| In this dissertation, I develop an evolutionary account of ethical norms. Drawing on recent work in biological and cultural evolutionary theory, I argue that individual selectionist accounts of morality are inadequate. The alternative account I propose incorporates multilevel biological selection, cultural selection, and their interaction, as well as a third type of selection I call intentional selection. The incorporation of this third sort of selection, I argue, makes a space for moral justification.;Some philosophers---the evolutionary error theorists---have argued that an evolutionary perspective shows many of our assumptions about morality to be misguided, revealing, for example, that there are no objective moral values. I take issue with this view, arguing that it is possible to explain morality without explaining it away. Against the error theorists, the explanation of morality I offer supports rather than undermines the normativity of moral discourse and practice.;My account supports a functional understanding of morality and moral norms. The function of morality, I argue, is to harmonize diverse human ends, and this function is multiply realizable. That is, there is no single ideal set of moral norms that can accomplish it. Instead there are many solutions, all imperfect, to the challenge of harmonizing human ends. Some solutions are better than others, however. Individual moral norms can be evaluated in relation to morality's overarching function---though the function of morality itself also can be evaluated and recast.;On my view, the descriptive and prescriptive---or nature and normativity---are interdependent. What we ought to do, as human beings, is contingent on our biological and cultural backgrounds. However we are not slaves to biology or to culture because we can reflectively assess and modify our ends.;Morality is a social process. Thus although moral norms are justified in relation to human ends, moral justification is not relative to the ends of single individuals. Moral reasoning is instrumental, but not individually instrumental. Coming to justified moral belief involves the reflective choice of norms that reconcile the diverse ends of individuals and society and a whole. |
