Philosopher STEVE STEWART-WILLIAMS examines the relation between evolution and ethics in ‘Darwin Meets Socrates’, an essay published in the March/April 2004 issue of Philosophy Now. CHARLES DARWIN’s theory holds that variation in organisms is, in part, inherited, and that those organisms which vary in ways most compatible with their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. Variation thus favoured will accumulate in a population over time, a process called natural selection. Darwin is sure to remain an august figure in the history of science but his relationship with moral philosophy is somewhat complicated. Those who deem him irrelevant to ethics too often miss the exploitable gaps in their own arguments, and struggle with the fact that evolution throws some of their fundamental assumptions into question; those eager to enlist him as an ally find him disinclined to supply scientific ammunition for their ideological battles; and those who conclude that Darwinism exposes morality itself as a groundless collective illusion find their proposition to be internally coherent, however pragmatically unserviceable. Among those who wish to block attempts to import Darwinism into ethics are compassionately inclined thinkers and activists who fear that it brutalises human affairs and validates the socio-economic status quo, a fear based on a folk misreading of the theory. They typically seek philosophical recourse to the axiomatic separation of facts and values (is and ought), which sees ethics as entirely independent of natural processes. Making himself the bearer of bad news for them, Stewart-Williams points out that while one cannot derive values directly from facts, it is still possible to construct a piece of deductive reasoning which makes certain facts pertinent to ethical calculations. An example involves the widely subscribed premise that ‘one ought not to go against nature’, which claims adherents as diverse as gender-role traditionalists, environmental activists and opponents of genetic engineering. Others who refuse to acknowledge Darwinism predictably include theists. Though Darwinism does not directly contradict biblical literalism, it undermines its foundational worldview. If humans are the product of evolution, and all evidence points to that conclusion, then the command theory of ethics (the will of the creator) is dealt a severe blow, as is the privileged place it reserves for humans in the moral universe. The implications for theist ethics are profound: the idea that all other organisms simply exist to serve human ends and the preservation of human life at all costs both become untenable. Among those who wish to claim Darwin as an ally is a coalition of conservatives and free-market and small-state proponents which maintains that Darwinism provides scientific grounds for laissez-faire socio-economic policies. The claim here is that the competition between self-interested economic entities is analogous to natural selection. Social welfare, on this view, is a misguided and ‘unnatural’ enterprise. Despite its intuitive appeal, this view rests on false assumptions about evolution. Insofar as replication is its singular goal, ‘selfishness’ obtains only at the level of the gene; extrapolating societal from genetic selfishness is an overreach, especially in light of our deep altruistic impulses. Furthermore, the implicit assumption contained in the laissez-faire vision that evolution entails gradual improvement is an illegitimate import from (western) philosophy, not an implication of Darwinism. In Darwinian terms, a deadly virus and a giraffe are equally marvellous products of natural selection. Indeed, as far as some thinkers are concerned, the fact that humans and nonhumans are both products of the same process creates a kinship, and makes it incumbent upon humans to factor in the interests of nonhuman animals in their ethical deliberations. From this naturalistic perspective, however, it is possible to view morality as a mere adaptation. Since there is no necessary relationship between evolutionary fitness and objective truth, some thinkers are led to the conclusion that this negates morality altogether. Stewart-Williams’s answer is that one can still choose to act virtuously, without the promise of eternal reward or the anchoring of ethical principles to some ultimate objective reality. Some readers will undoubtedly find the author’s stoicism less than comforting.
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