Clatterbuck, Hayley and Sober, Elliott
(2025)
Lloyd Morgan's Good Argument for his Canon.
Belgrade Philosophical Annual, 38 (2).
pp. 53-62.
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Abstract
C. Lloyd Morgan’s Canon says that a higher mental faculty should not be postulated to explain an organism’s behavior if the behavior can be explained by the hypothesis that it has a lower faculty. This epistemological principle strongly
influenced and continues to influence cognitive science. The focus of this paper is on Morgan’s own argument for the Canon, which philosophers have generally held
to be fatally flawed. We disagree. Morgan’s good argument for his canon is grounded in Morgan’s assumption that an organism that has a higher mental faculty must also
have a lower one, together with his belief that a new mental faculty evolves only if it provides a new adaptive advantage. Our main goal here is not to defend Morgan’s
canon or his argument for it, but to identify the argument’s logical location in Morgan’s larger framework.
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