How Are Evil and Chocolate Ice Cream Alike?
The atheist declares there is no transcendent objective standard by which to measure ethical choices. Thus, ethics ultimately boils down to subjective preference. For the atheist, our subjective preference for the ethical rule against theft, for example, is impelled by evolution. Theft is, on balance, maladaptive. Therefore, our genes cause us not to prefer it. To the extent this is true, out ethical choices are akin to our aesthetic judgments. The evolutionary materialist says that our aesthetic judgments are also impelled by evolution. We judge certain things to be beautiful or sublime not because they are beautiful or sublime in any objective sense, but because our aesthetic preferences have been formed by evolutionary adaptations in exactly the same way our Read More ›