  Some debunkers argue that the Darwinian explanation of core moral beliefs is in direct competition with the commonsense view that these core beliefs are true and that we believe them because their truth is obvious. They argue, however, that the Darwinian explanation of our core moral beliefs is superior, since it is more parsimonious, clearer, and better supported by the evidence (Ruse 1986; Joyce 2006; Street 2006: Kahane 2011). The Darwinian explanation is better, first of all, because it does not need to postulate the existence of any moral truth. We have seen in the preceding section how difficult it is to explain in uncontested ontological terms what moral truth might consist in. The things whose existence is fundamental in the Darwinian story, on the other hand, are neither mysterious nor contentious, such as the tendency to reciprocate kindness and extend help to those in need. Moreover, the mechanism of natural selection is, in general terms at least, very well-understood and could be applied to the altruistic tendencies mentioned. Core moral “beliefs” would be taken to express just such heritable tendencies. Individuals in groups with more of these tendencies than other groups would do better at survival and reproduction than those in other groups so that the tendencies would in time spread among groups in the larger population (Kitcher 1993; Sober and Wilson 1998; Bowles and Gintis 2011). By contrast, theories about how our ancestors were able to grasp moral truth, say by means of rational intuition or religious faith, are comparatively unclear and do not cohere with current science. Of course, we are assuming just for the sake of argument, that the evidence that supports the Darwinian explanation is cogent. To be fair, could we not make a parallel assumption about the evidence for the truth of core moral beliefs? Unfortunately, it is far from clear what that evidence would be unless it includes the truth of some of the very core beliefs whose nature we are trying to explain, apparently rendering the explanation circular. In sum, the commonsense story of why we have the core moral beliefs that we do is inferior to the simpler, clearer, and non-question-begging Darwinian explanation.