Sociobiology and Ethics

Abstract

As soon as the Origin of Species appeared, indeed from before that date, there were scientists who wanted to argue that the only true moral philosophy is one firmly grounded on evolutionary theorizing. One thinks here specifically of Charles Darwin’s contemporary, Herbert Spencer, who more than anyone drew tight bonds between evolution and ethics; although, given Spencer’s present reputation, whilst philosophers think of Spencer as primarily a biologist, no doubt biologists think of Spencer as primarily a philosopher. (Perhaps the quickest way to achieve compromise is for both biologists and philosophers to agree that, essentially, Spencer was a father of social science.) However, despite the fact that Spencer’s rather mushy ideas were countered with devastating rhetoric and logic by T. H. Huxley (1893), Darwin’s ‘bulldog’ and in his own right an evolutionist at least as eminent as Spencer, various brands of ‘evolutionary ethics’ have kept appearing during the past hundred years. Amongst recent efforts along these lines, perhaps the best-known attempts have come from the pens of (of all people) T. H. Huxley’s grandson, the late Sir Julian Huxley (1947), and that fascinating biological maverick, the late C. H. Waddington (1960) (in calling him a ‘maverick’ I mean no disrespect, rather the opposite).