Vincent di Norcia applies his mental powers to Darwin’s moral theory.
Endless forms, indeed: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-14616161“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers… from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have… evolved.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
"The natural world contains about 8.7 million species, according to a new estimate described by scientists as the most accurate ever.
But the vast majority have not been identified - and cataloguing them all could take more than 1,000 years."
And that's not even counting all of countless species that have gone extinct.
But one thing we can be certain of is that not one of those species comes even remotely close to our own when we speak of concocting "moral theories".
And then [given my own assumptions] the great gaps that exist between moral theory and actual rules of behavior.
And moral practices? What are they embodied in if not hundreds and hundreds of years of actual/factual human history itself? Countless cultures around the globe evolving over the centuries given the parameters of what Karl Marx called "political economy"“Moral concepts are embodied in and partially constitutive of forms of social life.” Alasdair MacIntyre, Short History of Ethics
Of course, the thing about focusing in on Darwin here is that we are immediately confronted with the enormous complexities embedded in human interactions in which we are never quite certain where nature ends and nurture begins. Where genes segue into memes.Darwin had an evolutionary view of ethics ‘from the side of natural history’ which connects with MacIntyre’s insight into morality’s connections with social life.
Social instincts and well-developed mental powers. On the other hand, when it comes down to "particular contexts" I suspect that will still revolve largely around whether a moral philosopher is "one of us" or "one of them".This article will show how Darwin argued in The Descent of Man that the moral sense evolved from a combination of social instincts and well-developed mental powers. If this is so, moral philosophers will need to pay more attention to Darwin’s views, and in response, rethink morality along naturalistic lines. The result, I suggest, can be a rich concept of moral intelligence.
Here are my own views on morality:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=175121