PSYCH 217 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Naturalistic Fallacy
29 Feb 2016
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What is typical doesn"t determine what is right (ex: war) We have to be careful not to commit the naturalisic fallacy: this behavior is natural, and therefore this behavior is moral . Evoluion maters: don"t ignore our species" evolved characterisics. Being aware protects us from incorrectly arguing that there is a biological basis for determining our values. We must also guard against assuming that we can easily create any kind of moral system we want. Our brains + culture = rooted in the evoluionary history of our species. Our moral intuiions = inluenced by our brain and our species" typical social structure. Biology determines what can be, not what must be. Our specie"s typical brain and social structure provide a lot of building blocks. How those blocks are put together and applied is lexible. We"re more similar to one another than most species (less geneic variability) The statement that war is selish and people are fundamentally selish isn"t true.
