An Introduction to Evolutionary Ethics Read Online Free PDF Page B

psychologists call a “modular” account of the mind: many distinct modules designed to solve many distinct problems. That is, many distinct “tools” to take on many distinct problems. It's an evolutionary account because natural selection is responsible for the design. But what are these modules?
    According to David Buss, a leading evolutionary psychologist, an evolved psychological module or mechanism is “a set of procedures within the organism that is designed to take in a particular slice of information and transform that information via decision rules into output that historically has helped with the solution to an adaptive problem” (2007: 52). What does this mean? Well, first, by “a set of procedures,” Buss is acknowledging that there may be many subsystems involved in delivering information from the environment to the mechanism. Visual systems, auditory systems, chains of logical inference, all of these may deliver information to the mechanism. Nevertheless, the mechanism is designed to take in only “a particular slice of information.” The mechanism for choosing mates, for example, will not process information regarding the color of the grass or the taste of the berries or the speed of passing clouds. Instead, that mechanism (it is alleged) is designed to take in and process only that information that is relevant to choosing a mate, and which information is relevant will depend on the operative “decision rules.” Such rules (we can imagine) amount to “If … then” clauses: if the mechanism registers so-and-so, then do thus-and-so and/or think so-and-so. 8 Because these rules do not process information about innumerable other things (just as your house-key does not open innumerable locks), that mechanism is described as dedicated or domain-specific .
    Finally, the presence of this mechanism – as opposed to some other mechanism – is explained by the fact that, given the preexisting materials of the hominid brain, this mechanism helped to solve an adaptive problem that confronted our hominid ancestors. This last part is extremely important. The psychological mechanisms that evolutionary psychologists claim fill the mind did not evolve to in response to problems we confront today. They may help in solving similar problems today, but that's not why we possess them. We possess them because they solved recurrent problems confronting our distant ancestors. And since they haven't been “selected out” of the population, current populations still posses them. As evolutionary psychologists like to say, our modern skulls house stone-age minds.
    1.6 Some (More) Common Misunderstandings As you might imagine, when the topic turns to human nature (and the alleged evolutionary roots of that nature), the landscape is suddenly awash in landmines. From the rather straightforward biological story above, it is easy to find oneself concluding all sorts of dubious things. I want to spend a few moments warning against several dangerous missteps: (1) conflating adaptation and adaptiveness; (2) conflating explanation and justification; (3) misunderstanding the scope of an evolutionary explanation; and (4) succumbing to the temptation of genetic determinism.
    Conflating adaptation and adaptiveness One of the most seductive confusions in this area concerns the distinction (and there is one) between adaptations and adaptiveness. Simply put, what is adaptive is not necessarily an adaptation, and adaptations are not necessarily adaptive. Some examples will help. Going to your doctor for an annual physical is adaptive insofar as it increases your chances of survival and reproduction; however, no one is going to conclude that the mind possesses a “going to the doctor” mechanism, dedicated to identifying doctors and motivating the organism to seek out their counsel. Going to the doctor is, if you will, a learned behavior – at least for those who learned it. The point is that we should be careful not to conclude that a