ABSTRACT. Work on the evolutionary origins of morality emphasizes one individual helping another without external pressure, threat or enticement, since external pressure can be dismissed as self-interested. This focus, we maintain, limits the range of moral theories under consideration and stacks the evidential deck in favour of theories that characterize morality as a kind of niceness, usually based on emotional capacities such as empathy. We argue that demand sharing—in which animals share after solicitation, request, or demand—should be seen as central in the evolution of morality. The resulting research programme would be more theoretically open-ended. It may shift the literature towards second-personal moral theories that take conflict to be central. It may also shift the literature towards moral psychologies that recognize the complexity of mixed, conflicting moral emotions. The question then is how conflict gave rise to demands that create moral interaction.
Just accepted:
Demand Sharing and the Evolution of Morality
– Mike Dacey & Paul Schofield
Abstract in alt text or read it here:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#philsci #philsky #hpbio
![Poster for this semester's reading group. We meet every first Wednesday at 4:15pm (CET) at Ruhr University Bochum (room NDEF04/346). If you need more information (abstract of the book, topics of the individual dates, information about the moodle course etc.), please e-mail me! vera.straetmanns[at]rub.de](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:pknrfjwd3hv36hn7ga44sgla/bafkreiejs57fz7q3te4xy5ylb5zrhk6qy6474mgwn6bnpsir3gmbtujup4)
