-
269Really taking Darwin seriously: An alternative to Michael Ruse's Darwinian metaethics (review)Biology and Philosophy 5 (2): 149-173. 1990.Michael Ruse has proposed in his recent book Taking Darwin Seriously and elsewhere a new Darwinian ethics distinct from traditional evolutionary ethics, one that avoids the latter's inadequate accounts of the nature of morality and its failed attempts to provide a naturalistic justification of morality. Ruse argues for a sociobiologically based account of moral sentiments, and an evolutionary based casual explanation of their function, rejecting the possibility of ultimate ethical justification.…Read more
-
37Biological and Physicochemical Explanations in Experimental BiologyBiological Theory 3 (4): 380-390. 2008.
-
43Moral Agency and Moral Learning: Transforming Metaethics from a First to a Second Philosophy EnterpriseBehavior and Philosophy 37. 2009.Arguably, one of the most exciting recent advances in moral philosophy is the ongoing scientific naturalization of normative ethics and metaethics, in particular moral psychology. A relatively neglected area in these improvements that is centrally important for developing a scientifically based naturalistic metaethics concerns the nature and acquisition of successful moral agency. In this paper I lay out two examples of how empirically based findings help us to understand and explain some cases …Read more
-
58The Middle Does Not HoldJournal of Philosophical Research 36 361-369. 2011.This paper continues the dialogue between my right-wing-Sellars and James O’Shea’s middle-Sellars. In it, I reply to O’Shea’s middle-Sellars critique of my right-wing-Sellarsian criticism of his recent attempt (Wilfrid Sellars: Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn) to develop an understanding of Sellars’s overall view that avoids the problems of both right and left-wing-Sellarsians. In his contribution to this issue O’Shea argues that Sellars follows a middle way between left and ri…Read more
-
34Evolutionary naturalistic justifications of morality: A matter of faith and works (review)Biology and Philosophy 6 (3): 341-349. 1991.Robert Richards has presented a detailed defense of evolutionary ethics, a revised version of Darwin's views and a major modification of E. O. Wilson's. He contends that humans have evolved to seek the community welfare by acting altruistically. And since the community welfare is the highest moral good, humans ought to act altruistically. Richards asks us to take his empirical premises on faith and aims to show how they can justify an ethical conclusion. He identifies two necessary conditions fo…Read more
-
49Singer, sociobiology, and values: Pure reason versus empirical reasonZygon 19 (2): 159-170. 1984.E. O. Wilson argues that we must use scientifically based reason to solve the values dilemma created by the loss of a transcendent foundation for values. Peter Singer allows that sociobiology can help us understand the evolutionary origin of ethics, but denies the claim that sociobiology or any science can furnish us with ultimate ethical principles. We argue that Singer's critique of Wilson's attempt to bridge the gap between fact and value using empirical reason is unconvincing and that Singer…Read more
-
Book reviews-the biology and psychology of moral agencyHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 22 (3): 445-445. 2000.
-
58. Using as a model contemporary analyses of scientific cognition, Ian Harbour has claimed that religious cognition is neither immediate nor inferential but has the structure of interpreted experience. Although I contend that Barbour has failed to establish his claim, I believe his views about the similarities between scientific and religious cognition are well founded. Thus on that basis I offer an alternative proposal that theistic religious cognition is essentially inferential and that religio…Read more
-
35Why Wilfrid Sellars Is Right (and Right-Wing)Journal of Philosophical Research 36 291-325. 2011.Scholars of Wilfrid Sellars’s thought split into Right- and Left-wing Sellarsians. Right-wing Sellarsians urge Sellars’s scientific realism and the prominence of the scientific image of man in the synoptic vision. Left-wing Sellarsians emphasize the prominence of the logical space of reasons over that of causes, rejecting Sellars’s scientism. In his recent book James O’Shea attempts to reconcile these Sellarsian images, arguing that one best understands the Sellarsian synoptic image in terms of …Read more
-
89Naturalizing or demythologizing scientific inquiry: Kitcher’s: Science, truth and democracyPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (3): 408-422. 2004., Philip Kitcher has argued that science ought to meet both the epistemic goals of significant truth and the nonepistemic goals of serving the interests of a democratic society. He opposes this science as servant model to both the theology of science as source of salvific truth and the theology of science as anti-Christ. In a recent critical comment, Paul A. Roth argues that Kitcher remains entangled in the theology of salvific truth, not realizing that its goal is either vacuous or unattainable…Read more
-
127Willard A. Young, Fallacies of Creationism Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 6 (8): 411-412. 1986.Review Article
-
23It's been a pleasure, but that's not why I did it. Are Sober and Wilson too generous toward their selfish brethren?Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (1-2): 1-2. 2000.Sober and Wilson demonstrate convincingly the fallacies of arguments for fundamental biological and psychological selfishness and establish the plausibility of both biological and psychological altruism. However, I suggest that they are more generous to proponents of fundamental selfishness than they need be and that morality is closer to our evolved and learned capacities than they suggest. I am less generous toward advocates of fundamental selfishness than are our altruistic authors.
-
65The insufficience of supervenient explanations of moral actions: Really taking Darwin and the naturalistic fallacy seriously (review)Biology and Philosophy 6 (4): 439-445. 1991.In a recent paper in this journal (Rottschaefer and Martinsen 1990) we have proposed a view of Darwinian evolutionary metaethics that we believe improves upon Michael Ruse's (e.g., Ruse 1986) proposals by claiming that there are evolutionary based objective moral values and that a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness can be given that avoids the naturalistic fallacy in both its definitional and derivational forms while providing genuine, even if limited, jus…Read more
-
50Discerning the Limits of Religious NaturalismZygon 36 (3): 467-475. 2001.In response to my “How to Make Naturalism Safe for Supernaturalism: An Evaluation of Willem Drees's Supernaturalistic Naturalism” (Rottschaefer 2001), Willem Drees maintains that I have misunderstood his purpose and views and have failed to make the case against his view that naturalism is intrinsically limited. In this response, I comment on these concerns.
-
40Social Learning Theories of Moral AgencyBehavior and Philosophy 19 (1). 1991.An important question for a naturalized philosophical psychology is what constitutes moral agency (MA). The two prominent scientific theories to which such a philosophical approach might appeal, those of cognitive developmental theory (CDT) and social learning theory (SLT), currently face an investigative dilemma: The better theories of the acquisition of beliefs and the performance of action based on them, the SLTs, seem to be irrelevant to the phenomenon of MA and the theories that seem to be …Read more
-
50Philosophical and religious implications of cognitive social learning theories of personalityZygon 26 (1): 137-148. 1991.This paper sketches an alternative answer to James Jones's recent attempt to explore the implications of cognitive social learning theories of personality for issues in epistemology, philosophy of science, and religious studies. Since the 1960s, two cognitive revolutions have taken place in scientific psychology: the first made cognition central to theories of perception, memory, problem solving, and so on; the second made cognition central to theories of learning and behavior, among others. Cog…Read more
-
47Moral Learning and Moral Realism: How Empirical Psychology Illuminates Issues in Moral OntologyBehavior and Philosophy 27 (1). 1999.Although scientific naturalistic philosophers have been concerned with the role of scientific psychology in illuminating problems in moral psychology, they have paid less attention to the contributions that it might make to issues of moral ontology. In this paper, I illustrate how findings in moral developmental psychology illuminate and advance the discussion of a long-standing issue in moral ontology, that of moral realism. To do this, I examine Gilbert Harman and Nicholas Sturgeon's discussio…Read more
-
20Why Wilfrid Sellars Is Right (and Right-Wing)Journal of Philosophical Research 36 291-325. 2011.Scholars of Wilfrid Sellars’s thought split into Right- and Left-wing Sellarsians. Right-wing Sellarsians urge Sellars’s scientific realism and the prominence of the scientific image of man in the synoptic vision. Left-wing Sellarsians emphasize the prominence of the logical space of reasons over that of causes, rejecting Sellars’s scientism. In his recent book James O’Shea attempts to reconcile these Sellarsian images, arguing that one best understands the Sellarsian synoptic image in terms of …Read more
-
55B.f. Skinner and the grand inquisitorZygon 30 (3): 407-433. 1995.B.F. Skinner allures us with the possibilities of turning the stones of materialistic rewards into the bread of human values. He tempts us by assuring success in achieving our goals through behavioral science, if only we give up our autonomy. He offers the power of complete control over our behaviors, on condition that we relinquish responsibility for our lives to a technological elite. Is B. F. Skinner a flesh‐and‐blood Grand Inquisitor? This essay tries to persuade the reader that Skinner's of…Read more
-
43Religion's evolutionary landscape needs pruning with ockham's razorBehavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (6): 747-748. 2004.Atran & Norenzayan (A&N) have not adequately supported the epistemic component of their proposal, namely, that God does not exist. A weaker, more probable hypothesis, not requiring that component – that the benefits of religious belief outweigh those of disbelief, even though we do not know whether or not God exists – is available. I counsel them to use Ockham's razor, eliminate their negative epistemic thesis, and accept the weaker hypothesis.
-
17Adaptational functional ascriptions in evolutionary biology: A critique of Schaffner's viewsPhilosophy of Science 64 (4): 698-713. 1997.Kenneth Schaffner has argued that evolutionary theory, strictly understood, cannot support the functional ascriptions used in adaptational functional explanations. Although the causal ascription clause in these ascriptions is supported, the goal-ascription clause cannot be, since it imports anthropocentric features deriving from a vulgar understanding of evolutionary theory. I argue that an etiological interpretation of selectional explanations sanctions both the causal and goal-ascription claus…Read more
-
42Ordinary Knowledge and Scientific RealismIn Joseph Pitt (ed.), The Philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars: Queries and Extensions, D. Reidel. pp. 135--161. 1978.