Seminar on
The Evolution of Morality
Geoff Sayre-McCord, Professor

This seminar is designed to take advantage of -- indeed exploit as much as possible -- the fact that Philip Kitcher will be the Frey Distinguished Visitor in the UNC Philosophy Department this Fall.  On each of his four visits he will give a presentation/seminar on the material that he is shaping into a book.  These four sessions will count as four of our class meetings. They are on

Sept 28 "States of Nature,"
Oct 12 "Springs of Sympathy,"
Oct 26 "The Genealogy of Morals", and
Nov 16 "The Structure of Moral Revolutions."

In preparation for each of these sessions we will have a double meeting of the seminar on the Mondays preceding Kitcher’s visits, running from 3 until about 7.  And there will be an initial meeting of the seminar on the first Monday of the semester.

Schedule

August:


27 First meeting: What might evolution have to say about morality and metaethics?

September:

10 Second Meeting: What’s being explained and how?
24 Third Meeting (double length) Altruism, egoism, and the sense of duty
28* Fourth Meeting, Kitcher’s paper to the department:  "States of Nature,"

October:

8 Fifth Meeting (double length): How should we understand the pre-moral condition?
12* Sixth Meeting, Kitcher session: “Springs of Sympathy”
22 Seventh Meeting (double length): Sympathy, malice, and morality.
26* Eighth Meeting, Kitcher session: “The Genealogy of Morals”

November:

12 Ninth Meeting (double session): Cognitivist and expressivist alternatives.
16* Tenth Meeting, Kitcher session: “The Structure of Moral Revolutions.”
19 Relativism, difference, and disagreement.

Reading

Required readings are drawn from two books: Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson Unto Others (Harvard, 1998) and Allan Gibbard Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Both are (or will be) available at the UNC Student Stores.

Requirements

Students taking the course for full credit are required to give a seminar presentation and to write a final essay. Student presentations are expected to be of high standard (think in terms of something that might be delivered at a professional meeting). If uninterrupted, they should run for about twenty minutes. If you feel more comfortable doing so, you may read from a text and you may postpone questions until after you have finished.

Final papers should deal with one of the questions raised by the seminar. They should be between 15 and 25 pages in length. They are due on Friday, December 14th.

Useful Reading:
Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation
Batali, John and Philip Kitcher, “Evolution of Altruism in Optional and Compulsory Games,” Journal of Theoretical Biology (1995)
Binmore, Ken Fun and Games
Byrne, A. and A. Whiten, [eds], Machiavellian Intelligence
Cavalli-Sforza, L. and M. Feldman, Cultural Transmission and Evolution
D’Arms, Justin, “Sex, Fairness, and the Theory of Games,” Journal of Philosophy (1996), 615-27.
D’Arms, Justin, R. Batterman, and Kryzstof Gorny, “Game Theoretic Explanation and the Evolution of Justice,” Philosophy of Science (1998), 76-102.
D’Arms, Justin, “When Evolutionary Game Theory Explains Morality, What does it Explain?” Journal of Consciousness Studies (2000), 296-99.
Dawkins, Richard, “Nice Guys Finish First” (in Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene [second edition])
Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene
De Waal, F.,  Good Natured
De Waal, F., Chimpanzee Politics
De Waal, F., Peace-Making Among Primates
Frankfurt, Harry, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person” (in Frankfurt The Importance of What We Care About)
Godfrey-Smith, Peter, and Richard Lewontin, “The Dimensions of Selection”, Philosophy of Science 1993
Goodall, Jane, The Chimpanzees of Gombe
Hamilton, William, “The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior” I and II (in Hamilton Narrow Roads of Gene Land)
Harcourt, A. and F. De Waal, Coalitions and Alliances in Humans and Other Animals
Kitcher, Philip, “A Beginner’s Guide to Life, Sex, and Fitness” (in Kitcher Vaulting Ambition)
Kitcher, Philip, “Four Ways of ‘Biologicizing’ Ethics” (in Sober Conceptual Issues …)
Kitcher, Philip, “Psychological Altruism, Evolutionary Origins, and Moral Rules”
Kitcher, Philip, “The Evolution of Human Altruism”, Journal of Philosophy (1993).
Kitcher, Philip, “The Genealogy of Morals”
Myerson, Roger, Game Theory
R.Boyd and Peter Richerson Culture and the Evolutionary Process
Rosenberg, Alex, “Darwin’s Nihilistic Idea”
Rosenberg, Alex, “Darwinianism in Contemporary Moral Philosophy and Social Theory” in The Cambridge Companion to Darwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
Ruse, Michael and E. O. Wilson, “Moral Philosophy as Applied Science” (in Sober [ed] Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology [second edition])
Schelling, T., “The Intimate Contest for Self-Command” (in Schelling Choice and Consequence)
Skyrms, Brian, Evolution of the Social Contract (NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
Skyrms, Brian, “Game Theory, Rationality, and Evolution of the Social Contract,” Journal of Consciousness Studies (2000), 269-84.
Smith, John Maynard, Evolution and the Theory of Games
Sober, Elliott, The Nature of Selection (especially chapters 7-9)
Sperber, D., Explaining Culture
Sterelny, Kim and Philip Kitcher, “The Return of the Gene”, Journal of Philosophy (1988).
Trivers, Robert, “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism” (in T. Clutton-Brock and P. Harvey [eds] Readings in Sociobiology)
Wrangham, Richard, “On the Evolution of Ape Social Systems”, (in B. Smuts et.al. [eds] Primate Societies)


last revised 12/01/01