While reading Darwin’s Descent of Man, I was continually trying to place myself into the context of the work, trying to appreciate what it would have been like to read this in 1871 rather than 2010. It is difficult to do. While not having read Darwin’s book itself previously, most of the general arguments are not unfamiliar to me today. So while some of the language and particular examples and references retain their harshness, much of the edge of the broader themes has been dulled. And in many instances where I found Darwin’s evidence potentially suspect, I felt an acute awareness of my own lack of knowledge on the subject, given that anything I notice as suspect in an 1871 book has probably been worked over a thousand times in the intervening years.
But while his scientific evidence has mostly been verified or refuted over the last century, the moral and ethical implications of Darwin’s ideas represent a more enduring dilemma. In particular, Darwin’s “morality” is an entirely amoral concept.
Darwin spends a good portion of Chapter 3 discussing the concept of human morality. And he returns to this subject again in Chapter 5. In these chapters, he posits a few different ways in which morality has evolved as a construct in the human mind and discusses the differences/similarities between humans and animals in this regard. According to Darwin, morality has evolved primarily as part of mankind’s social instincts. At a basic, perhaps over simplified level, first man figured out that it was in his interests to live socially with other men. Then he figured out that by doing favors for his fellow man, he might expect favors in return. Then gradually man developed sympathy for an ever-expanding circle of other humans and eventually modern morality became so ingrained in the human mind that many people assume it is hardwired in us.
But lacking from Darwin’s concept of morality is the simple concept of right and wrong. Though he uses the terms, he strips them of meaning. We don’t do what’s right because it is right. We do it because it serves other instincts within us; the social instinct or fear of punishment from the group, as just two examples. Darwin does try feebly to explain seemingly selfless acts but again, he does so by assuming that these acts are not truly selfless. They merely serve other, less obvious purposes. He describes the phenomenon of a mother bird who abandons her young to their fate because her motherly instinct to care for her offspring is temporarily overwhelmed by the migratory instinct. Darwin argues that the reasons civilized humans don’t routinely do things like this is because our increased intellectual capacity would cause us to reflect on our actions after the migratory impulse has been satisfied. According to this theory, it is only this constant replaying of the event in the mother’s mind, the constant intrusion of her intellect to remind her that abandoning her young was a transgression against her lingering social instinct and past habits that would cause the mother to regret the action. But by breaking down such actions and explaining them as a result merely of a slightly stronger instinct lingering after the transient instinct has been satisfied, Darwin’s theory removes any value judgment from the equation. Just as he argues that no one form of life should be considered “better” than another, so no one set of actions and instincts can be right and no set of instincts can be wrong. They merely exist.
Darwin also tries, again feebly, to lighten the blow of this logic but arguing that civilization has led humans to expand the circle of those to whom they are sympathetic, and that this is likely to continue. But in making such assumptions, Darwin was falling prey to the habit of assuming that progress can be seen and can be expected to continue. This is a bad habit which he spends much of Chapter 5 urging others to avoid. Either Darwin did not believe his own reassurances on this matter or he failed to recognize the logical inconsistency apparent in this section of his work.
As a parent, I can understand Darwin’s dilemma diagnosing the underlying motivations for the trait of sympathy. Is this something that we instinctively have? Is it something that parents must teach their young? Is it something that we learn by experiencing our own sadness and loss and transferring these emotions to others? I’ve seen many different types of “sympathetic” responses in children and they run the gamut from a natural, unsolicited response, to acting from a sense of fear of punishment. I often wonder if those children who act out of fear are guided by fear rather than love. Or maybe, according to Darwin, they never inherited or even learned “how” to be sympathetic.
I do think children are born to be social creatures, but if their natural tendencies are not encouraged or if they never see such behaviors modeled, then these behaviors become “rudimentary” in a sense. It reminds me of the story of a Stellaluna, a bat raised by birds. Stellaluna had instincts to do certain things (like hang upside down), but since these instincts weren’t supported by the modeled behaviors of her foster family, she tried to reconcile her instincts with what her community taught her until this created a moral dilemma and she had to leave to follow her own desires. I wonder if Darwin would rank instinct over community (nature vs. nurture argument), an argument he seemed to use more clearly in the case of lower animals instead of humans.
The fear of punishment or the social aspect that drives us to be moral could be debated. It still makes me wonder what feeds your ethical behavoir if no one is watching?
When I worked for a theater we did a show that required the use of a bird to carry notes to Sherlock Holmes. The mated pair that we used had offspring that were not healthy. The mother bird refused to feed them and kicked them to the bottom of the cage. I mashed up birdseed to push into their mouths and was able to save one bird. Once the bird thrived the mother tolerated it but no maternal instincts were present. It was imperfect and the energy, food and time spent would only go to healthy offspring. The bird doesn’t have guilt.
Why do we have guilt?
I can’t tell exactly what your criticism of Darwin is. Do you deny that there is ultimately a psychology cause behind all behavior, and that psychology was shaped by evolution? Or are you saying that Darwin underestimates the importance of empathy for humans?
The evolution of cooperation and empathy was much more fully explored in the twentieth century. See, for example, W. D. Hamilton’s theory of kin selection.
Also, maybe there is confusion of terms here. Being selfless doesn’t mean that an individual isn’t acting in her own interest, it means her interest is that of another, on account of empathy.
I have criticisms at different levels, though admittedly they stem from the same part of his writing.
In Darwin’s version of morality, he still uses terms like right and wrong, good and bad, but he strips them of any inherent value. A more traditional western version of morality says that there is, at some level, a fixed value to the concept. An action that was morally right yesterday is still right today and can be expected to still be right tomorrow. By stripping the concept of its previously accepted meaning, Darwin’s logic changes the equation. Right is not right because it’s right, it is right only because it happens to suit a randomly occurring set of circumstances that presently exist. If circumstances change (be they environmental, cultural, biological, or any other type), what was right yesterday may or may not still be right today and may be good, bad, or inconsequential tomorrow. While I have personal disagreements with this (see below*), my main criticism of Darwin in the original post is that he is not willing to fully embrace his own logic.
In the abstract, it can be plausibly argued that Darwin’s logic requires that “If Concept A, then Concept B”. In this instance, Concept A would be Darwin’s theories on natural selection and the natural invention of morality, Concept B would be the relativistic implications of those theories.
Without getting bogged down in possible variations, the author at that point has 3 basic options –
1. Accept both A and B
2. Reject both A and B
3. Accept A as true, and offer some logical arguments as to why the above assumption is wrong and acceptance of A does not in fact require the acceptance of B
Factual and philosophical disputes may follow any of those choices, but all three contain a sustainable logic.
Instead, Darwin chose a fourth option –
Embrace A, use A as proof of your mental superiority and a means of deriding those who reject it as superstitious and close minded, and then reject B without offering any solid reason why A does not in fact require B.
He embraces a purely natural explanation for the existence and evolution of morality while making arguments for his theory of natural selection, but he hedges in whether this will mean a moral and cultural relativism among humans. In viewing other animals, he insists that no one system or organism can be viewed as “better” than another; they just are what they are. But in morality and culture, he does not make this same proclamation. There is clearly no concept that the culture of “savages” is equal to that of the well bred Englishman. He insists, though offering no good reason why, that morality will undoubtedly continue evolving on its current path, with humans becoming ever more kind and considerate to each other.
Despite his confident and often confrontational attitude, in arguing thus he is breaking his own rules. To ridicule those who are have considered the consequences of accepting Concept A and based on those consequences have decided to reject A, while he himself has already accepted A but proves willing only to face some of those consequences while ignoring those he finds inconvenient or unpalatable, is unfair.
*Is this portrait of morality true? A good argument could be made that it is. I certainly accept that psychology and changing cultures play a role in what we perceive to be moral. Cultures that exist simultaneously often disagree on what appear to be fundamental points of morality, never mind cultures across time. But I’m more inclined to believe that in this case, the concept of morality shares some features with that of reality.
My individual perception of reality may be that the earth is flat. But the fixed reality is that it is round, and while I may never be convinced of this, and may act for all my life as if the earth was flat, my perception does not change the fixed reality. Thus we have two different types of reality – the perceived’ and the ‘fixed’. Both have consequences of their own. And sometimes the two overlap and are one and the same. But there is no requirement for the two to be the same and while the fixed reality may inform the perceived reality, the reverse is not true.
Similarly, it seems reasonable to me that we live in a universe with both ‘perceived morality’ and ‘fixed morality’. While a culture may perceive it is morally justified in abusing the infirm and torturing puppies for sport, and while this perception would have consequences, the fact that they perceive these actions to be moral doesn’t necessarily make them so.