Thursday, August 19, 2010

animal "morality" in question

Marc Hauser is a professor at Harvard who has pubilshed work on the evolution of morality in animals. The suggestion is that since animals possess some kind of moral judgment and behavior, it is not too hard to imagine the further devlopment of human morality in natural terms. I have read some of his books and have been trying to define the relevant differences between human morality and the behavioral studies he reports. But now that effort may be unnecessary - it seems that his "findings" were not suported by his evidence. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/education/12harvard.html?_r=2&ref=science. And this should be a reminder [to me as well as others] not to accept reported "findings" too quicly....And see this also: http://chronicle.com/article/Document-Sheds-Light-on/123988/