Moralizing biology: the appeal and limits of the new compassionate view of nature

Alexander R.; Alexander R.; Axelrod R.; Barash D.; Bateson P.; Bateson P.; Boella L.; Bowler P.; Brooks D.; Brooks D.; Buller D.; Carey N.; Changeux J. P.; Changeux J. P.; Changeux J.-P.; Changeux J.-P.; Cowie F.; Damasio A.; Damasio A.; Darwin C.; Daston L.; Dawkins R.; de Waal F.; de Waal F.; Dugatkin L. A.; Elman J.; Flack J. C.; Fox Keller E.; Francis R.; Frank R. H.; Gazzaniga M. S.; Ghiselin M.; Goleman D.; Gottlieb G.; Greene J. D.; Griffiths P. E.; Haidt J.; Haidt J.; Haidt J.; Hauser M.; Jablonka E.; Jablonka E.; Joyce R.; Joyce R.; Kaye H. L.; Keltner D.; Keltner D.; Lehrman D. S.; Macmillan M.; Marcus G.; Mikhail J.; Moll J.; Moore D.; Moss L.; Nowak M. A.; Oyama S; Parry S.; Pigliucci M.; Prinz J.; Prinz J.; Prinz J.; Ruse M.; Segerstråle U. C.; Sinnott-Armstrong W.; Sober E.; Stent G. S.; Stotz K.; Williams G. C.; Wilson E. O.; Wilson E. O.; Zak P.

Moralizing biology: the appeal and limits of the new compassionate view of nature

Abstract

In recent years, a proliferation of books about empathy, cooperation and pro-social behaviors (Brooks, 2011a) has significantly influenced the discourse of the life-sciences and reversed consolidated views of nature as a place only for competition and aggression. In this article I describe the recent contribution of three disciplines – moral psychology (Jonathan Haidt), primatology (Frans de Waal) and the neuroscience of morality – to the present transformation of biology and evolution into direct sources of moral phenomena, a process here named the ‘moralization of biology’. I conclude by addressing the ambivalent status of this constellation of authors, for whom today ‘morality comes naturally’: I explore both the attractiveness of their message, and the problematic epistemological assumptions of their research-programs in the light of new discoveries in developmental and molecular biology