Between Genes and Morality: Centering around Altruism

Edward Wilson argues that the core of morality be altruism and that altruism derive from the genes inscribed in the evolutionary altruism such as kin and reciprocal altruism. If this argument means that morality comes out from the disposition of behavior caused by the human brain and that the human brain comes out from genetic information of genes, then nobody would deny it. However, if the argument means that the brain produces only the disposition of behavior that meets selection and evolution within the frame work of information inscribed in genes, it would be a jump of logic. Although the human brain is the result of evolution, evolution has allowed it to have the emergent freedom of mind. In consequence, if one departs from genes and goes toward morality through the pathway of sociobiology, he cannot reach the destination. In this paper, I will show this point of view with several arguments concerning evolutionary altruism. As a preliminary discussion, I will get rid of the semantical obscurity around the concept of altruism, and then I will bring into relief the fact that both the way from genes to mind and the way from mind to morality do not exist. Finally, I will argue that the developmental system theory support the fact well