Benjamin Cain
1 min readFeb 6, 2023

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I was going just by those two quoted paragraphs.

Having now read your article, I can say that your reasoning is similar to Ayn Rand's.

You say, 'To the extent that it’s selected because it is serving the goal of perpetuation, any aspect contrary to that is an error, just like the moth’s error of smashing into the lightbulb. The goal of perpetuation is ontologically prior to the cognitive conception of “ought”.'

That seems to reduce morality to biofunctionality. You equate the error of an evolutionary dysfunction with being bad in a moral sense. Rape, though, may have an evolutionary function, as might racism and sexism. Those behaviours' badness transcends the evolutionary domain, so it's not clear that your reduction goes through.

In short, you think something like evolutionary psychology solves the is-ought problem. By contrast, I think moral analysis is irreducible since it addresses the anomalousness of personhood.

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Benjamin Cain
Benjamin Cain

Written by Benjamin Cain

Ph.D. in philosophy / Knowledge condemns. Art redeems. / https://benjamincain.substack.com / https://ko-fi.com/benjamincain / benjamincain8@gmailDOTcom

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