It is hard to overestimate the hostility that the philosophical community has shown toward evolutionary psychology. With very few exceptions — although I am skeptical about much I am prepared to take it seriously — it is hated and despised, often, it seems to me, on less than convincing grounds. (Misreading statistics and so forth.) But even if the objections are well taken, this does not explain the visceral hostility. My strong suspicion is that the philosophers are using their clever critiques to mask the same fear as that of Bishop Wilberforce. The nonbelievers stand side by side with the believers in wanting humans on a unique, higher-than-anyone-else pinnacle.
The fact is, however, that we are animals and we were produced by natural selection, so even if you reject evolutionary psychology you had better get over your worries and start looking for a convincing and profitable approach. A number of people have been trying to do this, showing how culture is connected to our biology and how this connection has been shaped by selection. Leaders in this direction are Californian researchers Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd. In their Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, they argue that culture is influenced and spread because humans have certain biases or tendencies — biases or tendencies rooted in selection — that direct the success of some ideas or practices over others….
So are they arguing that all human action is deterministic? Our genes made us do it? When they argue that humans are animals, natural materialism, I suppose, do they really mean that? If so I suppose they have no problem with a human predator taking down another human, much like a cat takes down a mouse or a tiger a gazelle.
It would be nice for the article to flesh out their assumptions and presuppositions.
Evolutionary psychology has returned the favor by remaining blissfully ignorant of the philosophical tradition — and so also the extent to which many of its central claims and methods have already been considered and challenged. It amounts to little more than utilitarianism served up as evolutionary history — with absolutely no evidence for the supposed “adaptations” (the lactose argument being a significant exception). Further, even in the hands of its best proponents, e.g., Steven Pinker, it utterly fails to account for the categorical thinking that acts as a corrective to presumably “adaptive” amoral strategies. There is simply no way a body can get from “Step-parents are disproportionately involved in the murder of their step-children”, to “And we should protect those children”, without “Murder is wrong”. But, “Murder is wrong” is a categorical statement. Human being as such requires categorical statements in both pure and practical reason. In the case of practical reason, they are self-involving and entail risk: “I affirm in myself, by my life, that murder [b]is wrong[/b].” Thus far Immanuel Kant.
To the extent that “evolutionary psychology” entails a kind of natural law ethic (as it does with Pinker and Marc Hauser), it would be nice if they would bother to acquaint themselves with the far more sophisticated natural law tradition originating with Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas explicitly recognizes the natural (self-preservation and sex) within the context of a robust account of human dignity and community.
Self-satisfied op ed pieces about sclerotic philosophers are self-serving. “Sophistication” often is. Are there any Episcopalians listening?