Darwin and Ethics

Critics hooted and hollered when Richard Weikart published his book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. Weikart suggested, as summarized in this review, that evolutionary theory gives rise to certain views of humankind which helped lead toward the Nazi atrocities.

One critic complained,

"the validity of a scientific theory does not hinge upon how it has been interpreted by German dictators. And...a scientific theory is not an ideology; it aims at explaining nature, not telling us what to do. Evolutionary biology did not oblige Hitler to kill Jews any more than nuclear physics mandates Kim Jong-Il to acquire the atomic bomb. And the theory of gravity does not require that you go jump off a bridge."

The idea is that Darwinian theory has no ethical implications. I haven't read Weikart's book, so I won't comment on the Darwin-Hitler connection. I brought it up here just to introduce the topic that really interests me today: this question of whether evolutionary beliefs lead to ethical outcomes.

My first response to the NY Times article, Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior, was stunned incredulity. How could serious adults suggest that chimpanzees and monkeys should be our moral guides? Think about it a moment. There was a time when we looked up to the most noble among us as our ethical signposts. Now we're looking down. To repeat part of what I quoted on Tuesday:

"Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are."

The Times article surveys various beliefs regarding evolution and ethics:

"Macaques and chimpanzees have a sense of social order and rules of expected behavior, mostly to do with the hierarchical natures of their societies, in which each member knows its own place. Young rhesus monkeys learn quickly how to behave, and occasionally get a finger or toe bitten off as punishment. Other primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. They remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have groomed them. Capuchin monkeys show their displeasure if given a smaller reward than a partner receives for performing the same task, like a piece of cucumber instead of a grape.

"These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality.

Dr. de Waal sees human morality as having grown out of primate sociality."

...

"The evolutionary biologist George Williams dismissed morality as merely an accidental byproduct of evolution, and psychologists objected to attributing any emotional state to animals."

...

"Dr. Philip Kitcher, a philosopher at Columbia University, likes Dr. de Waal's empirical approach. 'I have no doubt there are patterns of behavior we share with our primate relatives that are relevant to our ethical decisions,' he said. 'Philosophers have always been beguiled by the dream of a system of ethics which is complete and finished, like mathematics. I don't think it's like that at all.'"

...

"Jesse Prinz, a philosopher at the University of North Carolina... believes morality developed after human evolution was finished and that moral sentiments are shaped by culture, not genetics."

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"'Morality is as firmly grounded in neurobiology as anything else we do or are,' Dr. de Waal wrote in his 1996 book 'Good Natured.' Biologists ignored this possibility for many years, believing that because natural selection was cruel and pitiless it could only produce people with the same qualities. But this is a fallacy, in Dr. de Waal's view. Natural selection favors organisms that survive and reproduce, by whatever means. And it has provided people, he writes in 'Primates and Philosophers,' with 'a compass for life's choices that takes the interests of the entire community into account, which is the essence of human morality.'"

Three observations I wish to make here:

One, we cannot discount the fact that Darwinian theory has ethical implications. Dr. Peter Singer, who was also quoted in this article, is famous for promoting the term speciesism. This is the view that it's wrong to think humans have more worth than animals, therefore we should not give moral preference to humans. PETA and other "animal rights" groups take that to the extent of destroying animal research facilities, and threatening their human employees with violence.

Speciesism may actually be a valid conclusion from evolutionary principles. If we came from unguided, purposeless evolution, there's nothing in the process to imbue us with any special status. We're just the winners of the evolutionary struggle within our particular ecological niche; and the only reason we even showed up is because a serious of lucky accidents allowed our ancestors to mutate into us. Every other species can claim exactly the same thing. If unguided evolution is a fact, then Singer is right.

Second, there's a lot of confusion out there. Singer holds to speciesism. Dr. de Waals, in this article, doesn't seem to go that far, but he proposes we look to the lesser primates for greater ethics. Other moral philosophers quoted in the article raise cautions but don't seem to have other answers.

Third, writers like Weikart seem to be vindicated in their view that evolution has ethical implications. It's all over this article.

Now the question for you is this: if we follow evolutionary theory, can we avoid conclusions like Singer's or de Waals's?

Posted: Thu - March 22, 2007 at 01:50 PM |

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Darwin and Ethics

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson