Abstract
Rapidly growing scholarly and popular literatures explore the confluence of evolutionary theory and human morality, seeking a plausible theory of natural ethics. Given the centrality of ethics to this project, it is surprising how rarely evolutionary thinkers clearly define ethics, much less engage a systematic theory of ethics. This is partly due to a deep commitment among these authors to an empirical path to knowledge. In the belief that a good account of ethics has to grow out of the data, they gather elements of ethics from evolutionary accounts of behaviors such as cooperation and helping and attempt to stitch together an evolutionary theory of ethics. Although this approach has some merit, it is no surprise that it has not resulted in a satisfyingly coherent and systematic theory of natural ethics.