T. J. Flanagan

“One surprisingly common idea is that science, in explaining some phenomenon, makes it something it isn’t or wasn’t. It tries to disclose that every thing is a ‘‘mere thing.’’ It takes the world as we know it and turns it into a mere collection of scientific objects. ‘Reductionism’ is the disparaging name for this phenomenon. Something like this view”

“And for all the talk about how Darwin’s theory is one of ‘‘red in tooth and claw,’’ it simply isn’t. Humans are designed to care about more than individual fitness.””

“[M]orality is not ‘‘something altogether new on the face of the Earth.’’ It is not an invention de novo. Homo sapiens, presumably like their extinct social ancestors, as well as certain closely related species, such as chimps and bonobos, possess instincts and emotions that are ‘‘protomoral,’’ by which I simply mean that we possess the germs, at least, of the virtues of sympathy, compassion, fidelity, and courage. There is no ‘‘skyhook" being imputed here. We didn’t create the relevant instincts and emotions. Natural selection did. We are endowed with these instincts and feelings thanks to a craning operation that began with unicellular organisms.””