Field Museum Spring Systematics Symposium; Chicago, IllinoisMay 1990

对道德判断的理解和意义对所有公民来说都是最重要的。然而，科学界特别感兴趣的问题是，伦理学和进化论之间是否存在关系，以及进化论伦理学体系是否是一个合法的分析主题。这些问题是由赫伯·斯宾塞在1870年的著作《S》中提出的，过去要么是正面的，要么是强烈反对的。进化伦理学在十九世纪后期和二十世纪初以社会达尔文主义的形式蓬勃发展。现在，可能由于社会生物学和相关争议的加强，人们对进化伦理学的可能性重新产生了兴趣，并重新进行了审视。目前，对进化伦理学的严谨(和情绪化)反思跨越了政治和女权主义立场。一方面，存在一种基于进化生物学的进化保守的政治观，这有助于支持社会生物学的保守观点，另一方面，社会学家甚至共产主义者都声称有进化的道德基础。研讨会将分析进化伦理学的立场，指出各种解释的困难，并论证和反对进化伦理学伦理分析的合法性。

The understanding and meaning of ethical judgements are of greatest importance to all citizens. Questions of particular interest to the scientific community, however are whether there is a relation between ethics and evolution and whether a system of evolutionary ethics is a legitimate subject of analysis. These questions, initiated by Herber Spencer's work in the 1870's, have been answered in the past either in the positive, or vehemently opposed. Evolutionary ethics blossomed as Social Darwinism in the later part of the nineteenth and the beginnings of the twentieth centuries. Now, probably strengthened by sociobiology and the associated controversies, there is a renewed interest in, and a reexamination of, the possibilities of evolutionary ethics. Presently a rigorous (and emotional) rethinking of evolutionary ethics cuts across political and feminist positions. On the one hand there exists an evolutionary, conservative political view based on evolutionary biology which lends itself to support the conservative views of sociobiology, and on the other hand sociologists and even communists have claimed an evolutionary moral ground. The symposium will analyze the position taken on evolutionary ethics, point out the difficulties with all interpretations, and argue for and against the legitimacy of ethical analysis of evolutionary ethics.