Natural morality
Encyclopedia
Natural morality describes a form of morality
that is based on how humans evolved, rather than a morality acquired from societal norms
or religious teachings.
Charles Darwin
s theory of evolution
is central to the acceptance of a natural morality.
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
that is based on how humans evolved, rather than a morality acquired from societal norms
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
or religious teachings.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
s theory of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
is central to the acceptance of a natural morality.
Further reading
- Wong, David, 2006, Natural Moralities, A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195305395