Evolutionary Ethics 237of most mammals, and how inconsistent with the premise that feminine beauty is
the chief qualification in the human mating system the premise that most of the
work of childcare is performed by women is. The notion that conflict pervades the
relations between the sexes because polygyny is natural for men and monogamy
for women oversimplifies a complicated dynamic, and while fantasy is a source
of revealed preferences, the frequent intrusion of harem imagery into discussions
of human propensities is at odds with the observation that harem-formation and
maintenance is not practical in hunter-gatherer societies and is unlikely to repre-
sent the original mating system of human beings.
It seemed evident to the ancients that nature had intended women for child-
bearing and maintenance activities, and that women were to be assessed in terms
of those functions, and that nature had intended men for the participation in the
legal, intellectual, military, and political institutions that constituted the rest of
human life. Contemporary moral theory, by contrast, operates with notions of
agency that give no weight at all to constraints imposed by sex, with the some-
what paradoxical result that observed discrepancies in the overall well-being of
men vs. the overall well-being of women emerge as morally irrelevant. The two
norms theory thus seems established by fiat in traditional moral theory and by
default in modern. Evolutionary Ethics is capable in principle of offering a third
and distinct perspective, an alternative to universalist indifference, as well as to
the absurdities of cosmological deductions of men’s and women’s roles. The plain
fact is that nature “intends” both sexes for reproduction.
8 THE OPEN QUESTION ARGUMENTThe foregoing discussion suggests that evolutionary theory has the power to il-
luminate many of the conflicts and struggles experienced by individuals as well
as the difficulties involved in framing appropriate social institutions. But can it
do more than illuminate problems? Can evolutionary theory also point the way
towards solutions?
The traditionalist acknowledges that humans evolved from nonhuman primate
ancestors, that they possess psychological and behavioural traits that, like their
morphological and physiological traits, have been shaped by environmental pres-
sures and competition with conspecifics, and that some of our current traits are
shared with successful ancestors, while others represent species-specific innova-
tions. He may readily agree that the behaviour interesting to the evolutionary the-
orist — aggression and pacification, altruistic and co-operative behaviour, parental
care, parent-offspring conflict, the division of labour, acquisition and sharing, and
the struggle for status and dominance — is the same as the behaviour interest-
ing to the moralist. He may even agree that many features of human social life
that we are antecedently disposed to regard as good, such as co-operation and
parental devotion, seem to lend themselves to explanation by reference to compe-
tition and selective pressures. The theory of evolution can probably explain why
we are suspicious of people with different facial features (they might be hostile and