Charles Darwin, sexual selection and the evolution of other-regarding ethics

Piers J Hale

doi:10.1017/bjt.2021.5

Abstract

AbstractAlthough many read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species as an endorsement, rather than merely a description, of individualism and competition, in Descent of Man (1871) Darwin intended to show that natural selection could account for the most noble aspects of human morality and conscience. He did so in response to Alfred Russel Wallace's 1869 statement to the contrary. In doing so, Darwin appealed to the natural selection of groups rather than individuals, and to the maternal, parental and filial instincts, as the origin of truly other-regarding moral sentiments. Further, the inheritance of acquired characters and sexual selection had important implications for Darwin's understanding of how other-regarding ethics might prevail in an evolutionary framework that seemed to reward self-interest. In a short addendum to this essay I highlight just three of a number of Darwin's contemporaries who were impressed by this aspect of his work: the science popularizer Arabella Buckley, the Scottish Presbyterian scholar Henry Drummond and the anarchist geographer and naturalist Peter Kropotkin. In closing, I point to an extensive network of others who framed their concerns about both the ‘labour question’ and the ‘woman question’ in evolutionary terms, as a fruitful area for future research in this direction.

Highlights

In On the Origin of Species (1859) Charles Darwin was read by many of his contemporaries as having naturalized the competitive individualism of liberal capitalism
Many read Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species as an endorsement, rather than merely a description, of individualism and competition, in Descent of Man (1871) Darwin intended to show that natural selection could account for the most noble aspects of human morality and conscience
I show that Darwin asserted his hopeful belief that on balance the unfit would not proliferate in numbers sufficient to undermine society, but that maternal love, sexual selection and female choice in particular were factors in ensuring that other-regarding ethics had persisted across human history

Summary

Darwin and Wallace

In the years that followed the publication of Origin, Darwin was busy with the preparation of subsequent editions, and relied on Huxley, Hooker and other allies to defend his argument in public debate. In February 1867, when Darwin had sent the page proofs of Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication off to Murray, his publisher, and was feeling in better health than he had in a long time, he turned to the subject himself He wrote to Wallace again, telling him, ‘I have almost resolved to publish a little essay on the Origin of Mankind.’[35]. When Darwin did turn to the evolution of mind and morality in Descent, he sought to respond to Wallace’s rejection of the efficacy of natural selection to account for the evolution of man, mind and morals, and to counter the arguments of Greg and Galton He sought to frame the origin of humanity’s moral sentiments in the animal instincts as a means to undermine the notion that moral sentiments were either a uniquely human attribute or beyond the explanatory power of natural selection, and to defend the idea that other-regarding sentiments could persist, but thrive, in the context of natural selection.

The most noble part of our nature

The embrace of evolutionary altruism

Conclusion