Darwinism and Ethics

Historical Background

The belief in the organic evolution and the gradual transformation of organisms through history from preexisting forms through a natural law process has existed at least since the middle of the 18th century. Empirical studies at the time had made discoveries concerning the nature of organisms and their reproduction, the distribution of species, and the existence of fossilized remains of earlier and spectacular life forms. Thinkers such as Erasmus Darwin (the grandfather of Charles Darwin), and slightly later Jean Baptiste de Lamarck in France, offered an intellectual background to these empirical studies through a commitment to cultural and social progress. Evolution as a secular religion complemented utilitarianism in the belief that progress increases and maximizes happiness. Evolution and ethics become indistinguishable as the world picture that evolution conveyed also offered moral direction. This direction was interpreted to mean the increased application of industrial ideas and techniques in a market environment free of intervention. On this view, the division of labor and human-driven direction would be sufficient to ensure continuing social and economic improvement.

Charles Darwin, the grandson of Erasmus, transformed the theory of evolution from at best a pseudo science or as it was for Erasmus Darwin, a secular religion, into a genuine scientific doctrine. The Origin of the Species published in 1859 was an impressive empirical work. Darwin used facts from the organic world and drew on, for example, paleontology, systematics, morphology, and embryology to demonstrate his [Page 545]theory of natural selection. The principle of natural selection can be summarized in the following propositions. First, the populations of animals and plants manifest variations. Second, some variations provide an organism with advantages over the others in the population in the struggle for life. Third, variation will be passed on to the offspring. Fourth, because the environment may not support all the offspring produced by a given population, a greater proportion of favorable variant will survive and produce progeny than the proportion of unfavorable variants. Finally, new species, variation, genera, and populations may result from a population that suffers continuous change.

...