Moralizing biology: The appeal and limits of the new compassionate view of nature. (July 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Meloni, Maurizio
• Is Part Of: History of the human sciences. Volume 26:Number 3(2013)
• Page Start: 82
• Page End: 106
• Publication Date: 2013-07
• Subjects: altruism -- developmental biology -- Jonathan Haidt -- human nature -- moral brain -- Frans de Waal; Social sciences -- History -- Periodicals; 300.9
• DOI: 10.1177/0952695113492163
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0952-6951

Abstract

In recent years, a proliferation of books about empathy, cooperation and pro-social behaviours (Brooks, 2011a) has significantly influenced the discourse of the life-sciences and reversed consolidated views of nature as a place only for competition and aggression. In this article I describe the recent contribution of three disciplines – moral psychology (Jonathan Haidt), primatology (Frans de Waal) and the neuroscience of morality – to the present transformation of biology and evolution into direct sources of moral phenomena, a process here named the 'moralization of biology'. I conclude by addressing the ambivalent status of this constellation of authors, for whom today 'morality comes naturally': I explore both the attractiveness of their message, and the problematic epistemological assumptions of their research programmes in the light of new discoveries in developmental and molecular biology.