Evolutionary Theory, Materialism, Morals and Ethics: Implications of the
Idea of Evolution for Humans
I am going to start of with phrenology again. I shall not go back into Gall’s claims
which we discussed last week. Import here to remember is that phrenology
moved the debate of the self and mind to the brain and its analysis. Thinking and
ultimately the self was debated in relation to the brain and its functioning, no
longer was this the domain of moral philosophy.
The big move was from the focus of ‘reasons’ – who people were thinking
explained through sensationalist theory to argue that thoughts were produced in
the brain itself – in a way they were innate but not innate as given by God as
Descartes had believed and Locke write against -- but innate as produced by
special organs of the brain (that were related to functions.
Phrenology was a science that helped people to understand themselves, to take
control of themselves and their environment by identifying their own selves and
that of other. (We pointed out the problems of this science that look nothing but
bogus from our point of view. )
I’d like to argue now that the development of phrenology and its success –
particularly in Britain -- relied on specific socio-cultural 19th century
environment. It developed so rapidly and was so successful because it allowed
19th century contemporaries to master the challenges of their times. It allowed
them to believe in a ‘self’ that although given to you by ‘nature’ was nevertheless
a malable self, one that could be educated and bettered if constantly trained and
monitored. Gall’s theory allowed theories for human action. It is this idea of
bettering human action and thus enable a better future through the science of
phrenology that made it so attractive to social and political reformers such as
George Combe whose work I’d like to start with because they are important to
the development of evolutionary theory by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel
Wallace.
Without the practices of phrenology but also without is widely believed and
cherished political and social connotations, there would have been no
evolutionary theory, as simple as that!
I want to spend a couple of minutes on the development of Gall’s ideas in Britain.
He initially had a faithful follower, Spurzheim, and they both developed the
practices of phrenology further.
1
(slide of spurzheim)
However, they got into disagreements and Spurzheim decided to break off the
work relationship and move to Britain.
Partly the disagreements had to do with the fact that Gall was not interested in
the important philosophical or political implications of his theory. Spurzheim
was. He was increasingly interested in applying phrenology to problems of
education, penology, religion and other social-cultural areas. And he
fundamentally disagreed with what humankind’s essential nature was.
Gall was –typically German – rather pessimistic about the human race, believing
that humankind was a sea of mediocrity and moreover, that humans had several
evil propensities including the faculty of murder. Spurzheim offered a more
optimistic view of Gall’s doctrine and eliminated the faculty of evil from his
system of organs. He also raised the number of organs from 27 to 35, including
one organ called ‘hope’.
Furthermore he believed that although people were born with a certain among
of each faculty, he believed they could be modified. Virtues could be cultivated
and vices inhibited.
Such ideas had a tremendous appeal to people.
He had many followings in the beginning among medical men – of a particular
kind:
Phrenology and medicine:
Many of the medical men who followed Spurzheim were from lower social
classes. They were usually younger men and many with non-conservative
medical and political and social ideas. Phrenology was hot-bed of anticonservatism in medicine.
Not to forget: Many doctors loved it because it they thought phrenology
would help maximise their competency to predict and control behaviour.
It also attracted all these fringe medical ideas, including those people who loved
mesmerism, indeed these two were successfully combined as Alison Winter has
shown in her book. It remained very controversial, particularly as more
comparative anatomy demonstrated that ‘the organs’ which Gall/Spurzheim
attributed to certain function did not fit. (story of combativeness organ…one
could remove whole parts of the brain in pigeons for example, and functions
seemed not to be touched. Particularly one could remove the cerebellum (where
2
amativeness resided) without interfering with the power of reproduction. In
1861 Paul Broca showed that the faculty of speech was not behind the eyeballs
as Gall as claimed but in an entirely different area.
--- but proven wrong -- Gall’s ideas were the basis of these studies.
Phrenology and the Public:
While phrenology has lost its scientific appeal by the second half of the 19th
century, it remained enormously popular (journals; phrenology societies)
And it is largely through the untiring proselytizing of George Combe that kept
phrenology in the public eye.
(slide)
George Combe who attended Spurzheim lecture and anatomical session –
remember that Gall and him really did new anatomical work on the brain – in
Edinbourg. He became an avid convert and established his own phrenology
system. In 1828 he publishes The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to
External Objects, which was THE bestseller in the 19th century Britain. Virtual
every household had it – it was much more successful than Darwin’s Origin of
Species (we will see in minute why).
What did he argue?
His book the Constitution of Man argued that the key to a happy life was to live
in harmony with natural law. And in order to do so, one needed to have an
understanding of mind and the science of phrenology which would provide this
understanding.
In a way it was something like today’s self-help books, which teaches you
‘How to be happy’.
The key idea here was Combe fusion of theological ideas and phrenology, arguing
that understanding the brain would provide further evidence of God’s design.
Phrenology is the true philosophical underpinnings to create a true approach to
God.
We have to imagine the time in which that was written. Right during the
Industrial Revolution in Britain, which created social and environmental
problems and contemporaries understood their world as disappearing
which created lots of anxieties. Phrenology was offering a stability in this
dramatically changing world.
(slide)
And the greatest allure was that it solved the riddle of human nature: sin.
Gall’s doctrine was a denial of original sin or of intrinsic moral failing. Instead all
3
individuals had the potential to gradually improve themselves as they learned to
identify, regulate, and master the temperament with which they each had been
endowed by God. You don’t have to accept your fate meekly; no you can play an
active role in the destiny of yourself and mankind as a whole.
That is the message that made the Constitution of Man so powerful and
attractive. The book provided a reform programme for all areas of society –
so what we would now call social engineering (remind them of the ideologues of
the French revolution who did the same but based on an entirely different
understanding of the self – the theory of sensationalism)
Safe form or reform and went against other reform movements at the time.
But there were more unsavoury aspects of it too:
Phrenology argued that human beings are unequal from birth because endowed
with different sized brain organs and faculties. And retrospectively we can see
that this inequality followed political views of the time; inequality was gendered
and racial. Women and various racial groups did not measure up. Combe argued
that the negro was naturally inferior to the white man because his scull was
somewhat narrower. He did not himself that this justified slavery but his
amercian followers did.
Gall, Sporzheim or Combe did not invent biological determinism but their brain
theory did much to implement these ideas – leadin to disaster of course under
the Nazi regime who claimed that the jews were biologically different)
But I agree with Sherrie Lyons who you read that the attraction was less the
biological determinism – this is retrospective what we of course point out ue to
what it fabricated later-- but the opportunities phrenology opened up. The
potential to allow people to reach their potential, people of all the classes. It
didn’t rock the boat too much because it remained within the possibilities of
Christian thought.
–
but there as also criticism by referring to natural law as the basis for
moral law which smacked of determinism and the Christian free will.
Phrenology’s great potential was that allied itself with every possible reform
group, prision reform, temperance movement or antismoking reform, an hoped
to master a world of radical change through the impact of industrial capitalism.
–
4
While it reinforced racist thinking among people who were already inclined to it,
its overall message was the innate goodness and potential for improvement for
the greatest majority of the population.
(Slide of Loeb)
Phrenology was a science of possibility
When we now move on to talk about evolutionary theory I like us to remember
that the huges debates over its ‘scientific truth’ demonstrate is that what ‘natural
science’ was and how useful or truthful it was to explain human self and human
behaviour was very much contested.
evolutionary theory
Now in the following I shall look at the development of ‘Evoltionary theory’.
Althought I’ll sketch out the central themes I will not be so much interested in
the details here.
I will focus on the question of the evolution of man which was a theme Darwin
only wrote about in the 1870s, long after his Origins of Species came out in 1859.
Although Darwin had been thinking about this a lot – according to his
correspondence and his work diaries – it was a topic which he hesitated to put
out to the public. But others weren’t. And in a way one can argue that Darwin’s
thought in the decent of man were responding to the evolutionary ideas of
another natural historian at the time Albert Russel Wallace who had
independently discovered the missing link for evolutionary theory. Wallace and
Darwin both agreed on the central premises of evolution but disagreed on about
mankind’s role in it.
(slide of both man)
Again, the debate will take us into the problem of natural science and religion, of
political and social reform, and the question of the boundaries of the natural
sciences in the Victorian era – and actually the same applies for today! Once
again, we shall see that ‘facts’ are not disembodied entities in nature waiting to
be discovered, but rather observations that re interpreted within a cultural,
social and political matrix at a particular historical moment.
5
Charles Darwin and how did he come to the theory of evolution
(slide)
Darwin was the offspring of very wealthy English family, born in 1809.
Father was a physicians from a famous medical family – grandfather is Erasmus
Darwin famous enlightenment physician and natural historian who had already
come up with an early ideas on the internal change of individual species. His
mother was came from the Wedgwood family, famou and rich for its pottery and
china. Charles was early on very interested in nature and was an avid collector of
everything from bugs to plants. It was decided that he continued the family
tradition of medicine and study in Edinburg and soon realised that he thought
that boring and he couldn’t stand the sick room. He then wen to Cambridge to
become a minister but instead devoted all his time to the study of natural history
and became friend with all the major natural historians.
He was a avid reader of all this travel literature like Alexander von Humboldt’s
South America travels and impressed and influenced by particularly by:
(Slide)
William Paley’s (1743 –1805), Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the
Existence and Attributes of the Deity, his last book. Paley was a clergy man
and Enlightenment moral philosopher who was particularly influenced by
Bentham’s /Mill’s utilitiarianism.
The main thrust of his argument was that God's design of the
whole creation could be seen in the general happiness, or wellbeing, that was evident in the physical and social order of things
The book was many times republished and remains in print.
It continues to be consulted by today’s creationists, particularly in
the US. And today’s evolutionary biologists like Steven Jay Gould
and Richard Dawkins continue to discuss Paley's book to respond
to modern proponents with similar ideas.
He was desparatly looking for an opportunity to travel around the world and
when the captain of the HMS Beagle offered him a job as a gentleman companion
to relieve the monotomy of the voyage – he had created the job of a ship’s
naturalists – Darwin said immediately yes. His father disliked the idea but
Darwin set sail on December 1831 for a 5-year voyage that would change his
thinking about the natural history forever, and would produce ideas that would
affect profoundly Western civilisation.
6
Besides this religious ideas of Paley Darwin’s understanding of what he was
seeing on that voyage was very much experiences by one particular book.
(slide)
Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology.
Lyell who became a friend of Darwin after his return was one of the most
important geologist if the time and his claim to faim was his evolutionary theory
of geology. He argued that it was due to presently acting and knowable
geological processes rather than miraculous interpostions of divine power for
the evolution of the earth’s crust. So the same forces that were in operation
then,operated on the earth surface now. So, Lyell provided an entirely
naturalistic account of the earth history. No supernatural invention such as the
biblical flood. Lyell also talked about fossil and he began to argue for a
relationship between the evolution of earth and evolution of biological beings - however he himself rejected biological evolution.
But he and Darwin himself asked the question whether species were real
and permanent, or were they capable of being indefinitely modified over a
long period of time?
While Darwin was critical of Lyell’s ideas of biological evolution, he adopted
lyell’s ideas of a slow and gradual change in the inorganic world and applied it to
the organic world.
His observation on the journay – he filled hundreds of page and collected
thousdands of specimens – particularly his visit of the remote Galapagous island
he felt supported his claims. He relaised the birds and animals and plants on the
island were connected but differed from their ancestors mainland and on the
long run became a different species.
So, he began to think that species were not immutable but had gradually become
modified, over a long, long period of time.
However, what remained a mystery was:
How did this change occur?
The question was pressing because Darwin rejected a common
assumption at the time about evolution that of the French natural
7
historian Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de
Lamarck (1744 –1829)
(slide)
The first to us biology in our modern sense. And he is the first to come up with a
coherent evolutionary theory. It had two central mechanisms of change:
1)
2)
The first was that the environment gives rise to changes in animals.
He cited examples of blindness in moles, the presence of teeth in
mammals and the absence of teeth in birds as evidence of this
principle.
Change was dependent on the will of the organisms – ulitmatly
directed by god.
To Darwin the incredible adaptation of animals or plants to their environment could
not be explained by that. He became something like a breeder besides being a
collector and began to think that breeding or more generally reproduction might offer
some ideas in regard to the origin of species.
What is now interesting – because it shows that natural science and its ideas are
always very much part of their time - is that Darwin did not get the missing link or the
central explanation for evolution Darwin from the contemporary literature in natural
history. But from a man who wrote whose book he initially read ‘for amusement’.
Thomas Malthus Essay on the Principles of Population (1798; endless edition ). This
essay so, Darwin later, provided him with the missing link – or the missing idea to the
puzzle of species change.
(Slide)
the essay is not the first book on population – a term and concern that was actually
invented during the early 18th century, but it became the most influential work of its
era for the 19th and even 20th century and drove many political decisions. Malthus,
was hysteric about the changes of the industrial revolution (economic warfare, rising
taxation, national indeptedness, it also became clear that the population was steadily
rising and that Britain wouldnot be able to feed its continuously growing poor, needed
for industrial progress.
8
His thinking was also a product of the post-revolutionary era and the Napoleonic
wars, and his theory is an attempt to undermine the doctrine of human perfectability
and uptioan speculation of an egalitatrian nature, for example the utopian socialism of
Mary Wolestonecraft’s husband If you like Malthus is writing against the positive
nature of Adam Smith work, in fact, historians have argued that he represented the
anxieties that were lying at the heart of political and economic liberalism which was
establishing itself at the time.
Malthus described a dilemma which is now again fashionable and dilemma
indeed: He maintained that the prospects for permanent improvement in the conditins
of the mass of society in all countries was place in a precarious balance the increase
of population and the provision of food.
Malthus posited that the power of the population to grow was ‘indefinitly
greater’ than the power of earth to produced subsistence. This created a constant
‘struggle for existence’ -- one just had to visit, Malthus argued the slums of
London – and indeed that was what Karl Marx was inspired by. But who
survived and who perished? Was there a law or a matter of change?
Darwin used Malthus and turned it into the ‘survival of the fittest’ by arguing that
those species survived that adapted best to the environment in which they lived. And
they would inherit the information to the following generations. The others would be
ultimately destroyed. He called this process natural selection.
(slide with branches of natural selection and transmutation of species over time in his
diary)
Natural selection provided the long missing mechanism – it elimited will and God –
for species change – the idea that God had created different species of man – we will
caome to that but it explained how species change adaptively in the continual struggle
for existence. It was an agency of adaptive change which opertated between
generations. As the generations pass, so the living formas of a species come to differ
progressively more and more from their ancestors. Although united by the bond of
reproductive continuity, it s easy to see how living organisms could eventually come
to differ so much from their predecessors that the contemporary observes might even
identity the living organism and its remote character as different species.
In a way by introducing Malthus ideas into the domain of natural history, he
made his theory available for all areas of society. People already believed in the
idea of struggle and adaption, due to doom and gloom theories a la Malthus and
actually their own experiences in industrialised Britain.
9
So, we have to remember that Darwin is not coming up with the idea but actually does
adopt these ideas which have been flowting around for a while to the domain of
biology. The adopt the language of struggle and adaptation made it easier for him to
have is ideas accepted, because it was actually every day language, that dominated
political economy and also ethical and moral debates. It spoke to the people at the
time.
Fitted capitalism
Historians have argued that evolution in Darwin’s mould fitted rising capitalism who
could justification for their ideas in the tenets of Darwinis. However, one should not
forget that also Marx dedicated several works to him. Somehow evolutionary theory
became the tenet for capitalism – and hits adversaries ( – and still is today –
evolutionary psychology is now the central theory in current neoliberal economic
theory)
Now I’d like to leave Darwin who is celebrated enough for having discovered
evolution – in fact he just applied theories of the day to the biological domain as we
have seen and turn to a man who is almost forgotten today but who discovered natural
selection at the same time.
This man is
(slide)
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 – 1913)
Now Russel was somehow a different bread than Darwin. He came from humble
upbringing in Wales – son of a librarian – not connected and required to work –
unlike Darwin who after his return from the Beagle became ill and remained ill all
his life. But he never required to work and thus lived away from the hussle and bussle
of London in his country home of
Russle became a survey and mapmaker and his work brought him in daily contact
with what he liked most geology and natural history. In contrast to Darwin who –
althtough not himself involved in it part of the new capitalist elite and thus rather
conservative utilitarian in his attitudes – Russel was inspired by the new egalitarian
and socialist theories of Robert Owen. He was also due to his work as a survey which
included long travels throughout the country side very sensitive to the poverty there
and advocated all his life the abolition of property. In regard to religion Russel
became something of a free thinker, not tied to traditional religious ideas. In fact, he
became rather interested in Mesmeriam and phrenology, an avid supported of
10
Combe’s The Constitution of Man and rather enjoyed psychic phenomena which
were the rage in Victorian Britain.
So in terms of upbringing, ideas a very different man than Darwin.
However he was to come up with the same idea. How?
Wallace managed to fufill his dream of traveling to South Amercia. He was aware of
Darwin’s work, had read most of the literature and Malthus work had made the same
profound impact on him than on Darwin.
In constrast to Darwin who sat on a ship and moved around only on day trips. Wallace
really lived in South America and the Malay Archipelago for more than a decade,
often with indigenous tribes. In fact, he was the first one do so so in South America.
Partly through is socialist ideas and his experiences his theories are remarkably free of
racism that characterised Darwin’s theories. For him these savages lived a better live
than the poor in competivie industriakised capitalism. He gathered over 125, 000
specimens. The Geographical distribution of animals (1876) and The Malay
Archipelago (1869) a beautiful travel boolk.
Now Wallace saw similar things on his travel and wondered about the same questions
as Darwin – ‘On the Laws which has Introduced the Introduction of New Species’ like D he searched for a mechanism of evolutionary change.
He reread Malthus when it was this book that also supplied him with the law of
natural selection – independent of Darwin which whom he was however
corresponding.
In 1858 he wrote him a letter though along with his paper ‘On the tendency of
Varieties to Depart Indefinitly from the Original Type’ in which he outlined the
identical theory of natural selection than Darwin.
Darwin was struck and devastated realising that his ideas which had first outlined in
1842 but weren’t in print yet. So, what was arragend was that extracts from Darwin’s
unpublished work and Wallace’s paper were read before the Linnean Society in
London. W. didn’t mind and in fact always said that he had learned from Darwin. So,
it is partly himself who is responsible that we seem to have forgotten his name and
Darwin is celebrated only (also, Darwin is a gentleman; he wasn’t)
Wallance remained in Malay Archipelagao for severl yar and Darwin frantically
published his ideas in 1859 The Origin of Species which would created storm of
debate. Particularly it raised the issue of human races again. Although the book was
not on the origin of man - -Darwin had written to Wallace that he wanted to avoid the
11
subject due to expected controversy which would deflect from his central ideas. But
both agreed that human evolution was not an exeption or different from the rest of
nature. Wallace thought about this a lot and his ideas were very important for
Darwin’s development on this issue which he would publish in the 1870s only.
Wallace and his ideas on human evolution:
The origin had rekindled the question of race which had already occupied 18th
century thinkers.
Were human races separate species or just varieties of a single species?
Monogenist- poligenist debate.
The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from the Theory of
Natural Selection (1864)
in which he offered a compromise between the monogenist and poligenist
debate. In addition it explained why the human body with the exeption of the
skull looked so similar to present day apes; while at the same time the skull
and mental abilities diverged widely from the same apes.
Wallace suggested that humans, unlike other organisms had experiences, two
distinct stages in evolution. In the first stage, human ancestors had evolved
just as any other creature according to the principles of natural selection. Thus
individuals who carried favourable variations in the constant struggle for
existences survived, their form forms continued to modify. But once the
intellectual capabilities on the human species form were well developed,
natural selection would not longer act on the human physical form and
structure and it would remain essentially unchanged.
So, humans were able to harmoniously adapt to harsh and changing
environmental conditions by the us of their intellect only, not by change of
their body. Furhermore, the developed social and sympathetic feelings allowed
humans to band together for mutual comfort and protection, and such traits
would be persered and accumulated. – mre intellectual and moral races would
replace the less moral ones.
Provided solition to the mongenist and poligenist debate which was not only
on the origin of race but on the different intellectual and moral qualities of the
different races. Different origin – different species, small step to claim that
one species is better than the other and to justify slavery, imperialism and so
on. Monogenists argue for single origin and claim that they are not
12
qualitatively different or inferior to their masters. Abolitionists tended to be
monogenists.
Solution: moral monogenesis and physical polygenesis – far back humans
were a single homogeneous race. Similar in form but without a welldeveloped brain. If one consideres them not fully human until the higher
factulties wer edeveloped one could argue that – the question became how to
define the human origin – in form or when they developed higher faculties
Darwin was impressed and even offered Wallace his own notes on the matter;
Wallaces declined.
They agreed but in 1869 Wallace published a paper that showed that he now
completely disagreed and that neither natural selection nor a general theory of
evolution could ‘ give an account whatever of the origin of sensation or
conscious life…the moral and higher nature of man is as unique a
phenomenon as was conscious life’.
Insufficiency of Natural Selection on the principle of utility alone:
Now what Wallace was to question was the idea that the natural selection
was guided by the principle of utility – both him and Darwin were deeply
influenced by Bentham’s utilitarianism) Natural selection could not preserve a
harmful structure and furthermore, it was a principle of present utility and
relative perfection only. A structure could not be preserved for future utility—
it needed to be used; otherwise it would disappear.
He argued that several aspects of humankind intellectual and moral nature
seemed inexplicable in terms of natural selection. – large brain, the hand, the
loss of hair, organ of speech. – no doubt that savage races had the same
endowmennts for speech but didn’t use it as much as modern races? So wasn’t
that then a provision for mankind’s future? And against utility? So, there were
many useless features…
Wallace also did not accept racist thinking – as did Darwin – and argued that
savage races were no different from the civilised Victorian gentleman. Just as
intelligen, just as moral and the same range of emotions.
Now, who did it happen than? The answer was somewhat suprising:
13
There was some power that was guiding the action of the ‘Great laws of organic
development’ in definite directions for special ends. Darwin was horrified and
underlined his copy of Wallace with a no three times underlined .
T
he most problematic trait to account for in natural selection was the
development of a moral sense. It seemed to be entirely inexolicable through
utility only. Wallace concluded that the feelings human have about right and
wrong came prior to any experience of utility, and since that was the case,
they could not be the result of natural selection. A priror intelligence guided
the development of man in the definite direction and for a special purpose. For
Wallace, the law of natural selection was insufficient to produce the ‘ultimate
aim and outcome of all organised existence – intellectual, ever advancing,
spiritual man.’
Now why did he go down that way which is as we shall see in s minute so
different from Darwin and his crew.
It is not only because he was open to ideas of spiritualism; Historians have suggested
that his also due his entirely different upbringing and working class background. He
did not share the ideas of upper middle class naturalists such as Darwin but engaged
in socialist ideas of human betterment. In a way, his understanding of human drew
also on phrenology. And he firmly believed that the essence of man was his spirit: ‘if
you leave out the spiritual nature of man you are not studying man at all’ and natural
selection, he argued again and again could not explain this spirit.
Although Darwin and his followers – Huxley in particular – had not use for Wallace
importance of spiritualism. But his ideas and their disagreements were crucial for
preparing their own arguments. Darwin in particular had recognised that Wallace had
formulated the critique he would face once he transferred evolution into the domain of
the human.
Problem is however acknowledged:
Problem was, even if evolution and selection were ablet to producing the
beginnings of human reason and the moral sentiment, intensified social and
sympathetic feelings would benefit the benevolent cullings of the mentally and
morally inferior. And natural selection would become disengaged. – in short:
why where there still mentially and morally inferior people in contemporary
society when natural selection was true?
Darwin recognaised that this issue was far from trivial and needed a solution if he
wanted to bolster his evolutionary theory and extend it to the human domain.
14
Before Darwin answere his self-proclaimed bulldog
(slide)
Thomas Huxley did in his
Man’s Place in Nature 1863 – famously eloquent for arguing that humans were no
exeption to evolutionary theory. in which he gives evidence for the evolution of man
and apes from a common ancestor. It was the first book devoted to the topic of human
evolution.
(slide)
He used comparative anatomy of apes
(slide) differences between apes were bigger than between higher primates such as the
gorilla and man – gorilla’s had been just discovered – but Huxley knew it could not
be settled by comparative anatomy alone – Darwin will use that too…but claimed
at physical and and phycholigical unity existed between men and beast – victorians
loved pets.
He was aware that Victorians found appauling is the idea that
‘the belief that the unity of oritin of man and brutes involves the brutalisation and
degradation of the former.
But is that so, Huxley asked?
Does it really matter that man’s origin was the same as other species, Huxely asked?
Huxely argued that human dignity was not inherited but needed to be gained and won
by each of us consciously seeking good and evil.
Furthermore, a vast chasm separated civilised humans from the brute. Even if humans
came from brutes, they were not of them.
Huxely’s strategy to convince people of the truth of Darwinism was the claim
that the highly charged issues concerning humanity’s moral’s and ethics,
questions of good and evil, were not relevant to the question of human
origins. He was not uninterested in these questions but he believed that
evolutionary theory could not give us an ethics to live by. While evolution
15
could provide an explanation for how the good and the evil tendencies have
come about, it did not explain why what we call good is preferable to what we
call evil, he argued.
Darwin enters debate on human evolution
Wallace disagreed and more people came in on the debate. Darwin needed to take a
position. And how did he do it?
1. Like Huxely he first drew on comparative anatomy to show how similar
humans were to apes. He had already argued earlier that homologous
anatomical structures in humans and animals suggested they shared a common
ancestor.
But now he also focussed on mental structures in his comparison – to get
out of the debate lead by those who believed in sensationalism or phrenology
to argue that mental only concerns humans.
‘Origin of man now proved – Metaphysics must flourish—He who understand
baboon would do more towars metaphysics than Locke’.
He used a variet of evidence to argue that no insuperable barrier existed that
separated humans from lower animals. And he makes a crucial assumption crucial
to his theory, and one that most biologists and psychologists today depend on in
trying to understand animal behaviour, inspite the risk associate with it.
What is this assumption? He argued that because animals such as apes and
humans shared the same brain and nervous system, then we can assume that of
the animal exhibited a particular behaviour that had a human counterpart, he
could assume that the underlying psychic state is the same. (If I ask you to
bring me something – you do. If I ask a dog to bring the newspaper he does –
so I assume he understood me.
Problem: How can we really know – we don’t even know what our fellow
humans are thinking, what their mental state is….but we do these judgement.
Now, Darwin’s theory crucially depended on this rather shacky assumption. They
were truth for him. It was central to his evolution of a moral sense in humans. His
comparative metaphysicas dealt with the problem of mind by pure and literal
anthropomorphism. – and he viewed metaphysical objections to extending human
mental qualities to the animal as ‘arrogance.
4 stages of that development – which again was centred on ‘utility’ – pleasure and
pain
16
1. organisms developed a social instinct – had just been discovered – causing
them to take pleasure in the company of others and bond together closely
related and associate individuals into society.
(slide of babies)
most vividly to be seen. In the expression in man and animal (1873) he argues
for universal expressive forms in humans and animals proves the
physicoligical basis of expression and demonstrates that they are not unique to
an individual – as argued by sensationlist theory etc. Sense of spiritualism or
God is also related to that instinct…
2. Animals develop intellect to recall instances when the social instincts were
unsatisfied in order to satisfy stronger urges such as hunger or sexual drive.
3. Development of language enable early humans to become sentitized to mutual
needs and to codify principles of their behavior. 4. Finally, habit would come to
shape the conduct of individuals so even concerning small matters, acting in light
of the wishes of the communities would become in a sense a second nature.
Differences to sensationalists theory of mind and consciousness?
Sympathy was learned in response to instinctive pleasure or pain – Benthan again. –
this he shares with sensationalist theory. Darwin however argued that our sympathetic
responses to one another were NOT learned but instincts. Animals have these
reaction, why shouldn’t we – you see the comparative mode working the other way
round from animal to human. – he believed that animals could develop a moral
senese, in dogs we even find a spiritual sense.
He was advertiseing a moral relativism.
But still we are different – we do not react according to learned patterns. Now Darwin
wheals out the good old faculty of memory, which allows us to compare an
unsatisfied social instinct with a more powerful urge such as hunger, fear or sex. But
even the stronger urges would be unsatisfied and leading to a feeling of
unsatisfaction. Eventually we remember in advance and reflect.
So, ultimately, consciences and moral obligations ultimately was derived from the
persistent social instincts which existed in animals and humans. Their difference was
a difference in degree only, not in kind.
Moreover, his theory of consciousness was based on utility – as the rest of his
evolutionary theory – but also on the idea of a continuum existing between humans
and animals – he would for example argue that religious sentiments were present in
17
dogs and animals. He examples here were extremely racist and we will discuss them
in the seminar.
This was different from Wallace who believed that there is no continuum between
animals and humans. He insisted on a unbridegabl gab when it came to human’s
moral and spiritual nature. Evolution of religous feelings not convincing – because
based in different view of native people.
If we look at both models Darwin’s the Wallace…what is different here:
Darwin reduces all change to the physical/biological domain – so natural science was
what concerned the biological and physical. Wallace aimed to include the areas of
science to include spiritual ideas in order to understand consciousness. Although he
thought that th origin of life resulted from a complex arrangement of inorganic matter,
he also thought that transition from lifeless to life was part of an overall plan that had
been guided by conscious beings that were outside of an independend of matter –
continuing the desartian split. If molecules lacked consciousness how could a
complex arrangedment of them produce consciousness? Compare to him Darwin and
Huxely in particular argud that human life – consciousness included – derived from
molecules. All living organisms shared a common uniformity of form – the cell and
all cells share the same chemical set up. No sharp distinction existed thus between
humans and other organisms with cells. Huxely weven went further to argue that
expressions of intellect, emotions, and freewill could utlimatley be explained in terms
of material changes. – of course he was accused as an atheist, materialist…he denied
it and again on the basis that he said that materialsm might not answer everything but
clearly Wallace ideas offered no answers.
Huxely saw himself as an agnostic believer. In the middle between absolute beief and
absolute denial. But he meant by it that our knowledge of reality is restricted to the
world of phenomena as revealed by experience. Religions belief was not provable for
him. Not uninterested but he believed that at ht epresent state of human knowledge, it
was not answerable.
18
19