The Comparison Between The Theories Of Darwin And Mayr In Relation To Moral Evolution Based On The History Of Biological Thought

As the founder of the evolutionary theory, Darwin not only restored human to its rightful place in nature but also began to think about the origin of morality from a biological side by explaining altruistic behavior in an evolutionary perspective. Hamilton, Trivers and Wilson were inspired by Darwin’s moral view and advanced their own theories including kin selection, reciprocal altruism and gene-culture co-evolution to account for how biological factors affecting the origin and development of moral system.However, there’re still some disputes mainly in four aspects:(1) what’s the relationship between altruism, self-interest and morality?(2) Does the selection of moral evolution take place at the level of gene, of individuals, or of groups?(3) How biological factors and social culture influenced the process in the formation of moral sense?(4) Can the biological ethics explain the moral norms? This article attempted to compare the theories of moral evolution between Darwin and Mayr based on the related history of biology in order to present the history of the questions above and make a further study.Through these comparisons this article considered that Darwin’s biological ethics was a kind of’nature’theory which explained the moral evolution and ethic rules by emotion and conscience originated from social instincts. On contrast, Mayr’s theory was a kind of’epigenesis’. He insisted that the ultimate goal of altruistic sense and behaviors was gene spreading, and the morality was a constraint for selfish instinct rather than the completely biological extending. This article suggested that the different understanding of the relationship between morality and evolution mainly due to the different biological angles to explain altruism. The’nature’theory explained altruism on the psychological level. It emphasized on the motivations of behaviors which was the content of psychological states instead of the cause of it. And the’epigenesis’explained altruism on the breeding level which could be one reason of psychological states. Only by studying and synthesizing the related researches of altruism from all angles can we reveal the truth of moral evolution accurately.