Abstract
In philosophical ethics it has been called a fallacy (since Hume at least) to suppose that a conclusion about what ought to be can be deduced from premises about what is, was, or will be. In Simon’s (1971) words: “The theory of evolution does not tell us what is good or bad, in any ethical sense; the evolutionary process itself is non-ethical”. Does this verdict apply to evolutionary epistemology as well? Apparently it does. Even a protagonist of evolutionary epistemology bluntly states (Vollmer, his present contribution): “Evolutionary epistemology takes concepts and hypotheses, i.e., descriptive propositions, as cognitive structures, but not values or norms”. “Evolutionary epistemology is not an Etho-Logy searching into the evolutionary origins, traits and consequences of ethical, or even aesthetical, norms or values …”.
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Mohr, H. (1984). The Ethics of Science: Compatible with the Concept of Evolutionary Epistemology?. In: Wuketits, F.M. (eds) Concepts and Approaches in Evolutionary Epistemology. Theory and Decision Library, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7127-1_7
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