Social evolution as moral truth tracking in natural law

Area of Science:

• Ethics
• Evolutionary Biology
• Meta-ethics

Background:

• Morality exhibits adaptive and maladaptive traits, fueling debates on moral adaptation's meta-ethical standing.
• Realist tracking theory posits that morality can align with objective truths and adaptive rules.
• Evolutionary anti-realism disputes moral objectivity, asserting adaptive rules don't represent non-existent objective truths.

Purpose of the Study:

• To defend the realist tracking account of morality.
• To introduce a novel evolutionary perspective on natural law.
• To reconcile adaptive moral rules with objective moral truths.

Main Methods:

• Developing an evolutionary natural law framework.
• Utilizing cultural group selection as a mechanism for identifying objective moral truths.
• Analyzing the relationship between adaptive moral rules and objective moral truths.

Main Results:

• Adaptive moral rules are likely to mirror objective moral truths.
• Cultural group selection provides a viable pathway to identifying objective moral truths.
• The proposed evolutionary natural law view supports ethical realism.

Conclusions:

• Objective moral truths can be identified through evolutionary processes, specifically cultural group selection.
• Adaptive moral rules often correspond to these objective truths, supporting ethical realism.
• This work offers a robust evolutionary defense of the realist tracking account of morality.