Evolving Ethics : The New Science of Good and Evil

by Mascaro, Steven; Korb, Kevin B.; Nicholson, Ann E.; Woodberry, Owen

• ISBN13: 9781845402068
• ISBN10: 1845402065
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

This book describes the application of Artificial Life simulation to evolutionary scenarios of wide ethical interest, including the evolution of altruism, rape and abortion, providing a new meaning to experimental philosophy”. The authors also apply evolutionary ALife techniques to explore contentious issues within evolutionary theory itself, such as the evolution of sex. They justify these uses of simulation in science and philosophy, both in general and in their specific applications here.

Author Biography

Dr Steven Mascaro is a researcher in computer simulation and Artificial Life. Dr Kevin Korb is a Reader in the Clayton School of Information Technology, Monash University. Dr Ann Nicholson is an Associate Professor in the Clayton School of Information Technology, Monash University. Owen Woodberry is a researcher in the Clayton School of Information Technology, Monash University.

Table of Contents

A Science of Ethics	p. 1
Ethics	p. 3
Evolution	p. 6
The Received View	p. 6
The Gene's View	p. 8
Simulation	p. 11
Artificial Life Simulation	p. 12
Evolving Ethical Behavior	p. 15
The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma	p. 16
Experimental Philosophy	p. 18
Experimental Simulation	p. 20
Experimental Ethics	p. 22
Conclusion	p. 22
Ethics and Evolutionary Psychology	p. 25
Varieties of Ethical Theory	p. 25
Virtue Ethics	p. 26
Deontological Ethics	p. 26
Consequentialism	p. 27
The Value of Ethical Simulation	p. 31
Evolutionary Psychology	p. 33
Tenets of Evolutionary Psychology	p. 33
Sociobiology	p. 37
The Debate over Evolutionary Psychology	p. 38
Evolutionary Ethics	p. 41
Against and for Utilitarianism	p. 42
Utilitarian Caveats	p. 52
Metaethics as Unresolvable	p. 53
Simulation as Experimentation	p. 55
The Scope and Limits of Computer Simulation	p. 55
What Computers Can't Do	p. 56
What is Simulation?	p. 57
A Definition of Simulation	p. 57
Dynamic versus Static	p. 59
Artificial Life Simulations	p. 60
Another Definition of Simulation	p. 63
Homomorphic Simulation	p. 64
Testing for Homomorphism (Validation)	p. 65
Simulations as Experiments	p. 68
A Comparison with Real Experiments	p. 68
The Epistemology of Simulation	p. 70
Experiments as Simulations	p. 71
Special Epistemology	p. 73
Conclusion	p. 75
Evolutionary Artificial Life	p. 77
Simulated Evolution	p. 79
Genetic Algorithms	p. 79
Simulating Evolution	p. 80
Evolving Psychology	p. 81
Individuals, Agents and their Societies	p. 82
Some Ancestral Simulations	p. 83
A Simulation Environment	p. 86
The Simulation World	p. 87
Time	p. 87
Food	p. 87
Agents	p. 88
Birth, Age and Death	p. 88
Health and Utility	p. 88
Behavior	p. 89
Evolution and the Agent Genotypes	p. 91
Production Rules	p. 92
Decision Tree	p. 93
Mutation and Meta-mutation	p. 94
Statistics	p. 95
Demographics	p. 95
Action Rates	p. 95
Total Utility	p. 95
Conclusion	p. 95
Utilities in Agent-based Modeling	p. 96
Simulating Ethics	p. 97
Experiments in Evolution	p. 99
Levels of Selection	p. 99
The Evolution of Aging	p. 108
Comparing Alternative Aging Hypotheses	p. 112
Species Selection	p. 127
Summary	p. 133
Suicide as an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy	p. 135
Simulation Design	p. 137
Basic Demographics and Orientation	p. 140
Experiment: The Evolutionary Stability of Suicide	p. 140
Possible Causes of the Evolutionary Stability of Suicide	p. 143
Alternative Explanation: Mutation Accumulation	p. 144
Summary	p. 145
The Evolution of Parental Investment	p. 145
Simulation design	p. 148
Prior Investment Hypothesis	p. 149
Desertion Hypothesis	p. 152
Paternal Uncertainty Hypothesis	p. 155
Association Hypothesis	p. 157
Chance Dimorphism Hypothesis	p. 159
Summary	p. 161
The Evolution of Utility	p. 162
Utility and Fitness	p. 162
Design of an Experiment	p. 169
Conclusion	p. 170
Experiments in Ethics	p. 171
Introduction	p. 171
Cooperation	p. 172
Cultural Evolution and the Stag Hunt	p. 173
Altruism	p. 175
Food Sharing	p. 177
Altruistic Suicide	p. 178
Rape and Sexually Dimorphic Behavior	p. 181
Theories of Rape in Evolutionary Psychology	p. 181
The Controversy over Evolutionary Accounts of Rape	p. 182
The Unethical Nature of Rape	p. 184
Simulation Design	p. 186
Basic Demographics and Orientation	p. 191
Experiment: The Evolution of Rape and Dimorphic Behavior	p. 191
The Evolutionary Stability of Rape	p. 194
The Emergence of Sexual Dimorphism	p. 195
The Genetic Causes of Rape and Sexually Dimorphic Behavior	p. 200
Experiment with the Ethical Consequences of Rape	p. 202
Summary	p. 205
Abortion	p. 206
Abortion and Evolution	p. 206
The Ethics of Abortion	p. 208
Simulation Design	p. 210
Basic Demographics and Orientation	p. 215
Experiment: Varying After-birth Investment	p. 217
Experiment: Varying Gestational Investment	p. 219
The Evolutionary Stability of Abortion	p. 220
The Genetic Causes of Abortion	p. 221
Introducing Fixed Genomes	p. 224
Experiment: Exploring the Ethics of Abortion	p. 228
Summary	p. 232
Conclusion	p. 233
The Future	p. 235
References	p. 237
Glossary	p. 259
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