Evolution asserts that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment

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Claim

Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment.

Source

Responses

  1. Evolutionary psychology asserts that human desires and emotions are influenced by our biology, and therefore we are statistically more likely to behave in ways that satisfy those desires and emotions. Evolution does not assert that we are controlled by our biology (biological determinism), and does not state that people can not help how they behave.
  2. There is a generally held fear that if we invoke biology to explain anything we must be saying that it is good and is how things ought to be. Evolutionary psychology can help us explain, amongst other things, violence, but that doesn't mean it condones violence any more than pathology condones disease. This is the naturalistic fallacy (what is is what ought to be).
  3. The argument works just as well, if not better, in the other direction: creationists undermine personal responsibility by asserting that the descendants of Adam and Eve are culpable for Adam and Eve's behavior, and furthermore can only avoid punishment for that behavior by taking a certain oath, which frees the taker from personal responsibility for past wrongs.

Fallacies contained in this claim

  • Straw Man (evolutionary psychology does not say that)
  • Red Herring (the validity of evolution does not depend on the comparative morality of materialism vis-à-vis Christian spiritualism)
  • Naturalistic fallacy (what is is what ought to be)

Further reading

Related claims

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Acknowledgments

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