Commonsense Darwinism: Evolution, Morality, and the Human Condition  . By JohnLemos . Chicago : Open Court , 2008 . xvii + 246 pages . Softcover $29.95 .

John Lemos’s Commonsense Darwinism is a closely argued exploration of several strains of evolutionary ethics. The Introduction gives us a strong glimpse of his own approach to evolutionary ethics: “Does evolutionary biology require us to give up the notion of objective moral truth, … reject a libertarian conception of freedom, … [or] give up a correspondence theory of truth? My answers to these questions are: No, No, and No” (p. xi). Lemos’s approach is to state an author's case in some detail, present criticisms or contradictions, answer these with real or posited rebuttal, and offer a final refutation or justification of the initial proposition. Unfortunately, most of the works he cites in the first eight chapters are publications from 1970 to 2000. In Chapter 9, Lemos takes up a few later references including some of his more recent writings, appearing after 2002. This material could have been more efficiently presented within the earlier chapter to which it pertains, permitting a reprise and conclusion that would have been welcomed.

The first two chapters engage with the theories of Michael Ruse and various philosophers who either support or disagree with Ruse in his development of a nonobjectivist evolutionary ethics. Ruse's stance on the topic is summed up in his stement quote “In ethics once we see that moral claims are simply adaptations, there is neither place for nor need of rational justification. … Morality is no more than a collective illusion fobbed off on us by our genes for reproductive ends” (p. 29). Those who hold this view are termed skeptical ethicists by Lemos.

Lemos brings several criticisms to bear on this concept and finds Ruse's critics as well as his defenders wanting. Lemos points out that, operating under skeptical ethics, a society or individual could determine something to be good that was in fact horrendously bad—the Nazi depravities being the prime examples offered. At minimum, Lemos concludes that Ruse needs to answer his critics much more thoughtfully than he has.

In Chapter 3, we find Lemos’s critique of “Recent Objectivist Approaches to Evolutionary Ethics.” Lemos develops the case that the defenders of the naturalistic approaches to an objectivist evolutionary ethic also fail because “to be naturalistic they must exclude any normative claims from their premises, moving strictly from nonmoral premises to their conclusion” (p. 61), which proponents had not been able to do. The skeptics hold that objective ethics are superfluous because “judgments of depravity depend upon one's perspective, [so] there is no good reason to think there is a moral fact about Hitler's depravity which plays a role in explaining our moral observation that he is depraved” (p. 39). The best justification for a naturalistic ethics is that it encourages supportive behaviors toward the group to which one belongs. This also can lead to terrible depredation of outgroups, as humans have proved repeatedly.

Lemos’s process of argument sets up discussion of his Aristotelian approach to evolutionary ethics, the topic of Chapter 4. Lemos finds that the great advantage of Aristotelian practical ethics is that it “provides objective criteria for determining what qualities a thing [or person] must have in order to be good” (p. 64). This assertion is justifiable because of the way Aristotle parsed the problem in the Nicomachian Ethics:

The function of each thing, whether an artifact or a living thing or the parts of such, can be determined by its characteristic activity. … The characteristic activity of human beings … is rational activity, [and thus Aristotle] concludes that the human function is rational activity. [Aristotle] recognizes that things are good when they perform their function well, … [thus] human beings are good when they do well at rational activity. Aristotle holds that when something does well at performing its function, we have criteria for making objective judgments about its merit. This in turn provides objective criteria for determining what qualities the thing must have in order to be good. … These qualities are what Aristotle would call excellences or virtues. … Aristotle says the human function is rational activity so that the human virtues will be those qualities which enable a person to reason well. (pp. 63–64)

Now, we come to what I believe is the crux of Lemos’s own approach:

Since Aristotle regards doing well at practical reasoning as essential to any good human life [flourishing, happiness, eudaimonia], and since we typically regard the moral life as intimately involved with decision making and doing well at this, in what follows I will focus my discussion of the Aristotelian virtues on their contribution to a good life understood as a life of good practical reasoning. … According to Aristotle, possession of moral virtues is necessary for the good human life. … His virtues lead him to decide as he ought, and this will in the long run serve his pursuit of eudaimonia. (pp. 64–65)

This involves reasoning regarding one's long‐term self‐interest as well as “genuine non‐selfish interest in the well‐being of others” (p. 65). Given that we recognize, as did Aristotle, that we are social animals, Lemos concludes that “Aristotle sees no conflict between the rational pursuit of eudaimonia and the moral life. … For the above reasons, it is reasonable to conclude that the Darwinian theory of evolution does enhance the Aristotelian conception of human nature which underlies and justifies his virtue ethics” (pp. 66–67). For Lemos, the moral life means to do well as a neighbor and to avoid damaging the fabric of community. If we do not damage the fabric, but support it, we will be moral and our acts will show us to be rational and to be good at this.

An Aristotelian approach does appear to have some advantages over the skeptical ethics outlined by Ruse and others. But Lemos reveals that he, too, is stuck with the Nazi problem, the fact that one can do well with the in‐group—that is, be seen as moral and rational—and create enormous harm and havoc beyond for any out‐group. To this point Lemos says:

What I mean is that, while social organizations do exist and while one can do well or poorly as members of these groups and, consequently, be good or bad with respect to how one functions within them, these groups are ultimately established to provide support and maintenance of human flourishing, the human good. Even groups that we regard as immoral, like the Nazi S. S. or the KKK or various terrorist organizations, exist to serve and support the human good. It's just that these groups unjustifiably attempt to serve the good of certain humans at the expense of other human beings. (p. 70)

In my mind, this rather blithe statement sidesteps the Nazi extermination of out‐groups—Jews, Roma, homosexuals, prisoners of war and captive civilians in the East, and the physically or mentally challenged. Many Nazis and many persons in the high culture of Germany had no problem with the Holocaust. And dealing out this slaughter were civil officials, many of whom believed that they were cleansing the Aryan nation. For others, their rationale may not have been deeper than Eichmann's “I was just doing my job,” but that, too, may be seen as an Aristotelian virtue within Lemos’s framework.

Lemos’s book is a helpful description of some of the struggles that sociobiology has injected into philosophy and ethics. Space limitations permit listing only the topics of Chapters 5–8: the moral status of animals; faith, reason, and evolutionary epistemology; psychological egoism; and free will. On the basis of Lemos’s reviews, it seems that the whole field still has a distance to travel before it can rest well, feeling that it has dealt with the conundrum of “the good Nazi” and remained within the sphere of common sense. Donald Worster discusses Darwin's recognition of cooperation as well as competition (1994, Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, pp. 130–187). Such a broadened base of understanding might provide an approach to ethics where the starting point is not a Darwinian nature viewed as fundamentally “red in tooth and claw” (a phrase from Alfred Lord Tennyson's long poem “In Memoriam A.H.H.”) (1849).