The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of biology and ethics, with reference to the volume Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, edited by Sober. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which ethical issues may surface in the discipline of biology, and then to discuss the manner in which various commentators in Sober's volume treat such issues.
There appear to be four identifiable areas in which evolutionary biology and ethics intersect and potentially conflict: first, in respect to the ethical implications of biological research on human beings, second, in respect to the unanticipated ethical consequences of more or less purely biological research; third, in respect to ethical implications of human-centered biological research on lower animals and the environment; fourth, in respect to the proper reporting of biological research. These areas overlap and converge in the manner of all disciplines in which implications are as crucial as the focus of research itself.
In discussing the potential for or desirability of environmental biology to point in the direction of ethical understanding, Ruse and Wilson present views that are challenged by Kitcher. The focus of their discussion is consistent with the first two areas described here. The ethical implications of biological research on human beings, whether as a species or in select groups, surface because of the ethical component of human experience. According to Ruse and Wilson, human ethics is genetic, or as they put it, "epigenetic," to account for the cognitive/psychological processes that either affect or are affected by biological determinants of moral behavior: "[B]ehavioral development viewed as the interaction of genes and environment should also occupy center stage in the discussion of human behavior. The most important advances at this level are being made in the still relatively young field of cognitive psychology" (RW, 425). The th...