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Wonderful essay. I strongly recommend After Virtue as an introductory text to why virtue ethics is so important in the modern world. I find it very unfortunate
by ReadEvalPost 6y ago
Wonderful essay. I strongly recommend After Virtue as an introductory text to why virtue ethics is so important in the modern world. I find it very unfortunate that telos, the end-directed nature of people and our tools, has been wiped out by a focus on Darwinian evolutionary explanations.
- nine_k 6y agoNature does not have telos, but human creations very much do! Evolution does not contradict teleology, BTW; you can use genetic algorithms in an attempt to reach a well-defined outcome.
- beaconstudios 6y agonature can have telos without a supernatural explanation. I would argue that evolution is itself a teleological process: it optimises organisms to a fitness function over time. It's purpose-driven without an entity in control. Reality is full of teleological processes.
- beaconstudios 6y agoI feel like the main barrier to teleological thinking is an overreliance on generalisations and statistical thinking to navigate hard problems, which inherently erase important details rather than highlighting them.