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62 Kelsen (note 2), p. 321-333. 63 Hart founds law in the same way by introducing the rule of recognition. Secondary law is needed to implement law. Herbert L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961. See also Michael Pawlik, Die Reine Rechtslehre und die Rechtstheorie H.L.A. Harts, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1993. Asked by my student Christan Mutlu (UvA), Dworkin answered that he too acknowledges the need for secondary law. 64 An ought cannot be derived from an is.

This paper contends that law is in essence an evolutionary phenomenon that can, and indeed should, be studied in the light of biological mechanisms. Law can be seen as an extended phenotype of underlying genes. In addition, legal systems can be seen as congruous to genetic mechanisms. Properties of genes have an impact on legal systems in a fractal-like manner. Hence, it is not surprising that notions of stability, replication, and reciprocity that are important in biological systems will also be important in legal systems. As a result legal systems can be constructed in a way that is congruent with the genetic advantage of group members. Law, exposure, and punishment can diminish deviant behaviour and restore balance. Law may not be particularly subject to natural selection, but it will certainly be built on the foundations of natural selection.

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This article attempts to translate philosophical notions into biological terms in order to transform dualistic thinking into monistic thinking. What if ethics finds its cause in physical, molecular processes? In Ruling Passions Simon Blackburn acknowledges the biological fact that we are social animals and that we need to coordinate our efforts. Therein lies an opportunity for a fruitful discussion about the biological foundation of ethics. Although Blackburn thinks there cannot be a grand unifying theory or a single driving force that underlies ethics, the spreading of our genes may well be the key. As cooperation is the means by which humans have been successfully spreading their genes, ethics in some sense can be regarded as a biological or even a physical force. Recognition of ethics as such a force can help overcome false dichotomies in contemporary ethics and law. Four natural laws of global ethics and law can be formulated on the basis of factual biological mechanisms -natural laws that have remarkable equivalents in religion and contemporary law.Hendrik Gommer, Groningen (Netherlands)The Biological Foundations of Global Ethics and Law coordinate our efforts, 11 but fails to fest ethics in physical processes I will engage in a discussion with him because I think our disagreement can be helpful.I will start by discussing some dichotomies in contemporary ethics. Then I will encounter some frequently raised objections against inferring the ultimate drives of people from the fact that only genes that spread successfully will not vanish. And I will conclude with the consequence this theory has for ethics in a global society. Abandoning dualistic visions and black boxesThe dualistic vision always has need for some kind of black box out there, and such a construct is for that very reason outside the scope of science, which tries to comprehend our world without metaphysical explanations. If we accept that we can have no knowledge of values that exist in a metaphysical world, because all knowledge comes to us through our brain, which is the biological point of view, the most logical conclusion is that values as we know them find their cause in nature. 12 Blackburn states that 'we do not expect laws of ethics to play a role in treatises of physics ', 13 but what if ethics -what we think we ought to do -finds its cause and justification in physical, molecular processes and also has enormous consequences for how these processes evolve? Is then ethics not also to be studied by physical methods?Abandoning the dualistic vision and embracing the monistic vision unfolds new insights. The present-day study of ethics then seems to abound with false