Does it have to be a fluke that we have evolved in the way you describe? Our perceptual and conceptual apparatuses have evolved such that our perceptual beliefs largely match what is "really out there," and so why should it be a surprise (or a fluke) that our ethical beliefs match what is really good? The point of this question is merely to point out that the fact that we have evolved to think a certain way is not by itself a good reason to reject that way of thinking. That said, your concluding question is a challenging one. How can we decide what is really good or ethical? This question can seem particularly vexing if we think that the laws of morality or the "rules of life" must somehow be "out there" in the world, waiting like the laws of physics to be discovered and understood. But philosophers have long questioned whether values must be "external" in this way in order to be genuine or real. Perhaps our judgments about what matters--about what is valuable or moral or rational--are not...

Does something need to have "application" in order to be of value? Idon't know what sort of application the symphonies of Beethoven or theplays of Shakespeare have, but these works of art are of greataesthetic value. Space exploration is (at least in part) about thepursuit of knowledge. We explore space in order to come to a betterunderstanding of our home--the universe of which we are, it seems, avery small part. That seems worthwhile to me. (And of course it's worthbearing in mind that many inventions of great practical applicationhave come about as the result of experiments conducted merely in theinterest of scientific discovery.) That said, your point iswell taken; there are certainly more pressing needs at the moment. Andthe (roughly) one trillion dollars it would cost to put together amanned mission to Mars could be used to feed and take care of a greatmany people in need. Who knows how many diseases we could cure orfamines we could avoid with that sort of money? To answer yourquestion, then,...

Most of the standard ethical theories have a decent following amongprofessional philosophers. You'll find compelling arguments for andagainst all of them. I tend to lean in a vaguely consequentialistdirection, and so I'll just mention my favorite anti-consequentialist hypothetical: the case of the inhospitable hospital. Imaginethat you've just injured your ankle playing squash, and so you head tothe hospital for an x-ray to make sure your ankle isn't broken. Asyou're waiting in the emergency room, four victims of a nasty caraccident are brought in. Each is suffering from a different internalinjury (heart, liver, kidneys, and lungs), but all four are in criticalcondition and need an immediate transplant if they are to survive.There is no time to find a donor, and so the doctors grab you out ofthe waiting room, give you a large dose of morphine, and then proceedto harvest your organs in order to give them to the accident victims.They all survive, but sadly you do not. It seems that the...

When people speak of morality, does it "always" stem from a divinebeing? That may be the prevailing sentiment in certain quarters, butthere is a long and distinguished history of philosophers (many of themdevout believers) who have argued that morality couldn't derive its authority from God. Professor Gentzler has already directed you to Professor Brink'sanswer, but here is another way of looking at the problem. Consider theclaim that killing is wrong because God forbids it in the SixthCommandment. In order for God's command to create a genuine moralobligation (in this case, the obligation not to kill), God must possessa certain authority . (Otherwise anyone could issue commandsand thereby create moral obligations!) But now the question immediatelyarises: whence comes this authority? God cannot establish his authority through another command , since he must already have authorityin order for his commands to establish anything. Thus it seems thatGod's authority must come from somewhere else....

When I read your description of the situation, my first thought was that the woman has a responsibility not to protect the married man's vows , but rather to protect the married man's wife . After all, the wife is the one who is most likely to be harmed by her husband's affair, and it seems to me that we all have a responsibility not to act in ways that are likely to cause harm to others (even if we don't personally know the others in question). Of course, it is the man who bears the brunt of the responsibility in this case, since he has a specific obligation to care for his wife. Nonetheless, I do think that the woman is at least partly responsible for the negative consequences of her affair.

The theory of evolution by means of natural selection is not really a law of nature at all, at least in the sense you suggest. That is, it does not tell us anything about what we should and should not do with "the strongest seed." The theory of evolution is a descriptive theory. It informs us that the offspring of the "fittest" parents are themselves likely to have a survival or selection advantage. But the theory says nothing about how such parents should or ought to behave. No moral conclusions follow immediately from facts about natural selection. You need a second theory--a prescriptive or moral theory--to reach the conclusion that this evolutionary pattern results in a good or just outcome. And so the conflict between the laws of morality and the theory of evolution is only apparent.