PARADOX AND TRAGEDY IN HUMAN MORALITY

Traditional ethics has established itself as an independent discipline by postulating a ''good'' independent of all particular desires. It h as been assumed that this ''good'' was something beyond nature, and th at man had the capacity to reach out for it by transcending his natura l inclinations. In this article, the traditional picture of morality i s confronted with modern evolutionary biology. It is shown that goal-d irectedness, choice, and social behavior can be accounted for in a nat uralistic framework. The purport of concepts like free will, good, and the meaning of life, however, changes dramatically. Specifically, our tendency to objectify values, to postulate an absolute good and an ul timate meaning of life, is unmasked as a strategy of mental territoria lity which reveals us as typical participators in the struggle for exi stence.