Bio-anthropological thesis of innatism. On the fallacies discovered through philosophical reflection on the moral experience

Abstract

Recently, we have been witnessing a tendency to bring back to life the thesis of moral innatism, mainly due to the support of bio-anthropological sciences. This thesis is based on the discovery of some moral universals on the one hand, and on the affirmation of human capacity to produce moral answers in an immediate way on the other. The author of the present paper assumes that it is plausible that there are some innate elements in human behavior; nevertheless, he argues that arguments in favor of this statement fall into the so called false dilemma fallacy. As to the moral universals, they can be approached in a rational way; as to the immediate moral answers, they could be a result of habituation process. The author bases his demonstration of these fallacies on the moral anthropology of Xavier Zubiri.