Re: Evolutionary Philosophy [was: Conflicts and confrontation]

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> what evolutionary philosophy is?
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Unless this is clearly answered, further discussion is not going to be very
productive. First, do we mean a philosophical system that incorporates
evolution (presumably biological evolution) in some form, or do we mean
views held by people who accept and/or study evolution? Like most people,
probably the majority of the latter have no clearly defined philosophical
system; those who actually study evolution generally have sufficient
education to have a vague idea of various popular philosophical slogans or
ideas but rarely have sufficient education in philosophy to really know much
about it, nor do many take the time to seriously think through the
implications of the way they think about things. Even with a liberal arts
undergrad degree, I had only one philosphy course, and that was Logic.
Assertions with philosophical implications are often made by such
individuals, but they generally say more about the assumptions of the
speaker than anything else.

Actual philosophical systems that incorporate evolution could fall into at
least three categories. First, there would be the relatively biological
approach of trying to figure out what the implications of evolution are
likely to be on our thought processes. In and of itself, this does not
really provide much in the way of a comprehensive philosophical system.
However, this sort of approach is usually highly loaded with additional
assumptions. In particular, it is often linked with the assumption that
evolution provides a full explanation of the origin of all aspects of
humanity. This is an assumption, essentially scientism (i.e., the
assumption that things investigatable by science are all that exists). As
this assumption is not investigatable by science, there's a contradiction at
the heart of this second category. Similar problems tend to pervade this
type of view. Even once one accepts the premise that science is the only
source of truth, this provides no moral guidance. Science tells me that
certain actions will cause severe physical harm to someone else, but not
whether I ought to take those actions or not. Evolution indicates
historical directions of change, but anyone observing movie sequels,
legislatures, contemporary art, civilization, etc. will probably have
questions whether the latest innovation is Progress or Going Bad (to use
Prince Caspian's wording). Another problem is that, although it is popular
to try to invoke examples of animal behavior as evolutionary justification
for particular actions, closer observation generally reveals that the person
does not actually want to follow the exact model shown by the animal. For
example, many examples of "homosexual" behavior in animals reflect either
use of sexual behavior to express social dominance or confusion on the part
of the animals, e.g. male worms that may try to mate with other males but
also with their own other end and anything else that shows vague similarity
to a female worm. A few years ago, the news media made much of a story on
"gay octopus" when two males were collected in the process of some
mating-type behavior; however, the two were not in the same genus. Also,
animals show all sorts of behaviors, yet people involking them as role
models never are consistent across a full range of activities. E.g.,
claiming that chimps are a good role model in their promiscuity (which has
details unlikely to suit human inclinations) while refusing to live in the
jungle and eat live termites.

What should receive serious consideration as evolutionary philosophies are
philosophical systems that take evolution into account while recognizing
that it does not provide a full basis for an adequate philosophical system.
Biological evolution itself is merely a description of patterns in organisms
over time and requires additional assumptions in order to be philosophically
relevant. A wide range of philosophical views, including fully theistic
ones, are compatible with evolution, so "evolutionary" is not a very
informative descriptor for philosophies in this sense.
Received on Mon Jun 5 12:07:06 2006