What was wrong with the empirical theory of ethics
I am reflecting on some assumptions behind my empirical theory of ethics. One was that a proper theory of ethics must harmonise our beliefs with our actions. Another was that a theory properly grounded in human nature would be like this. I can see now that the second assumption was definitely false. Just because something is natural does not make it harmonise with other natural things. Consider the pain — and often injury or death — that a woman endures in the process of bearing children. Genesis 3:16 claims that this was because Eve led Adam to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is really due to two different, natural but conflicting, requirements of human evolution: A baby’s head must be large to accommodate human intelligence; and A woman’s pelvis must be narrow to accommodate successful bipedalism. What has survived so far is a compromise, with all the sorrow that accompanies it. The compromise survives because the species has survived along with it. Human hypo