The use and abuse of biology. An anthropological critique of sociobiology

Abstract

In sociobiological discussions on morality, attention is almost completely limited to the concept of altruism. Though the latter is an important subject in ethics, in sociobiology the study of morality cannot be limited to altruism. For morally acting and altruistically acting do not necessarily coincide; and in ethics the term altruism is used in a sense different from the one in sociobiology. It is argued that sociobiology may be useful for the explanation of the difference in the frequency of altruistic behavior in our complex, industrial societies and in hunter-gatherer ones.Concerning the question of a possible contribution by sociobiology to moral science, it is shown that morality is a complex institution regulating social behavior and being based on settishness, altruism, and rationality. Hence, if sociobiologists want to explain morality, they will have to consider all the preconditional moral abilities.It appears questionable whether sociobiology is even indirectly relevant for normative ethics by its giving insight into the practicability of moral rules. Finally, it is shown that sociobiologists, when dealing with normative questions, often wrap moral presuppositions in their assertions and confer them a scientific status which they subsequently use for deducing their very moral conclusions.