Evolution and Normativity 207So much for the two dimensions of evolutionary epistemology. The moral of the
story is that the same schema can be used to partition problems in the application
of evolutionary theory to questions of ethics. The focus ofEMresearch is on
discovering and tracing the evolution of the neural mechanisms that enable human
beings to formulate and act upon moral norms. TheEN research traces the
evolution of human moral systems as such and as exemplified in the work of Peter
Kropotkin, Herbert Spencer, Julian Huxley, E. O. Wilson, Richard Alexander,
Robert Hinde and others.
Again, we can be quite sure that some evolutionary account of the development
of the neural mechanisms that underlie our capacity to be moral and to formulate
norms is forthcoming, at least in principle. It would be nice if we could expect
to find a fossilized brain structure that we could definitely associate with a proto-
normative capacity but that is asking for what is probably impossible. But, this is
a technical limitation and does not undermine our conviction that, from a broadly
Darwinian perspective,someevolutionary account of the development of moral
mechanisms is correct. The same cannot be said for providing an evolutionary
account of the development of normative systems as such. Just as in the case of
evolutionary epistemologies, I suspect that much of the warrant for accounts of the
evolution of norms trades on our conviction that there is an evolutionary account
of the emergence of the underlying mechanisms.
Phylogeny versus ontogeny
Complementing the distinction betweenEMproblems andENproblems is a dis-
tinction that cuts across both. Biological organisms (or the lineages to which they
belong) have an evolutionary history. Individual organisms have a developmental
history as well. They mature from embryo to adult. Our biological understanding
of organisms and their organs has both aphylogeneticand anontogeneticdimen-
sion. Thus, consider the human brain. The structures that comprise the modern
human brain are the phylogenetic descendents of structures in the brains and pre-
brains of our evolutionary ancestors. The structures that comprise the modern
adulthuman brain are the ontogenetic ‘descendents’ of the brain structure of the
embryos that they developed from. The brain structures that enable cognitive and
epistemic activity are no different from any other brain structures or any other
organ for that matter.
Again a similar story can be told about the development of the neural structures
underlying moral normativity. There is a phylogenetic story to be told as well as
an ontogenetic story.
ENproblems can be factored in the same way. Human knowledge has both a
phylogenetic and an ontogenetic dimension. The growth of human knowledge over
generations constitutes a phylogeny of sorts. Whether we are intrinsically more
intelligent than our ancestral forebears — at least as far back as the development
of art and language — is a matter of dispute. But there can be no argument over
the fact that we know more than our ancestral forebears. Similarly, there can be