After reading McQuilkin and Copan’s writing about evolutionary ethics, I see the
third problem they listed as the most compelling. They wrote, “why trust our
beliefs at all if we are just the product of those material, valueless, mindless
processes?”[1] They go on to make another great point to support this line of
thinking by claiming that just because certain morals might help us survive, that
does not make it true.[2] The main point of evolutionary ethics is that morals do
not really exist, and that ethics exist only for survival purposes. Unfortunately, this
means that there is no such thing as ethics because ethics will change based on
the vantage point of each individual. For example, a grocery store owner will say
that it is ethically wrong to steal from their store because it hurts their chances of
surviving and takes away the opportunity of others to purchase those stolen
goods. A homeless person who is starving would not agree with that ethic by the
same definition of evolutionary ethics, because they need that food to continue to
exist. In other words, evolutionary ethics is counterproductive because its
definition disproves the reality of it possibly existing in a way that everyone would
ever truly agree. Evolutionary ethics is extremely short-sighted at best and chaotic
at its worst because one person’s ethical views will always have the possibility of
contradicting another person’s ethical stance.
g g g g g g g g g McQuilkin and Copan do a good job of covering the subject and its flaws
without taking too much time on the issues. It is clearly and succinctly defined,
and the problems that surround evolutionary ethics are addressed without taking
too much time away from the rest of the book. The issues with evolutionary
ethics that are addressed in the book are bound to come up when this subject is
brought up, because some of these arguments can even be had for those who
are outside of the faith. Evolutionary ethics is not theologically or rationally sound.
It is partially congruent with belief in God, only because God’s rules also happen
to help mankind survive. Unfortunately, this is where the agreement ends. Ethics
cannot be based on a sliding scale that will never be agreed upon, since every
person has their own opinion and agenda.
Word Count: 409
Bibliography
McQuilkin, J Robertson, and Paul Copan. An Introduction to Biblical Ethics: Walking
in the Way
of Wisdom. third ed. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2014.
[1] J Robertson McQuilkin and Paul Copan, An Introduction to Biblical Ethics:
Walking in the Way of Wisdom, third ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, an imprint of
InterVarsity Press, 2014), 181
[2] Ibid
