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Old 02-19-2004, 10:21 AM   #105
Troubleshooter
The urban Jane Goodall
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 3,012
Michael Sheremer: TheScience of Good and Evil

From Booklist
The source of morality is the topic under discussion in Shermer's latest book to champion rationalism. Religion received a critique in How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science (1999) and does so again as Shermer offers propositions on the origin of our ordinary, innate sense of right and wrong. Disposing of religion's rival, moral relativism, Shermer dedicates his effort to convincing readers that his thesis, labeled "provisional morality," makes more sense. What that means is that ethical rules are accepted conditionally and are as falsifiable as any scientific theory. Shermer takes this precept into the realm of evolutionary psychology, drawing applied ethics from such drastically different sources as anthropological field studies in Amazonia and the TV show The Honeymooners. Contending that the source of ethics is solely evolutionary, Sherman conducts his argument in an assertive but not gratuitously aggressive fashion. This stance as well as his populistic bent should earn him the hearing that he clearly hopes believers in God will give him. Gilbert Taylor
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846
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I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle
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