"Understanding Moral Sentiments from a Darwinian Perspective: Vivian Charles Walsh's 'Darwinism and Dichotomies' "

This paper aims to comment on and publish what is probably Vivian Walsh’s last work, an unfinished paper entitled ‘Darwinism and Dichotomies’. The esteemed philosopher Hilary Putnam, a long-time friend and collaborator, invited Walsh to present something at a Harvard University conference he organized on Darwin and human morality. Walsh attended the conference and presented a paper there attacking evolutionary psychology. Among the theoretical bases for this manuscript, there was a work that Putnam and Walsh published together on ethics and economics (2012) and Putnam’s (2002) work on the fact-value dichotomy. Most papers presented at the conference were subsequently published as chapters in a volume edited by Putnam, Neiman, and Schloss (2014). The manuscript discussed in this paper is the speech that Walsh delivered at the Harvard conference. Subsequent health issues kept him from expanding his remarks, which explains why Walsh’s paper did not appear in the book of conference papers, Understanding Moral Sentiments: Darwinian Perspectives?. Nonetheless, Walsh’s paper has considerable value. Our paper aims to comment on Walsh’s last work and also put it into some historical perspective. Last but not least, our goal is to make this manuscript public and better known.