Normative Evolutionary Ethics
Normative evolutionary ethics aims at defining which acts are right or wrong, and which things are good or bad in an evolutionary context. It is not merely describing, but it is prescribing goals, values and obligations. For example eugenics is a form of normative evolutionary ethics, because it defines what is "good" on the basis of genetics and the theory of evolution. Social Darwinism is a more wide ranging topic. However, to the extent it promotes ethical values and policies based on the theory of evolution, it can also be classified as a normative evolutionary ethics. According to philosopher G. E. Moore (see above) all systems of naturalistic ethics, including normative evolutionary ethics, do commit the naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy does not apply to descriptive evolutionary ethics because no ethical statements are inferred from facts. Also, the naturalistic fallacy does not apply to weaker forms of normative evolutionary ethics, namely those which are consistent with evolution, but not derivable from evolution.
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Famous quotes containing the words evolutionary and/or ethics:
“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”
—Stanley Weiser, U.S. screenwriter, and Oliver Stone. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)