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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Philippa Foot's naturalistic ethics in 'Natural Goodness' demonstrates that evolutionary organisms have evaluable life-form norms independent of fixed essences.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Deriving evaluative norms from descriptive facts about evolution commits the is-ought fallacy without explicit normative justification.
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    • 2.Species boundaries are conventional and fluid in nature, undermining the claim that stable norms inhere in 'life-forms' themselves.
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    • 3.Evolutionary success (survival/reproduction) does not entail goodness; harmful traits can proliferate, and humans transcend survival-based norms.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Organisms exhibit species-typical functions (predation, reproduction) that enable evaluation without invoking Platonic essences or teleology.
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    • 2.Natural selection grounds normativity: traits are evaluable as good/bad relative to survival and flourishing within ecological contexts.
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    • 3.Life-form norms emerge from evolutionary history and developmental biology, making them naturalistic and observable rather than metaphysically mysterious.
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