Biological Determinism and Multiculturalism: Perspectives of Morality

Abstract

Morality has been considered as one of the fundamental characteristics that make us human, always on the understanding that humanity make us a different kind of organism, and above all, a superior organism to all other animals. The origin and development of this distinctive feature has been sought to address from philosophical and biological perspectives, a situation that sometimes has resulted in conflicting positions, in which extremisms dominate the discussion. One of these extremisms is the biological determinism advocated by evolutionary psychology. In general terms, it is assumed that morality has a purely biological origin, for example it is an adaptation resulted of an evolutionary process. From that, evolutionary psychology explicitly rejects the role that can be played by external factors such as the environment in the development of morality, which in human terms is exemplified by culture. Given this limitation, it is necessary to highlight the role of cultural diversity as the foundation on which different types of morality throughout the history of mankind are and have been developed.