Evolução, naturalismo e moralidade : AECN e o dilema darwiniano de Street

Abstract

Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs), in a general context, intend to undermine the epistemic status of a domain of beliefs by appealing to its evolutionary origins. In metaethics EDAs are usually aimed at realistic moral theses – e.g. Ruse, Joyce, Kitcher, Bedke – and the main concern is that if our moral beliefs have been significantly influenced by selective pressures during our evolutionary history, then some sort of moral skepticism follows. One of the paradigmatic arguments articulated in this direction is Street’s Darwinian Dilemma. In the present dissertation I propose Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) – an EDA taken from the analytic philosophy of religion – as a possible answer to the problem of moral skepticism proposed by Street. Plantinga claims that evolutionary considerations taken within the framework of ontological naturalism entail an epistemic conflict for the subject who wants to maintain in his doxastic system both the belief in contemporary theory of evolution, and the belief in ontological naturalism. From this, I argue that the Darwinian Dilemma suffers from a structural problem because of its commitment to naturalistic ontology, which makes the dilemma generalize in its scope and harmfully affect non-moral beliefs, then becoming self-referentially incoherent. However, to reach this conclusion, I traced the following path: first, I propaedetically clarify (1) what moral realism is, (2) which empirical evolutionary facts are generally presented as motivating EDAs and (3) EDAs’ formal structure. Such concerns make up the first chapter of this work. In the second chapter, we commit to expose the Darwinian Dilemma of Street, as well as the classic criticisms offered against it by authors such as David Copp, Erick Wielenberg and William FitzPatrick. The second chapter ends with a critical assessment of these objections. Finally, in the third chapter, we present the EAAN and - using Daniel Crow's insights - we trace the approximations and distances of this argument with the Darwinian Dilemma, so that we can draw the appropriate conclusions. We conclude by proposing a skeptical dilemma to Street's dilemma.