The evolutionary ethics of Alfred C. Kinsey.
It is commonplace to point out that Alfred Kinsey's taxonomic work on gall wasps provided a methodology for his studies of human sexual behavior. It is equally commonplace to point out that, when researching and presenting his sexual studies, Kinsey's professedly neutral scientific data were constrained by a social agenda. What I have done in this paper is to join these two claims and demonstrate, with particular reference to Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, how his zoology helped guide Kinsey to a naturalistic ethics that, despite contrasts to, shared certain parallel logical failures with the traditional ethics of his critics.
Churchill
Frederick B
FB
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Goodbody Hall 130, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA.
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D032984:Ethics, Research / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010684:Philosophy / Q000266:history*; D019529:Sexuality / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States; D014863:Wasps; D015046:Zoology / Q000266:history*