ethical fitnessism is a normal moral theory just as hedonistic utilitarianism, but with differences in its meta-ethics and intrinsic value. It violates neither Hume’s law nor the naturalistic fallacy. It is not the case that nature or evolution implies that ethical fitnessism is right in any higher meaning.

Fitnessism has no special naturalistic definition of the word 'should'. It uses 'should' in the same sense as utilitarianism does.

For a further description and explanation of fitnessism please see my response to DeVliegendeHollander.

Fitnessism has no special naturalistic definition of the word 'should'. It uses 'should' in the same sense as utilitarianism does.

Which is unfortunate, since Utilitarianism struggles to cash out moral obligation,

2gjm11y

Forgive me, but I'm still not sure I understand. Not least because the last of my propositions seems awfully like what a utilitarian would say about utility, but you say (1) none of my propositions matches fitnessist claims and (2) fitnessism is a moral theory just like utilitarianism. If I want to know whether someone's a utilitarian, I ask questions like: * Do they tend to approve of actions conducive to higher overall utility, and disapprove of the reverse? * And are they largely unmoved by other would-be moral considerations (e.g., Kantian conceptions of duty, maximizing personal virtuousness) except in so far as they turn out to foster higher utility? * Do they themselves appear to be trying to act so as to increase overall utility? * Even when doing so conflicts with what would otherwise seem their own interests? * Do they try to get other people to act in ways that increase overall utility? So, if "fitnessism" is the same kind of thing and you are a fitnessist, should I conclude that you ... * ... tend to approve of actions that increase the agent's genetic fitness, and disapprove of ones that don't; * ... care little about other allegedly ethical principles, unless they match up with this; * ... tend to act in ways that increase your own genetic fitness; * (... even if doing so makes your own life markedly less pleasant) * ... try to get other people to do likewise? For example: * Suppose I am a man, I am currently without a sexual partner, and I find myself in a position to rape a woman who, I happen to know, is inflexibly opposed to abortion; and I can do it with negligible risk of getting caught or injured. Would you say that I ought to do that? * Or suppose I am a woman and have no children yet, and I discover that I have a medical condition that means that getting pregnant has a 50% chance of killing me. Would you say that I should attempt to get pregnant anyway, that being the only way to pass on my genes? * Or suppose I am c