John G. West is one of the chief IDiots over at the Discovery Institute. He has posted an article on Darwinism and Traditional Morality. It appears that West wrote a book about this stuff called Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest. I haven't read it, and I don't intend to.Here's what West says in the online article at Evolution News & Views (sic). I'm not making this up.
In my book, I challenge the attempt to locate a non-relative justification for morality in Darwinism. According to a Darwinian conception of ethics, every behavior regularly practiced by at least some subpopulation of human beings is ultimately a product of natural selection. Thus, while the maternal instinct is “natural” according to Darwinism, so is infanticide. While monogamy is “natural,” so are polygamy and adultery. Because of this uncomfortable truth, even some noted Darwinists such as Thomas Huxley have recognized the difficulty of grounding ethics in a Darwinian understanding of nature.Huxley was no idiot. Like every other rational being, he recognizes that you can't base a code of ethics on Darwinism, or any other part of science. Talk about a strawman! What the heck goes on in the minds of these IDiots? Is it religion that makes them so stupid?
"What the heck goes on in the minds of these IDiots?"
ReplyDeleteVery little of interest.
"Is it religion that makes them so stupid?"
No it's more like a catalyst.
Thus, while the maternal instinct is “natural” according to Darwinism, so is infanticide.
ReplyDeleteJohn West rediscovers the problem with "Natural Law" based ethics, concisely summed as "is vs. ought." This is well-known to all philosophers of ethics.
I can only imagine in his book that he discusses Plato's Euthyphro dialogue and the difficulty for theists in finding a moral code which is not arbitrary.
Oh that's right, IDiots don't have to supply their own solutions, only attack the ideas of others.
Did someone say stupid? Check out Duane Whitlock and his book of threes.
ReplyDeleteLike every other rational being, he recognizes that you can't base a code of ethics on Darwinism, or any other part of science.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree. You can base a code of ethics on evolutionary theory. But it takes a deeper understanding of evolutionary theory than most people have to do it.
On second thought, that's not quite true. We all do it, every day of our lives. It just takes a deeper understanding than most people have to understand how and why we do it.
The answer to your question is:
ReplyDeleteYES
I'd challenge West to present any non-relative & confirmable justification for morality. Attributing it to a deity merely "passes the buck".
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with the ID movement, but I think that this book can be very useful, because there are a growing number of philosophers, scientists who pretend to provide us an objective morality based on darwinism: what is objectively moral is what natural selection has programmed in the part of DNA consacred to morality.
ReplyDeleteSee at: http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/6008/Default.aspx