Vrije Competitie

1. Project Information 1a. Title Evolutionary Ethics? The (Meta-)Ethical Implications of Evolutionary Explanations of Morality 1b. Summary The programme aims at investigating the philosophical implications of recent empirical research on the evolutionary origin of human morality. Since Charles Darwin in his Descent of Man (1871) sketched an evolutionary explanation of what he called our moral sense, ever-new insights concerning the evolution of human morality have been gained by various scientific and scholarly disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, comparative behavioural biology, cultural anthropology, history, and, according to some, functional neuro-imagining studies of moral decision-making. This quickly developing field of interdisciplinary research raises four philosophical (conceptual, non-empirical) questions concerning the implications of evolutionary explanations for normative ethics and meta-ethics. The programme is original in that it combines projects on each of these interrelated questions, and applies a novel mixture of methods. The four questions are the following: (1) Are there conceptual and epistemological limits to possible evolutionary explanations of human morality? (2) What are the implications of such evolutionary explanations, if any, for normative ethics? (3) Which repercussions do evolutionary explanations of human morality have for metaethics? For example, assuming that those explanations are correct, do they exclude socalled moral realism, the view that moral judgements are true or false independently of our moral inclinations? (4) What is a plausible epistemological model for the justification of normative moral judgements in cases of ethical disagreement, if quite some of our moral intuitions can be explained by evolutionary hypotheses, so that they are contingent? Each of these philosophical questions is a topic of heated scholarly debates. But their interrelations are insufficiently appreciated. By integrating the four problems in one interdisciplinary research programme, new solutions to each of them and an overall view will be developed. 2. Applicant Full name: Date of birth: Date of viva: Gender: Organisation: Department: Subsection: Street:
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prof. dr. mr. Herman Philipse.1 Email: Herman.Philipse@phil.uu.nl 13-05-1951 16-02-1983 Male Utrecht University Department of Philosophy, Onderzoeksinstituut voor Filosofie en Religiewetenschap OFR. Theoretical Philosophy Janskerkhof 13a

Distinguished university professor (universiteitshoogleraar). NB: there are only 9 of these distinguished professorships at the University of Utrecht).
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Postcode: City: Telephone number: Country:

3512 BL Utrecht 030-2531794 (dept. secr., nb: use home number also: 020-6755489). The Netherlands

Contact address: Organisation: Utrecht University Department: Department of Philosophy Street: c/o: Willemsparkweg 53-I Postcode: 1071 GR City: Amsterdam Country: The Netherlands Telephone number: 020-6755489 Email: Herman.Philipse@phil.uu.nl (Please, send all mail to the Amsterdam postal address, it arrives more quickly.) 3. Co-Applicant Full name: Email: Date of birth: Date of viva: Gender: Organisation: Department: Subsection: Street: Postcode: City: Telephone number: Fax: Country: Contact address: Organisation: Department: Street: Postcode: City: Country: Telephone number: Email: prof. dr. Johan J. Bolhuis J.J.Bolhuis@uu.nl 18-02-1958 13-02-1989 Male Utrecht University Departments of Biology and Psychology Cognitive Neurobiology Padualaan 8 3584 CH Utrecht 030-2535404 030-2521105 The Netherlands Utrecht University Departments of Biology and Psychology Padualaan 8 3584 CH Utrecht The Netherlands 030-2535404 J.J.Bolhuis@uu.nl

4. Previous Submissions A restricted proto-version of this proposal, called Meta-Ethics and Evolution (LA-11-07), has been submitted to the FWO/NWO cooperation programme for the humanities in August 2011
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(refereed as A+ and A-). In December 2011 the committee decided, primarily for financial reasons, not to finance it (only 3 out of 49 proposals were financed). In the first version of the present proposal, the interdisciplinary links with empirical and theoretical evolutionary biology were strengthened (i. a. by cooperating with Prof. Bolhuis as co-applicant), the projects and their interrelations were developed further, and the proposed research team now has the size that is needed to execute the programme. This first version of the present proposal has been submitted to NWO (Vrije Competitie 2012 GW) on July 1st, 2012 (PR-12-57). The proposal has been qualified as excellent (score 1,36; referees: A+, A, A+) and has been placed number 8 on the priority list. However, as only 6 projects could be financed (of 45 proposed projects), we now (January 2013) submit the second version of the present project, in which we profited even more from comments by foreign colleagues and integrated some very recent literature. The main applicant will invest 3/4 of his own research time (only a fragment paid for by NWO) in the project (if financed by NWO), and the 2 PhD's and 2 postdocs are indispensable in order to obtain the desired results. 5. Institutional Setting Utrecht University, Department of Philosophy, The Research Institute OFR, Faculty of the Humanities (with a link via the co-applicant to the section Cognitive Neurobiology in the depts of biology and of psychology at the University of Utrecht). 6. Period of Funding January 1st 2014 January 1st 2018. 7. Composition of the Research Team Main applicant: Co-applicant: Executioners: Other researchers involved: Prof. dr. mr. Herman Philipse, Philosophy Department, Utrecht University. Prof. dr. Johan J. Bolhuis, Departments of Biology and Psychology, Utrecht University. - Two PhD students, appointed after open international recruitment, supervised by the applicant & co-applicant (promotores). - Two post-docs, appointed after open international recruitment. - Prof. dr. Marcus Dwell (Ethics, Utrecht University); advisor. - Dr. Jeroen Geurts (Clinical Neuroscience, Free University, Amsterdam); advisor. - Dr. Peter Hacker (Emeritus Research Fellow in Philosophy, St. Johns College, Oxford); advisor. - Prof. dr. Kevin Laland (Biology, University of St. Andrews, UK); advisor. - Prof. dr. Jesse Prinz (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York); advisor. - Prof. dr. Sahotra Sarkar (Integrative Biology and Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin); advisor. - Dr. Harry Smit (Evolutionairy genetics, medicine and psychology,
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Maastricht University); advisor. - Dr. Bart Streumer (Reader in Philosophy, University of Reading (UK), expert in meta-ethics); advisor. - Dr. David Wiggins (Prof. emeritus in Philosophy, New College, Oxford); advisor. - Prof. dr. David Sloan Wilson (Biological Sciences and Anthropology, Binghamton University, NY); advisor. - Prof. dr. Clive Wynne (Department of Psychology, University of Florida); advisor. NB: the applicant and/or co-applicant collaborate with all these researchers to some extent and with some of them very closely. The advisors may have different roles, such as hosts for a foreign stay of a doctorate student, speakers at the international research meetings, they may comment on written papers, etc. 8. Structure of the Proposed Research Project 1: The Epistemological Limits of Evolutionary Explanations of Morality (post-doc). Project 2: The Ethical Consequences of the Evolutionary History of Morals (PhD student). Project 3: The Meta-Ethical Implications of Evolutionary Theory (PhD student). Project 4: Models of Moral Justification in the Face of Evolution (post-doc). All four projects are carried out at the Philosophy Department of Utrecht University under the supervision of prof. dr. mr. Herman Philipse in cooperation with prof. dr. Johan Bolhuis. Since the research projects are concerned with the philosophical impact on normative ethics and meta-ethics of empirical research in evolutionary biology and related disciplines, the interdisciplinary links to these disciplines (via Prof. Bolhuis and some of the advisors) are essential to the projects. 9. Description of the Proposed Research 9a. Problems and Objectives Since Darwin attempted to provide an evolutionary explanation of our human moral sense in his Descent of Man (1871), ever new insights concerning the evolution of human morality have been won by a consilience of inductions (E.O. Wilson 1998) involving many different scientific and scholarly disciplines. The central and unifying question of our programme is: what, exactly, are the implications of this growing reservoir of empirical knowledge for philosophical theorizing in normative ethics and meta-ethics? Let us mention two well-known examples of empirical results. First, problems of evolutionary altruism (cf. Kitcher 1998), which Darwin already raised, have been solved at least in part by the theories of kin-selection (Hamilton 1964), reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971) and multilevel selection theory (Wilson and Wilson 2007). What are the implications of these results for (contemporary versions of) traditional philosophical justifications of altruistic behaviour, such as Kants Categorical Imperative (cf. also Project 4)? Second, neuroimagining studies reveal that emotion-related neural activation often occurs when we make moral judgments (Greene 2001, 2002; Haidt 2001), and behavioural biologists such as Frans de Waal have argued that rudimentary forms of our moral emotions can be found in
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chimpanzees and bonobos. He concludes that these building blocks of human morality have an evolutionary origin (De Waal et al. 2006), at least in part. But this hypothesis has been challenged on both empirical and theoretical grounds (e.g. Bolhuis and Wynne 2009; Bolhuis 2009). Are there theoretical, epistemological, or conceptual limits to possible evolutionary explanations of our moral capacities? Can gene-culture coevolution models be applied to moral values? (cf. Project 1). Several philosophers now defend the thesis that human morality is a distinct adaptation wrought by biological natural selection (Joyce 2008, 213; cf. Joyce 2006, Ruse 1986, some papers in Katz 2000). Other philosophers deny this although they rely on the same body of empirical research, and hold that evolutionary ethics is a myth (e.g. Prinz 2007, p. 246). Clearly, then, the accumulation of game-theoretic and empirical research concerning our human moral sense raises a number of interrelated and pressing philosophical questions concerning normative ethics and meta-ethics, which are either normative, or conceptual, or epistemological. In this research project we shall focus on the four main and interconnected philosophical challenges (Projects 1-4) in order to provide an integrated answer to our central question. Since solutions to each of these four problems will have implications for the others, the problems should be studied by the members of a closely-knit group of researchers. The first project is about the epistemological and conceptual limits of evolutionary explanatory ethics. The second project is concerned with the ethical implications of evolutionary explanations of human morality. The third and fourth projects focus on the metaethical implications of evolutionary explanations of our moral sense concerning the issue of moral realism (project 3), and concerning models of justification (project 4; meta-ethics is the philosophical discipline that studies the logical and semantic properties of moral judgements, the ontological status of moral properties, and models of justification of moral judgements). Detailed project descriptions: Project 1 (post-doc) studies the epistemological and conceptual limits of evolutionary explanations of human morality. Its main question is the following: to what extent does the existing empirical research on the proximate mechanisms and the evolutionary explanation of our moral capacities amount to an explanation of human morality? Human morality is a complex phenomenon, and the concept of morality is a family resemblance concept, which derives its meaning from a diverse set of paradigms or exemplars. For the first project, two elements that are constitutive of human morality are especially important. On the one hand, we have dispositions (tendencies or inclinations) to have certain emotions, such as empathy or guilt, which may be morally desirable or undesirable. On the other hand, we make moral judgements, which are intrinsically motivating (according to many philosophers), and intended to be objective. Can we really explain the moral ought by using evolutionary models? In his (2006), Richard Joyce argues not only that humans are innately social and have emotions which favour social cohesion, but also that they have an innate tendency to make moral judgements, for which he proposes an evolutionary explanation (cf. also his 2008, 213). This latter claim is contested by Jesse Prinz (2008, cf. 2007). Such discussions not only show the interdisciplinary nature of the empirical research that aims at explaining our moral capacities. They also raise the conceptual and epistemological questions that project 1 intends to answer. These questions are the following. What is the warranted scope of evolutionary models in explaining specific moral views? Many biologists and evolutionary psychologists have argued that we can apply evolutionary models of explanation irrespectively of what mechanism (genetic transfer, learning) accounts for the inheritance of behavioural traits (cf.
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D.S. Wilson 2002). What, exactly, is the logic of the evolutionary explanations of morality in such cases (cf. Sober 2008), and how can they be distinguished from (other) cultural and historical explanations? How, for example, is fitness defined in these explanations? Should we use different types of explanation for the different ingredients of our moral sense, such as moral emotions, our capacity to make moral judgements, and moral institutions? And which ingredients should we distinguish? As Darwin already argued, our moral sense is a complex capacity, and conceptual clarification is urgently needed (cf. also Brown 2011, Abend 2012, and Joyce 2012, draft). The post-doc will attempt to develop new answers to sub-questions in this domain by applying philosophy of science and conceptual analysis to empirical research programmes and results. First, theoretical approaches and empirical evidence for evolutionary interpretations of morality will be examined critically. For example, in standard evolutionary biology, one might test a specific hypothesis of natural selection against alternatives such as genetic drift or phylogenetic inertia. Can one apply similar procedures of contrastive testing when evolutionary models are applied to cultural (e.g. moral) history? What is the logic of the tests in this latter case, and can these models be more than just-so stories? Second, an alternative approach will be explored in which both genetic and cultural evolution is taken into account (Laland and Brown 2011, Laland et al. 2010). Can one construct a dual inheritance or geneculture coevolution model for moral values such as religious tolerance, for example (supervised primarily by Prof. Bolhuis, cf. Rowthorn 2011 for a similar approach to religion)? Since this post-doc engages in the epistemology and philosophy of science with regard to evolutionary explanations of human morality, (s)he will have to be a member of both the scientific team of Prof. Bolhuis and the philosophical research group of Prof. Philipse. The post-doc will also organize joint sessions of these groups. The relevance of Prof. Bolhuis' research to Project 1 may be illustrated as follows. Prof. Bolhuis et al. have analyzed critically two main evolutionary approaches to human cognition and morality. First, evolutionary psychologists have argued that the mind of modern humans was shaped by selection pressures experienced by our Pleistocene ancestors (e.g. Tooby and Cosmides 1992; cf. Laland and Brown 2011). This approach has been criticised on both empirical and theoretical grounds (Bolhuis 2008, 2012; Bolhuis and Wynne 2009; Bolhuis et al. 2011; Laland and Brown 2011). Second, using a comparative approach, De Waal (2006) argues that non-human primates have emotional and cognitive capacities that could be seen as a form of protomorality. However, Bolhuis and Wynne (2009) have suggested that evolutionary considerations (in the strict sense) cannot be used as explanations for the mechanisms of human behaviour (cf. Bolhuis and Macphail 2001; Bolhuis and Verhulst 2009). In addition, the comparative approach has been criticised on empirical grounds (Bolhuis and Wynne 2009; Bolhuis 2009). Debates of this kind give rise to the epistemological questions and issues in the philosophy of science on which Project 1 focuses. Cf. also Lillehammer 2011, and Leben 2012. Project 1 is original in that it combines gene-culture coevolution modelling with philosophy of science (applied to evolutionary explanations of our moral sense) and philosophical conceptual analysis. Project 2 (PhD student) is concerned with the normative ethical implications of evolutionary explanations of our moral sense, on the assumption that at least some of these explanations are correct. At the end of the nineteenth century, many natural scientists and politicians thought that the evolutionary notion of fitness is not only explanatory but also normative. As a consequence, they drew normative conclusions from evolutionary explanations of human morality, because allegedly humans or nations had a natural moral obligation to enhance their fitness (cf. Farber 1994, Hermans 2003 for historical overviews). The caustic criticisms of this
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so-called Social Darwinism by philosophers such as Sidgwick (1874) and G. E. Moore (1903) convinced most philosophers that evolutionary explanatory ethics does not have any implications for normative ethics, even though medics, scientists, and politicians continued to apply the ideas of Social Darwinism until 1945 and beyond (cf. Woolcock 1999). For example, we would argue that the conceptual confusions criticized by Moore are still present in Edward O. Wilsons Sociobiology (1980). Recently, however, it has been suggested by some philosophers (e.g. Singer 2005; Greene 2008) that an evolutionary explanation of one of our moral intuitions (cf. Cappelen, 2012) not only is debunking in the sense that it shows that this intuition does not amount to justified belief, but also in the sense that it refutes the intuition. Using works of Berker 2009, Kahane 2011, Lillehammer 2010, Mason 2010, Wielenberg 2010, and others, the PhD student will investigate to what extent evolutionary explanations of our moral convictions (assuming that they are correct) can have a normative (ethical) impact. Since this issue cannot be tackled without an epistemological and theoretical grasp of evolutionary explanations, project 2 is intimately related to project 1. Preliminary investigations of this topic can be found in Philipse (2011). Project 2 is also related to Project 4. Can one generalize Peter Singers example of a debunking evolutionary explanation of a specific moral intuition to all evolutionary explanations of moral intuitions (as he does)? If so, is Singer correct in claiming that this would refute Rawlss model of reflective equilibrium for the justification of moral judgements? If so, a specific view concerning project 2 implies the incorrectness of a specific view concerning project 4. But are such arguments by Singer and others convincing? Cf. also Kahane 2011, and Klein 2011. The doctoral student will first write a summary of the traditional philosophical criticisms of those who drew normative conclusions from evolutionary explanations of human morality. Then, the PhD student will examine and evaluate the main contemporary attempts to refute the communis opinio that evolutionary explanations of moral intuitions are irrelevant to normative ethics (e.g. by M. Ruse, R. J. Richards, W. A. Rottshaefer, P. Singer, etc.). In particular, (s)he will develop an account of the conditions under which an evolutionary explanation of a moral intuition can be debunking. Project 2 is original in that it applies expertise concerning traditional philosophical criticisms of evolutionary ethics to recent attempts to draw normative ethical conclusions from evolutionary explanations of our moral intuitions, because an account of (il-)legitimate debunking explanations will be developed, and also because of its links to projects 1 and 4. The PhD student will be supervised primarily by Prof. Philipse. Project 3 (PhD student) investigates what evolutionary explanations of our moral capacities (if correct) imply for the main meta-ethical theories, such as naturalist realism, non-naturalist realism, error theories, and non-cognitivism. The issue is raised by the apparent or real conflict between robust versions of moral realism on the one hand, and evolutionary explanations of human ethics on the other. For many different reasons, the meta-ethical positions of moral cognitivism and moral realism have gained currency during the last decennia. According to moral cognitivism, normative moral judgements are truth-apt (they are either true or false), and according to strong versions of moral realism, moral statements are true or false independently of all human evaluations. One reason why the philosophical fashion has shifted away from expressivist theories in meta-ethics such as the ones proposed by the Logical Positivists (e.g. Ayer 1971) is that they cannot account for the logic of everyday moral arguments (the so-called Frege-Geach problem). Another reason is that expressivist theories cannot account easily for properties of moral judgements that most of us accept, such as a claim to deontic objectivity. Versions of moral cognitivism and strong moral
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realism (such as Wedgwood 2007 or Shafer-Landau 2003; cf. also Bjornsson 2012) do explain these items well. But it has been argued by Ruse (1986) and recently by Sharon Street (2006, 2008) that robust versions of moral realism are incompatible with evolutionary explanations of the content of moral convictions. Both the assumption that the evolution of moral convictions is "truth-tracking" in the realist sense and the assumption that it is not truth-tracking have implausible implications. This so-called Darwinian Dilemma has triggered many critical publications (e.g. Brosnan 2011, Copp 2008, Skarsaune 2011, Shafer-Landau 2012, LazariRadek & Singer 2012). The challenge is to develop a meta-ethical view concerning the semantics and logic of moral statements, and concerning the ontology of moral properties, that on the one hand does justice to aspects of these statements which most of us endorse (they purport to be truth-apt, objective, and so forth), and on the other hand is compatible with evolutionary explanations of our moral sense, to the extent that these explanations are plausible (cf. Project 1). It seems that no meta-ethical view has been developed that is completely satisfactory in this sense, but of course the PhD student will profit from the works of Simon Blackburn, John McDowell, Alan Gibbard, David Wiggins, and others. In particular, so-called error theories such as the one defended by Ruse and Joyce are problematic, because they implausibly combine moral cognitivism with a denial of moral realism, so that all our moral judgements are deemed to be false. The PhD student of this project will aim at developing a solution to the Darwinian Dilemma that does not face the difficulties of either the error theory or expressivism. The doctorate student will first take stock of the various reasons for which metaethical realism became popular in present-day philosophy. The various blends of meta-ethical realism will be classified, and it will be investigated to what extent they are justified by the reasons mentioned. Then it will be studied how and to what extent the varieties of realism can cope with the Darwinian Dilemma. A meta-ethical view will be developed that does justice both to the Darwinian Dilemma and to the Frege-Geach problem. The project is original in that it takes into account these two quite different sets of philosophical considerations and because of its links to projects 1, 2, and 4. The PhD student will be supervised primarily by Prof. Philipse. Project 4 (post-doc) is concerned with models of justification in ethics. The central question of this project is how one can argue for ones normative moral convictions, especially in cases of ethical disagreement, such as on the permissibility of embryo selection (cf. Philipse 2008). Most experts agree that axiomatic-deductive models of moral justification, such as those suggested in the 18th-19th centuries by Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill, are untenable, and they accept a version of the reflective equilibrium view as proposed by John Rawls (1971, 2001). Rawls presupposes that our spontaneous moral intuitions have an initial moral authority for us, since otherwise his sophisticated model would not work. But can this assumption be reconciled with evolutionary explanations of these intuitions? As Darwin argued already, many of these intuitions, such as in-group/out-group instincts, are contingent products of biological evolution (the Contingency Challenge), and they have been selected for in situations that were very different from the present human predicament, so that they might be largely irrelevant or even counterproductive (the Inflexibility Challenge). According to Singer 2005, this means that we should not rely on these moral intuitions at all, and that we should develop a purely rationalist model of justification (cf. Project 2). But as Philipse 2011 argues, this cannot be done, because our most fundamental moral intuitions are indispensable starting points of arguments in ethics. What, then, is the correct logical model of ethical justification, assuming that quite some of
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our moral intuitions can be explained by evolutionary hypotheses? The post-doc of this project will investigate whether and to what extent evolutionary explanations of (some of) our moral intuitions undermine reflective equilibrium models of justification, and whether another model of justification (for example one of the models developed by dialogical logicians such as Perelman, Toulmin, Barth, Krabbe, Doublas Walton, and others) should be preferred. Project 4 is original in that it compares different models of justification in ethics and investigates to what extent they are supported or made less plausible by evolutionary explanations of our moral sense. 9b. Theoretical Framework The overall theoretical framework of this programme is naturalistic in a non-reductive sense, and the implicit naturalism is of a metaphysical kind (in the sense proposed by Sarkar 2007, inspired by Pierre Duhem). Furthermore, it is the ultimate aim of the research project to develop a satisfactory conceptual account of the interdisciplinary interrelations between three theoretical frameworks: (a) the new synthesis of the theory of evolution (as applied in explanations of our moral capacities), (b) normative ethical theory, and (c) a meta-ethical framework. Furthermore, to the extent that philosophy of science is applied (mainly in Project 1), our theoretical framework is pluralistic in the sense that different logics/methodologies (such as Bayesianism, the law of likelihood, etc.) must be used in order to solve problems of different types, as has been argued by Sober (2008). Finally, in Project 4, theoretical frameworks of dialogical logic will be used. 9c. Methods of Research The methods of this project are those of analytic philosophy, combined with those of theoretical evolutionary biology (the latter in Project 1). Our methodology is original because we will combine different techniques that are rarely integrated. First, we use conceptual analysis, logical evaluation of arguments, clarification of the results of empirical research by applying philosophy of science, models of probability (such as Bayesianism) and of dialogical logic, and we trace the interconnections between different levels of analysis, such as between explaining/justifying human behaviour by giving reasons and explaining human behaviour by tracing its causes. Second, we use so-called connective analysis in the sense of Peter Strawson and P. M. S. Hacker (see Strawson 1992, chapter 2; Bennett & Hacker 2003, 400ff.). In contemporary analytic philosophy, the second method is out of fashion for the wrong reasons, although it is indispensable for conceptual analysis. Third, we use methods of theoretical evolutionary biology, that is, phylogenetic analysis and gene-culture coevolutionary modelling (Laland and Brown 2011), mainly in project 1, but we do so in combination with philosophical reflection informed by the philosophy of science of Elliott Sober (2008) and others. 9d. Academic Relevance This philosophical programme is academically relevant in three ways. (1) It addresses and aims to solve a number of important problems in analytic ethics and meta-ethics. The issue of the meta-ethical implications of evolutionary explanations of human morality has caught the attention of analytic philosophers, especially during the last ten years. The research programme purports to provide a contribution to this debate, among other things by proposing a new solution to the Darwinian dilemma. (2) This philosophical programme is interdisciplinary in that it takes into account insights into the evolution of human morality gained by a variety of academic fields, such as evolutionary game theory, behavioural biology, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and cultural history. By investigating the
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ethical and meta-ethical implications of evolutionary explanations of morality, it bridges the gap between certain a posteriori and descriptive/explanatory academic disciplines, such as behavioral biology, on the one hand, and largely a priori and partly normative disciplines, such as philosophy, on the other. (3) It ties in nicely with existing research projects at the Philosophy Department of Utrecht University, especially that of prof. dr. Marcus Dwell concerning the issue of what the humanities could contribute to our practical selfunderstanding. Clearly, understanding the extent to which our morality has evolutionary origins, and developing the ethical and meta-ethical implications of that, contributes to how we (should) think of ourselves and our place in the world. 9e. History of the Project The research programme is an outgrowth of Chapter 9 of Philipses book God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). A preliminary international colloquium on some of its themes has taken place in Utrecht on August 26th 2011, organized by Jan Bransen, Herman Philipse, and the Descartes Centre of the University of Utrecht, under auspices of the Ethics Institute of the University of Utrecht. Among the speakers were Daniel Haybron (Saint Louis University), Jan Verplaetse (Ghent University), Valerie Tiberius (University of Minnesota), and Jesse Prinz (State University of New York). Philipse also gave a talk on elements of the programme for the Second Annual Dutch Conference on Practical Philosophy (Groningen, October 9th 2010) and published two series of lectures (in Dutch) for Studium Generale on audio-cds about ethics and evolution: Ethics and Evolution: A Course on the History, Biology, Philosophy, and Anthropology of Morality, and Freedom and Obligation: A Course on Philosophical Ethics from Plato to Levinas. Cf. also his audio-cd series on the philosophical implications of neuroscience, e.g. for our concept of freedom: Neurophilosophy of Mind (2012). Research by Prof. Bolhuis et al., mentioned at the end of the description of Project 1, is concerned with the conceptual and theoretical limits of evolutionary explanations of human morality and cognition. It raises questions such as: to what extent are De Waal's attributions of (proto-)moral feelings to chimpanzees instances of anthropomorphism? Philipse and Bolhuis have jointly taught two classes on the philosophy of biology and on evolution & ethics at Utrecht University and organized a lecture by D.S. Wilson at Utrecht University. Philipse has also taught classes and given several public lectures on evolution and ethics in 2009, when the publication of Darwins On the Origin of Species was commemorated, and later. 9f. Availability of Sources All sources are published articles or books, or manuscripts of articles or books, or reports of empirical research, and they are available in libraries, on the web, or via personal contacts with experts and advisors, and during international conferences. The international research meetings to be organized by the PhD students and post-docs have the primary function of acquainting them with the latest results and insights. 9g. Innovativeness and Originality The programme is original in that: (1) it aims at combining methods that are rarely integrated (cf. the descriptions of the programmes 1-4); (2) it organizes cooperation between various academic disciplines that rarely cooperate (such as philosophy and behavioural biology), for which the co-applicant and the extended set of advisors are necessary; (3) It aims at a synthesis, based upon projects 1-4, concerning its overarching and central question: to what extent can evolutionary explanations of our moral sense contribute to our (normative and meta-) ethical self-understanding? It will do so by exploring the multiple interconnections
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between projects 1-4, which are insufficiently appreciated in the existing literature. 9h. Interrelations between Projects 1-4 and the Surplus Value of the Programmatic Set-up As is clear from the description of projects 1-4 above, they hang together closely, and experts on one of them cannot do their research well without cooperating intensively with experts on the others. For example, answers to the question to what extent evolutionary explanations of moral intuitions can be debunking (Project 2) will have implications for the question as to how one should model sound methods of justification in moral disputes (Project 4). And answers to the question to what extent one can give sound evolutionary explanations of our moral values (Project 1) have repercussions for the issue which types of meta-ethical realism are tenable (Project 3). The projects all contribute to answering one central question (cf. 9a). The programmatic set-up of this project, and the close co-operation between the PhD students and post-docs (and between Bolhuis and Philipse as (co-)applicants), are both necessary to carry out the project successfully. 9i. Nestling in Research Schools The research will be nestled within the Cognitive Neurobiology Group led by Prof. Bolhuis, the Ethics Institute and the Descartes Centre of Utrecht University, the national meta-ethics group convened by Dr Sabine Roeser, the Dutch Research Seminar for Analytic Philosophy chaired by Prof. Philipse, and the Netherlands School for Research in Practical Philosophy (NSRPP). 9j. Relevance for Society and Culture (including Research Utilization) In his (1871, p. 120), Darwin called our moral sense or conscience the most noble of all the attributes of man. There have been many different attempts to understand this most noble attribute, both religious and scholarly or scientific, and a wide audience is interested in the philosophical issues involved. In our globalized world, none of the traditional religious or philosophical views on the foundations of human normative ethics is universally endorsed, and dominant science-inspired philosophical world-views, such as reductive naturalism, have difficulties in accommodating normative ethics. In other words, the foundations and the semantical and metaphysical status of normative ethics is a core problem of contemporary philosophy and Weltanschauung. Even those who accept evolutionary theory as the global theoretical framework in terms of which we humans should understand our place in the universe, disagree amongst each other with regard to the main questions of our programme: to what extent human normative ethics can be explained by evolutionary models, and what the implications are of such evolutionary explanations for normative ethics and meta-ethics. Furthermore, many popular science writers make ungrounded claims in the public sphere concerning the implications of evolutionary explanations of morality. It is of critical cultural importance that such claims are analyzed and assessed. Because of the general interest for the core questions of the programme, the participants will spend some time on making their philosophical insights accessible to a wider public. The relevance of the results of the programme is cultural (see above), democratic (to the extent that developing dialogical models for moral debates in Project 4 will help politicians and others to structure properly their moral arguments), and societal (e.g. because evolutionary ethics played an important ideological role in the 20th century, for example in Nazism, cf. Project 2). The intended audience (target group) of our popularizing activities is the general public, and the means or intended activities are public lectures, audio-CDs, articles in newspapers, and perhaps a popular book. The main applicant published one CD series with lectures on philosophical topics every year since 2004. His audio-CD series (in Dutch) with
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lectures on Ethics and Evolution (Home Academy Publishers. 2008) and on Neurophilosophy of Mind (idem, 2012) are very popular, as are his public lectures on Darwin and related topics. He also publishes in newspapers such as NRC-Handelsblad and acted as a columnist in the main Dutch political TV programme Buitenhof. 10. Summary in Key Words Evolutionary Ethics, Meta-ethics, Moral realism, Debunking explanations, Ethical justification. 11. Work Programme 11a. Programme for each of the PhD Students and Post-docs Year 1 (PhDs Year 2 (PhDs and Year 3 (PhDs and and post-docs) post-docs) post-docs) st 1 half Study of Work on and Preparing and of the literature, presentation of two presenting a year weekly research papers / dissertation chapter seminars of the versions of or research paper (as research group. dissertation chapters for the post-docs, at Co-organization at international the end of this year, of a first conferences, such as at least five articles international the annual conference should be submitted research of the Human or accepted); meeting. Some Behaviour and organization of the international top Evolution Society and conference that will experts will be the annual conference take place at the end invited. of the Consortium for of this year; cothe History and organization of the Philosophy of fifth research Biology. Comeeting. organization of the third international research meeting. nd 2 half Drafts of 2 Preparation of two Preparing and of the dissertation more dissertation presenting another year chapters for the chapters or research dissertation chapter PhD students papers (as for the or research paper and 2 research post-docs, there (for the PhD papers for the should be three students), and post-docs in submitted or accepted finishing the discussion with articles by the end of remaining research the applicant, year 2); presentation articles and co-applicant, at international presenting them at and the conferences; start of conferences (for the advisors. Coorganizing the post-docs).
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Year 4 (PhDs) Finalizing dissertation draft and submitting one article to an international philosophy journal.

Writing and submitting a second article, preparation of the dissertation defence, and the dissertation defence itself.

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organization of second research meeting, for which some international top experts will be invited.

international conference. Coorganization of the fourth international research meeting.

Organizing the conference. Starting the preparation of an international volume, which contains the papers presented at the conference. The post-docs and applicant will jointly finish editing the volume.

11b. Programme of Symposia; stays at foreign top universities. Each year, apart from year 3, there will be two (one only in year 3) small international research meetings with the members of the relevant research groups and some prominent international experts (cf. under 11a). The PhD students and post-docs will also organize an international conference, which will take place at the end of the third year, and they will spend 3 months each at a highly ranked university abroad. 12. Word Count No 9 in total counts 4,473 words (allowed maximum: 2,000+4x800=5,200). 13. Planned Deliverables Each of the PhD projects will result in a dissertation and 2 research articles based on the dissertation. Each of the post-doc projects will result in 5 articles in the best (blind-refereed) philosophy and/or interdisciplinary (philosophy, phil. of psychology, phil. of biology) journals (mostly ranked as A), such as the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Biology and Philosophy, Ethics, Human Nature, the Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Value Inquiry, Mind, Nos, Philosophical Psychology, the Philosophical Quarterly, the Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, and Trends in Ecology and Evolution. At least five of these fourteen articles will be co-productions of the PhD students, the post-docs, and the applicants. Furthermore, a volume with a selection of the papers presented at the international conference (see under 11a, b) will be prepared for publication by the post-docs and the applicant. The applicant will also write a scholarly book (in English) on the central problem, mostly in his own research time (a minor part subsidized by NWO). For planned research utilization, see under 9j. 14a. Short Curriculum Vitae Principal Applicant Herman Philipse (D Phil (Leiden) 1983) took up a distinguished university professorship in philosophy at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, in September 2003. He was
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previously full Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leiden (1985-2003), Assistant Professor in Philosophy at that university (1978-85), and Research Assistant at the Husserl Archives, University of Louvain, Belgium (1977-78). He has been chairman (decaan) of the Philosophy Department at the University of Leiden four times, gave many guest lectures at the University of Oxford from 1985 onwards (during 2002-2011 each year a series of 8 lectures during Trinity Terms), and supervised a number of doctorate students. He also has been external advisor of FWO during ten years, chairman of an NWO committee (Werkgemeenschap Wetenschapsfilosofie), member of the VICI committee in 2012, and he spent invited sabbaticals at the University of Princeton in 1995 and 1997. He was a keynote speaker at conferences such as the Formal Perspectives on the Epistemology of Religion Conference (Louvain, June 2009), and the 2009 conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford), and has been invited as a key-note speaker (with Michael Ruse) at the annual conference of the Australasian Philosophy of Religion Association, Religion and Science, Theism and Atheism, in June 2013. Some main publications: 1. Heideggers Philosophy of Being. A Critical Interpretation (Princeton University Press, 1998, 555 pp.), reviewed in Inquiry, Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Investigations, Ratio, etc. 2. The Absolute Network Theory of Language (Inquiry 33, 1990: 127-178); 3. Towards a Postmodern Conception of Metaphysics (Metaphilosophy 25, 1994: 1-44); 4. The End of Plasticity (Inquiry 40, 1997: 291-305); 5. A Defence of Empiricism (Ratio 13, 2000: 239-255 and Ratio 14, 2001: 33-55); 6. The Phenomenological Movement (The Cambridge History of Philosophy 1870-1945, Cambridge University Press, 2003: 477-496); 7. "Overcoming Epistemology (The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2007: 334-378); 8. Antonin Scalias Textualism in Philosophy, Theology, and Judicial Interpretation of the Constitution, in A.J. Kwak, ed., Holy Writ. Interpretation in Law and Religion (Ashgate, Farnham, 2009: 15-45); 9. God, Ethics, and Evolution (in God, Goodness, and Philosophy, Harriet Harris ed., Ashgate 2011: 131-161); 10. God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason (Oxford University Press, 2012, 390 pp). For a complete list of publications, see his website at the Utrecht Philosophy Department (http://www.phil.uu.nl/~philipse/). Although Philipses research has been focused mainly on the theory of knowledge, the philosophy of language, on the history of philosophy (Husserl, Heidegger), and on analytic philosophy of religion, his interest in (meta-) ethics and in evolutionary explanations of our moral capacities has been growing over the years. He published articles on ethics, such as Heidegger and Ethics (Inquiry 42 (1999): 439-474), and taught masters seminars together with Prof. Johan Bolhuis (behavioural biology, Utrecht) on the philosophy of biology and on evolutionary explanations of human moral capacities. In his book God in the Age of Science? the meta-ethical status of human morality is an important topic. During the coming five years, Philipses research will focus entirely on evolution and meta-ethics (if this grant will be awarded).
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14b. Short Curriculum Vitae Co-Applicant Johan J. Bolhuis is full professor of Cognitive Neurobiology at the Departments of Psychology and Biology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He obtained his PhD in Zoology (cum laude) at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, UK. He was Associate Professor at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He has served as an editor of Animal Behaviour, and as president of the Royal Dutch Zoological Society and is currently Editor-inChief of Behavioural Processes and Academic Editor of PloS One and Scientific Reports. He was awarded the Zoology Prize of the Royal Dutch Zoological Society in 2001. His main research interests are in the behavioural, neural and cognitive mechanisms of learning, memory and development. His current research is focused on the mechanisms of song learning in songbirds, and the parallels with human speech and language, on which he published two reviews in Nature Reviews Neuroscience and in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (with Noam Chomsky as a co-author). In addition, he has a theoretical interest in the relationship between evolution, cognition, and the brain, including evolutionary psychology, on which he published essays in Nature and PloS Biology. He is editor of six books on animal behaviour and cognitive neuroscience, and author of numerous papers on these issues. Together with Luc-Alain Giraldeau he is editor of the university textbook The Behavior of Animals. 15. Summary for Non-specialists De centrale probleemstelling luidt als volgt: welke wijsgerige implicaties heeft een evolutietheoretische verklaring van menselijke morele vermogens voor de normatieve ethiek en meta-ethiek? Darwin betoogde (1871) dat onze morele normen een contingent product van de evolutie zijn. Na Darwin heeft empirisch onderzoek over de evolutie van menselijke moraal in verschillende wetenschappelijke disciplines een rijkdom aan resultaten opgeleverd. De implicaties van deze empirische resultaten voor de normatieve ethiek en meta-ethiek (de wijsgerige discipline die de ontologische status van morele eigenschappen en de semantische status van morele uitspraken onderzoekt) zijn onderwerp van heftige debatten in de hedendaagse filosofie. Zijn evolutionaire verklaringen van bepaalde normatieve intuties bijvoorbeeld debunking (ontzenuwend), zoals de ethicus Peter Singer betoogde (2005)? Dan zouden ze implicaties hebben voor de normatieve ethiek (deelproject 2), hetgeen veel wijsgeren in navolging van Henry Sidgwick en G. E. Moore ontkennen. Volgt hieruit dat evolutionair te verklaren morele intuties geen rol kunnen spelen in de rechtvaardiging van morele standpunten in een model van reflective equilibrium? Hoe moeten we ons dan de logische structuur van overtuigende morele argumentaties bij een ethisch meningsverschil voorstellen (deelproject 4)? Om de centrale probleemstelling te behandelen zijn vier onderzoeksprojecten nodig met de volgende vraagstellingen: Project 1 (post-doc). In hoeverre kan de moraal verklaard worden door evolutionaire factoren? Zijn er conceptuele of kentheoretische grenzen aan de reikwijdte van dergelijke verklaringen, zoals hedendaagse Kantiaanse ethici betogen? Kan de cultuurgeschiedenis van de moraal worden ingepast in evolutionaire verklarende schemas, zoals is voorgesteld door evolutionaire psychologen, of is dit een vorm van pseudowetenschap? Bij deze vraagstelling
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wordt algemene wetenschapsfilosofie en wijsgerige begripsanalyse gecombineerd met een evolutiebiologische analyse. Speciaal voor de ethiek wordt een dual inheritance model onderzocht, waarin de rol van genetische en culturele evolutie wordt gecombineerd. Project 1 gaat dus over de kennistheoretische en wetenschapsfilosofische aspecten van evolutionaire verklaringen van onze morele vermogens. Project 2 (promovendus) Welke normatieve implicaties hebben dergelijke verklaringen, indien geldig, voor de menselijke ethiek? Ondermijnen ze de ethische autoriteit van de morele intuties waar we in het algemeen van uitgaan bij ethisch argumenteren? Stel bijvoorbeeld dat kenmerken van menselijk moreel gedrag, zoals het ingroup/outgroup onderscheid, evolutionair verklaard kunnen worden (dit onderscheid was adaptief in prehistorische situaties van voedselschaarste en competitie tussen groepen). Moeten wij dan in onze normstellingen rekening te houden met dergelijke wetenschappelijke resultaten, of heft de evolutionaire verklaring van dergelijke normatieve neigingen hun morele autoriteit juist op? De promovendus zal eerst de traditionele wijsgerige argumenten in kaart brengen volgens welke de (evolutionair) verklarende ethiek geen normatieve implicaties heeft. Vervolgens onderzoekt hij/zij het werk van vooraanstaande wetenschappelijk onderzoekers (b.v. E. O. Wilson) die dit ontkennen, evenals wijsgerige argumenten voor een dergelijke ontkenning. Project 2 gaat over de eventuele normatief-ethische implicaties van evolutionaire verklaringen van menselijke morele vermogens. Project 3 (promovendus) In hoeverre zijn evolutionaire verklaringen van elementen van de menselijke moraal te verenigen met gangbare wijsgerige visies op de semantiek van morele oordelen? Om de logica van moreel redeneren te kunnen begrijpen nemen veel filosofen tegenwoordig aan dat morele oordelen waar of onwaar zijn, en, indien waar, overeenkomen met een los van menselijke waarderingen bestaande werkelijkheid. Zie voor een verdediging van dit morele realisme b.v. Wedgwood (2007). Recentelijk hebben verschillende filosofen (bijvoorbeeld Street 2006, 2008) echter betoogd dat dit realisme onverenigbaar is met evolutionaire verklaringen van menselijke moraal. Het Darwiniaanse Dilemma van Sharon Street heeft geleid tot een golf van publicaties. De uitdaging voor de promovendus zal zijn een meta-ethische visie te ontwikkelen die zowel recht doet aan de argumenten voor moreel realisme als aan de tegenargumenten van Street en anderen. Project 3 gaat over de implicaties van evolutionaire verklaringen van onze morele vermogens voor de semantische status van morele uitspraken. Project 4 (post-doc) Zijn evolutionaire verklaringen van onze moraal ondermijnend in de zin dat ze het gezag van onze spontane morele intuties wegnemen? Volgens gangbare modellen van normatieve rechtvaardiging (reflexief evenwicht modellen) vormen dergelijke intuties het onvermijdelijke uitgangspunt van alle pogingen om onze morele oordelen te rechtvaardigen bij een moreel meningsverschil. Indien de mechanismen die deze intuties veroorzaken lang geleden evolutionair geselecteerd werden in situaties die drastisch verschillen van de huidige situatie van de mensheid op aarde, kunnen ze dan nog normatief gezag hebben? Indien niet, hoe ziet een geloofwaardig logisch model van argumentatie bij morele meningsverschillen er uit? Project 4 gaat over de logische structuur van geldige morele argumentaties. Naast hun dissertaties (aios) zullen aios en post-docs Engelstalige wetenschappelijke artikelen publiceren in vooraanstaande (blind refereed) filosofische tijdschriften en zowel workshops als een internationale conferentie voorbereiden. De beste artikelen zullen in een
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bundel gepubliceerd worden door een excellente academische uitgever. Voorts zal de hoofdaanvrager een Engelstalig boek publiceren over Evolutie en Ethiek waarin, op grond van de deelprojecten 1-4, de centrale vraag van het programma beantwoord wordt. Het onderzoek is multidisciplinair en de programmatische opzet is onontbeerlijk voor dit onderwerp omdat de onderzoeksvragen onderling nauw verweven zijn (precies 800 woorden). 16. Research Budget

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17. References (Separate Appendix)

Abend, Gabriel (2012). What the Science of Morality Doesnt say About Morality. Philosophy of the Social Sciences XX(X), 1-44. Ayer, Alfred J. (1971). Language, Truth and Logic (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books). Bennett, M.R. and P.M.S. Hacker (2003). Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Oxford, Blackwell). Berker, Selim (2009). The Normative Insignificance of Neuroscience. Philos. & Public Affairs 37, 293-329. Berwick, Robert c, A. D. Friederici, N. Chomsky and J. J. Bolhuis (2013). Evolution, Brain, and the Nature of Language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17, DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2012.12.002. Bjrnsson, Gunnar (2012). Do Objectivist Features of Moral Discourse and Thinking Support Moral Objectivism? J Ethics 16, 367-393. Bolhuis, Johan J. (2008). Piling on the Selection Pressure. Review of: Evolutionary Psychology as Maladaptive Psychology, Robert C. Richardson (MIT Press, 2007). Science 320, 1293. Bolhuis, Johan J. (2009). Selfless Memes. Review of: The Age of Empathy. Natures Lessons for a Kinder Society, Frans de Waal (Harmony Books, 2009). Science 326, 1063. Bolhuis, Johan J. (2012). Sense and Sensibility. Review of: Sense & Nonsense. Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour, Second Edition. K.N. Laland and G. R. Brown (Oxford University Press, 2011). Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 27, 9-10. Bolhuis, Johan J., G.R. Brown, R.C. Richardson and K.N. Laland (2011). Darwin in Mind: New Opportunities for Evolutionary Psychology. PLoS Biology 9, e1001109. Bolhuis, Johan J. and S. Verhulst, eds. (2009). Tinbergens Legacy: Function and Mechanism in Behavioral Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bolhuis, Johan J., and C. D. L. Wynne (2009). Can Evolution Explain how Minds Work?. Nature 458, 832-3. Brosnan, Kevin. (2011). Do the Evolutionary Origins of our Moral Beliefs Undermine Moral Knowledge?. Biol Philos 26, 51-64. Brown, Phil (2011). The Possibility of Morality. Philos Stud, DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9835-x. Cappelen, Herman (2012). Philosophy without Intuitions (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Copp, David. (2008). Darwinian Skepticism about Moral Realism. Philosophical Issues 18, 186-206. Darwall, Stephen (2006). The Second-person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, And Accountability (Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press). Darwin, Charles. (1871). The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. With an introduction by James Moore and Adrian Desmond (London, Penguin Books, 2004). De Waal, Frans, et al. (2006). Primates and Philosophers. How Morality Evolved (Princeton, Princeton UP). Dworkin, Ronald (2011). Justice for Hedgehogs (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press). Gardiner, Stephen M. (2011). A Perfect Moral Storm. The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Greene, Joshua D., R. Brian Sommerville, Leigh E. Nystrom and others. (2001). An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment. Science 293, 2105-2108. Greene, Joshua D. and Jonathan Haidt (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6, 517-523. Greene, Joshua D. (2008). The Secret Joke of Kants Soul, in Walter Sinott-Armstrong, ed., Moral Psychology, Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality (Cambridge Mass., The MIT Press), 35-79. Haidt, Jonathan. (2001). The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment. Psychological Review 108, 814-834. Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, 1016, 17-52. Jamieson, Dale (2010). Ethics, Public Policy, and Global Warming, in Stephen M. Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue (eds.), Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (Oxford, Oxford UP), 77-86. Joyce, Richard (2006). The Evolution of Morality (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press). Joyce, Richard (2008). Preis of The Evolution of Morality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77, 213-218. Joyce, Richard (2012 draft). Evolution, truth-tracking, and moral skepticism. To be published in B. Reichard, ed., Problems of Goodness: New Essays on Metaethics (Bernstein Verlag). Kahane, Guy (2011). Evolutionary Debunking Arguments. Nos 45, 103-125. Kahane, Guy, et al. (2012). The neural basis of intuitive and counterintuitive moral judgment. SCAN 7, 393402. Katz, Leonard D. (2000). Evolutionary Origins of Morality. Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (Thorverton (UK), Imprint Academic).
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Kitcher, Philip. (1998). Psychological Altruism, Evolutionary Origins, and Moral Rules. Philosophical Studies 89, 283-316. Klein, Colin (2011). The Dual Track Theory of Moral Decisio-Making: a Critique of the Neuroimaging Evidence. Neuroethics 4, 143-162. Laland, Kevin N. and G.R. Brown (2011). Sense & Nonsense. Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Laland, Kevin N., J. Odling-Smee, and S. Myles (2010). How Culture Shaped the Human Genome: Bringing Genetics and the Human Sciences Together. Nature Reviews Genetics 11, 137-148. Lazari-Radek, Katarzyna, & Peter Singer (2012). The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical Reason. Ethics 123, 9-31. Derek Leben (2012). When Psychology Undermines Beliefs. Philos. Psychology iFirst, 1-23. Lillehammer, Hallvard (2010). Methods of Ethics and the Descent of Man: Darwin and Sidgwick on Ethics and Evolution. Biol Philos 25, 361-378. Lillehammer, Hallvard (2011). The Epistemology of Ethical Intuitions. Philosophy 86, 175-200. Mason, Kelby (2010). Debunking Arguments and the Genealogy of Religion and Morality. Philosophy Compass 5/9, 770-778. Miller, Alexander (2003). An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics (Cambridge, Polity Press). Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Revised edn, edited with an introduction by Thomas Baldwin (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993). Philipse, Herman (2008). Rouvoets worsteling met geloof en public reason. NRC-Handelsblad, July 29th, 7. Philipse, Herman (2011). God, Ethics, and Evolution, in Harriet A. Harris (ed.), God, Goodness, and Philosophy (Farnham: Ashgate), 131-61. Philipse, Herman (2012). God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason (Oxford: Oxford UP). Prinz, Jesse J. (2007). The Emotional Construction of Morals (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Prinz, Jesse J. (2008). Acquired Moral Truths. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77, 219-227. Rawls, John (1971). A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press). Rawls, John (2001). Justice as Fairness. A Restatement, ed. by Erin Kelly (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard UP). Rowthorn, Robert (2011). Religion, Fertility and Genes: A Dual Inheritance Model. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 278, 2519-2527. Ruse, Michael (1986). Evolutionary Ethics: A Phoenix Arisen. Zygon 21, 95-112. Sarkar, Sahotra (2007). Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution (Oxford, Blackwell). Shafer-Landau, Russ (2003). Moral Realism: A Defence (Oxford, Clarendon Press). Shafer-Landau, Russ (2012). Evolutionary Debunking, Moral Realism and Moral Knowledge. Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 7, 1-37. Sidgwick, Henry (1874). The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn (London, Macmillan, 1907). Singer, Peter (2005). Ethics and Intuitions. The Journal of Ethics 9, 331-352. Skarsaune, Knut Olav (2011). Darwin and Moral Realism: Survival of the Iffiest. Philos Stud, 229-243. Sober, Elliott (2008). Evidence and Evolution. The Logic behind the Science (Cambridge, Cambridge UP). Street, Sharon (2006). A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value. Philos. Studies 127, 109-166. Street, Sharon (2008). Reply to Copp: Naturalism, Normativity, and the Varieties of Realism Worth Worrying about. Philosophical Issues 18, Interdisciplinary Core Philosophy, 207-228. Strawson, Peter F. (1992). Analysis and Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford, Oxford UP). Tooby, J, and L. Cosmides (1992) The Psychological Foundations of Culture, in J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, and J. Tooby, eds. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (New York, Oxford University Press). Trivers, R. (1971). The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57. Wedgwood, Ralph (2007). The Nature of Normativity (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Wielenberg, Erik J. (2010). On the Evolutionary Debunking of Morality, Ethics 120, 441-464. Wilson, David Sloan (2002). Darwins Cathedral. Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society (Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press). Wilson, David Sloan and E. O. Wilson (2007). Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology. The Quarterly Review of Biology 82, 327-348. Wilson, Edward Osborne (1980). Sociobiology. The Abridged Edition (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard UP). Wilson, Edward Osborne (1998). Consilience. The Unity of Knowledge (London, Little, Brown and Company). Woolcock, Peter G. (1999). The Case against Evolutionary Ethics Today, in Jane Maienschein and Michael Ruse, Biology and the Foundation of Ethics, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), 276-306.

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