DISKURSUS.
Volume 19.
Nomor 1.
April 2023: 141-143 Sherel Jeevan Joseph Mendonsa.
Alasdair MacIntyreAos Views and Biological Ethics:
Exploring the Consistency.
Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022, xi 260 hlm.
Jeevan MendonsaAos Alasdair MacIntyreAos Views and Biological Ethics rightly points at a major gap within the MacIntyrean enquiry after what could be called its Aubiological turnAy in the late 1990s.
In Dependent Rational Animals .
MacIntyre claims that ethics should not be separated from biology.
and yet, he scarcely, if ever, discusses DarwinAos theory of However, it does seem that a radical inconsistency of his biologically grounded ethics with DarwinAos theses would seriously challenge its credibility.
Establishing the compatibility of MacIntyreAos moral theory with post-Darwinian biology thus becomes vital to argue for its MendonsaAos book undertakes this important task.
His choice to name the matter of his research Aubiological ethicsAy instead of using the more common label Auevolutionary ethicsAy is a signiycant one: it makes explicit, from the outset, a strong divide in evolutionary ethics between, on the one hand, reductionist, deterministic, and at times relativistic approaches of morality, and, on the other hand, anti-relativist, biologically-informed defenses of objective morality.
The author is committed to this latter perspective and he attempts to reveal its possible consistency with a MacIntyrean take on practical rationality.
The book follows a clear-cut, straightforward outline: the yrst part displays a synoptic overview of MacIntyreAos account of practical rationality, part two presents and discusses major trends in evolutionary The third and ynal part identiyes conyict and contact zones between MacIntyreAos philosophy and evolutionary ethics, arguing that the discrepancies between these theories are not sufycient to undermine a compatibilist project.
In the yrst chapters, emphasis is laid upon the differences between MacIntyreAos earlier, tradition-based and his later, biologically-grounded accounts of practical rationality.
Mendonsa makes a stimulating interpretive claim by suggesting that MacIntyreAos theory it- Tinjauan Buku self underwent an Auepistemological crisisAy, to borrow one of MacIntyreAos own core concepts, as MacIntyre realized that his earlier moral theory neglected the central facts of dependence, vulnerability, and disability.
This led him to transcend the limitations of his previous account of morality to integrate a universal, biological basis for morality.
According to Mendonsa, this shift is one more ground to defeat the objection that MacIntyreAos position would be relativistic or incompatible with Thomism.
In the second part of the book.
Mendonsa offers a synthetic presentation of modern and contemporary versions of evolutionary ethics.
Evolutionary ethics is the domain of ethics that Auexplores how the process of biological evolution as proposed by Charles Darwin has inyuenced the formulation of ethical norms and ethical behaviour in human beingsAy .
Among other concerns, a central challenge raised by evolutionary ethics is what Mendonsa refers to as the Aucontingency challengeAy: AuDoes evolutionary ethics debunk objective morality? (A) Do our genes totally determine the way we perceive morality today?Ay.
Against the determinism of Edward O.
Wilson.
Richard Alexander, and Michael Ruse, the author embraces the views of evolutionary ethicists such as Stephen Rose.
Stephan Lewontin, and Leon Kamin, arguing that the objectivity and justiycation of our moral beliefs can be warranted even in the framework of evolutionary biology.
The third part of the book begins with exploring the possible convergences between MacIntyreAos stance and biological ethics.
Comparing MacIntyreAos historicism and DarwinAos natural history.
Mendonsa highlights the strong continuity that both theories recognize between human beings and other animals, and he suggests the biological and evolutionary dimensions of some virtues such as empathy.
The author then proceeds to examine the divergences between the MacIntyrean and the evolutionary The most prominent conyict between them obviously lies in the role of natural selection in the formation of human morality, as MacIntyre would certainly disagree with any attempt to ascribe an instrumental role to such a blind and arbitrary force.
Consequently, the disagreement also pertains to the issue of the rational justiycation of moral beliefs.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 19.
Nomor 1.
April 2023: 141-143 The answer Mendonsa provides to these difyculties runs as follows: Authe forces of natural selection have led to the development of cognitive capacities the exercise of which has led us to have moral beliefs which are objective and which can be rationally justiyedAy .
We are cognitively apt to recognize objective moral truths, and the fact that this aptitude is a product of an evolutionary process does not weaken the objectivity nor the justiycation of these moral beliefs.
Mendonsa makes the same point about our other objective beliefs, whether in the yeld of mathematics or of natural sciences.
Practical Rationality and Biological Ethics offers a welcome contribution to the ongoing enquiries fostered by MacIntyreAos works.
Not only does it provide a yne discussion of Dependent Rational Animal and a very good synthesis of MacIntyreAos overall account of practical rationality: it also thoroughly discusses a very large range of recent contributions in evolutionary ethics and courageously attempts to reconcile MacIntyreAos insights with some of these theories.
Some of MendonsaAos claims would indeed deserve further discussion.
In particular, and although some existing literature can support this claim, the paradoxical assertion that DarwinAos theory of natural selection can be made compatible with an Aristotelian teleological conception of natural beings would at least need more space to be truly convincingly demonstrated.
Nevertheless, the points that Mendonsa makes, drawing on James Lennox, on the biological aspects of some virtues such as generosity is fascinating.
Overall, this book makes a stimulating and valuable contribution to the yeld of moral philosophy, based on the yrm conviction that any attempt to radically reject evolutionary ethics or to embrace it blindly in its strongest versions is Auan exercise in futilityAy .
(Ostiane Lazrak.
University Paris 1 Panthyon-Sorbonne.
Pranci.