Darwin's words above occur near the end of The Descent of Man, his second great work on evolution. The first, The Origin of Species, dealt with the process that leads to the increasing complexity and diversity of life on earth — natural selection. This second work deals with sexual selection, a process that augments and often opposes natural selection. In sexual selection, creatures with minds actively choose their sexual partners, and so help to direct the course of evolution, often in highly capricious ways. The classic example of a sexually selected trait is the peacock's tail, which is so long that it seriously jeopardizes the peacock's life.
Another example is the human brain. But each of us just is one and the the same thing as his own mind, and our minds are what our brains do. The answer to Descartes' famous question "What is this 'I' that I am?" is: I am what my brain is doing. So whatever our brains are "designed" to do is a matter of some importance, and of great interest philosophically. Most of my recent writing in philosophy has explored that matter from the perspective of evolutionary theory.
To read an essay on "begging the question" — in other words, arguing in a circle by assuming the very thing you are setting out to prove — press the button on the right to link to a new page.
In 1994, I gave a speech to the Icelandic Philosophical Society called "The Sacrifice of the Innocent", in which I introduced and defended a version of utilitarianism called "preference utilitarianism". The Icelandic Philosophical Society is an excellent body, because its members consist of academic philosophers and interested laymen. In my opinion, this is an ideal mixture. My speech was intended to be understood by the non-specialist, yet to challenge the prejudices of professionals. You can read it by presssing the button on the above right.
Most of my recent writing has been on the philosophical implications of evolutionary theory. To get a taste of some of my writing on evolutionary psychology, you might try this short essay on marriage (understood in the broadest sense as long-term monogamous pair bonding between males and females of various species of animal). Press the button on the upper right-hand-side of this paragraph.
An innovative (but speculative) article about how humans became hairless:
A short essay on the co-evolution of flowers and insects:
An introduction to recent thinking on the connection between truth and quotation:
For a very quick answer to the question why we have consciousness, click here:
The button on the right opens my PDF version of a classic but neglected paper by the late A.J. Ayer on probability. (All links to PDFs in this site are marked by buttons with the Adobe PDF icon.) The paper is entitled "Chance", and it first appeared in print in Scientific American in the early 1960s. To the best of my knowledge, it has never been reprinted and is not available anywhere else. (I have left a misprint in the original intact. On page 3 [original page 45] it reads: "if the existing ratio of heads to tails is m : n, then the result of the next toss will be to change it either to m + 1 : n + 1 or to m : n + 1." This should read: "if the existing ratio of heads to tails is m : n, then the result of the next toss will be to change it either to m + 1 : n or to m : n + 1.")
John Stuart Mill is remembered as a liberal, but his views on war and democracy are less well-known. This button links to a polemical article by Mill which first appeared in Fraser's Magazine in 1862. It contains his most famous (or infamous) remark about war: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse." I had not read this article till very recently, and I was struck by the parallels between current debates and those of Mill's day. It is a passionate condemnation of slavery, and of the pragmatic steps Mill believes are necessary to eradicate it. The text for this PDF version was taken from a reprint of the original article that appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1862.