What Makes Us Moral?

Many people fear that science, in the form of genetics and evolutionary biology, will show that everything we hold most dear is illusory or shameful. Morality will prove to be disguised selfishness; our choices will be shown to be driven by instincts; our reasoning will prove to be constrained by our biology. This book argues that these fears are groundless. Our morality, like our emotions and our abilities, is indeed the product of evolution, but this does not make it illusory. Nor should we conclude, as so many psychologists and biologists have done, that our morality is reducible to our biological instincts. Instead, properly understood, the evidence from the sciences supports the view that the moral capacities we have are capable of reassessing the very processes which gave birth to them, condemning the biological selfishness in which they had their origin. Human nature is a humane nature, at least in all the ways that matter, and understanding our origins ought to make us marvel at it all the more.