Ethics and society
Struggle upwards is the very condition of good; and its existence the strongest sign
of a tendency to good in the Power by which we live. Struggle involves constant
failure and imperfect success. And thus the consciousness of evil & misery
becomes an evidence of Good. Is not this consistent with, indeed the very teaching
of Evolution applied to moral subjects—T. H. Farrer to Darwin, 27 August 1881
A recurrent claim of some of Darwin’s most vocal critics, past and present, is that
belief in his theory of evolution by natural selection erodes the foundations of moral
conduct, and gives rise to a society that, like nature, is ‘red in tooth
’. Many evolutionary biologists and philosophers insist that
and claw
biological conceptions of human nature are inadequate, and that human dignity, justice,
and concern for other creatures require a theistic or metaphysical underpinning not
supplied by science. Proponents of sociobiology, on the other hand, argue that sound
principles of ethics derive from the evolution of social instincts, and some credit
Darwin with an evolutionary theory of altruistic behaviour. Much of Darwin’s research on
human evolution, including the evolution of moral and religious instincts, was conducted
through correspondence in the period 1868 to 1871, in preparation for his books
Descent of man (1871) and Expression of the emotions in man and
animals (1872). Darwin’s letters provide material for a substantial
reexamination of the significance of his research on the development of social bonds and
moral feelings such as sympathy, parental love, and altruism.