Abstract

“Success” is a value term, but which values are relevant to evolutionary success? This chapter presents a conceptual scheme identifying six alternative value bases, six alternative sources of value in the world: God, reason, nature, the unique human individual, culture, and human nature. Only two are relevant to a contemporary discussion of evolutionary success. One is the human nature basis in which success is understood in terms of things that all humans value, commonalities in our values arising from our shared affective profile. The other is a value basis rooted in nature, in the tendencies present in the evolutionary process—in other words, what the process favors or “values,” with value understood in a metaphorical sense. The chapter offers a list of possible variables that might be favored by the process, along with some suggestions for how to investigate them empirically (and warnings about how not to).