Neurolaw & Neuropolitics

A discussion with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Dartmouth College), Nita Farahany (Vanderbilt University), Sheril Kirshenbaum (Duke Universty), and Lawrence Krauss (Arizona State University).
Moderated by TSN Director Roger Bingham

Comments on Wojciech Załuski’s paper ‘On the Applicability of Evolutionary Anthropology in Legal and Moral Philosophy’

1. In his characteristically lucid and skillfully grounded paper Wojciech claims (1) that evolutionary anthropology (understood as a nontrivial view of human nature mainly based on evolutionary psychology) can be used fruitfully in the analysis of some questions of legal philosophy, and (2) that the relevance of evolutionary anthropology for moral philosophy is very limited. These claims strike one as being quite counterintuitive: after all, the issue of how natural selection has shaped our sense of morality, moral behavior, and moral intuitions is a rather heatedly debated topic, at least among philosophers and evolutionary psychologists. The prevailing view on this problem is that homo sapiens possesses at least a minimal innate moral competence, which is of an evolutionary origin. On the other hand, positive law, conferred by an act of legislation, seems to be of a much more conventional nature than morality. It follows that our sense of legality, legal behavior, and legal intuitions do not rest upon some hard-wired dispositions shaped by evolution. They seem to be influenced by the necessity to resolve in an efficient way some important issues which were absent in ancestral environments (e.g. legitimacy of state coercion, limitations of public power, contractual obligations).

Wojciech Załuski – On the Applicability of Evolutionary Anthropology in Legal and Moral Philosophy

Zapraszamy do zapoznania się z tekstem Wojciecha Załuskiego pt. “On the Applicability of Evolutionary Anthropology in Legal and Moral Philosophy“.