Social Environment and Moral Progress: Wallace

PUBLISHER:

redshirt

Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: January 26, 2018 January 26, 2018; Hits: 1721 1721

Over a century ago Alfred Wallace foresaw opportunities open to us to apply what we know about evolution to today's problems: "I have shown that the well-established laws of evolution as they really apply to mankind are all favorable to the advance of true civilization and of morality. Our existing competitive and antagonistic social system alone neutralizes their beneficent operation. That system must therefore be radically changed into one of brotherly co-operation and co-ordination for the equal good of all." More...