Michael Ruse has proposed in his recent book Taking Darwin Seriously and elsewhere a new Darwinian ethics distinct from traditional evolutionary ethics, one that avoids the latter's inadequate accounts of the nature of morality and its failed attempts to provide a naturalistic justification of morality. Ruse argues for a sociobiologically based account of moral sentiments, and an evolutionarily based causal explanation of their function, rejecting the possibility of ultimate ethical justification. We find that Ruse's proposal distorts, overextends and weakens both Darwinism and naturalism. So we propose an alternative Darwinian metaethics that both remedies the problems in Ruse's proposal and shows how a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness avoids the naturalistic fallacy and can provide genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive ethical claims. Thus, we propose to really take Darwin seriously.Evolutionary ethics is dead and rightfully buried. But Darwinian ethics is born again in sociobiology and deservedly so. So contends philosopher and historian of biology Michael Ruse in a series of recent publications (Ruse, 1984; 1986a, b; and Ruse and Wilson, 1986). Although efforts to revive interest in an ethics based in sociobiology, the study of animal and human social behavior, have been almost unanimously rejected, the recent publications of sociobiologist Richard Alexander (1987), historian and philosopher of biology Robert Richards (1986; and Ruse's own work manifest a resurgence of interest in the relationships between evolutionary theory and ethics. In this essay we examine Ruse's claims for a Darwinian ethics based on sociobiology. Is there life there, and is it worth nourishing, or are Ruse's efforts merely attempts to revive a corpse?Ruse distinguishes the proposals of Darwin about evolutionary theory and ethics from those of Spencer and the Social Darwinians, for instance, Sumner, as well as the twentieth century attempts to connect biology and ethics by Julian Huxley, Dobzhansky and Waddington. Darwinian ethics is a different breed than these traditional evolutionary ethics (TEE) (1986b, pp. 73-93). Ruse himself had not always believed this. Indeed in his earlier work on the issue (1979), though sympathetic to the scientific findings and potential of sociobiology, he found the efforts of people like E. O. Wilson (Lumsden and Wilson, 1981;Wilson, 1975;1979) to link the new discipline with ethics unsuccessful. But now he has seen the light (1986b, pp. 93-101). It's not that he finds all of Wilson's substantive proposals completely acceptable now. Unfortunately, some of them are of the doomed evolutionary sort, modelled as they are, in Ruse's view, on a Spencerian approach. But Ruse finds in sociobiology, particularly the proposals of Wilson, hints of a radically different sort of approach to the decisive metaethical issues about the nature of morality and the ultimate justification of moral principles (1986b, pp. 68-70; 213-217; 250-252).Using these hints, ...
