John Kilcullen
Copyright (c) 1996, R.J. Kilcullen
To use this reading guide you need to have in front of you Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (London, 1901), chapters 4 and 5.
READ Ch.4, pp. 148-half way through p. 151.
5 lines further down: "To risk his life....great cause"; conscience sometimes demands a sacrifice of one's own interests for some other person's sake or for some principle or cause. Darwin wishes to discuss, from a biologist's standpoint (as he says on p. 149 "from the side of natural history"), the origin of a faculty that makes such demands: Whence thy original? p. 149, line 4. How would natural selection produce a species whose individuals risk or sacrifice their lives? Wouldn't such an impulse be "selected out" of a species? If natural selection favours characteristics that help individuals survive and propagate, and if morality requires individuals sometimes to sacrifice their interests, or restrain their pursuit of their interests, for the sake of other people, how can natural selection favour moral characteristics?
P.149, Footnote 5 Notice Darwin's disagreement with Mill. Mill thinks that a capacity for sympathy is instinctive but that the rest of the structure of morality develops out of sympathy during the individual's lifetime. See Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 230 (in Readings, p.86). (Mill's ethical doctrine does not depend on this psychological doctrine.)
P.150, line 14: "These feelings and services...are by no means extended to all the individuals of the same species, only to those of the same association": How will Darwin account for the apparent existence of universalistic morality in some individuals (i.e., the acceptance of moral principles requiring concern for all human beings, including strangers)?
After "thirdly", line 5: "But it should be borne in mind that our regard for the approbation and disapprobation of our fellows depends on sympathy"; without fellow-feeling we would not care about public opinion except as we care about the hostility of a dog--merely as a practical obstacle.
So looking back over this passage, what is the argument? Sympathy is a key notion, as in Hume and Smith. What Darwin adds is (a) a distinction between the strength of the desire prompted by an instinct and its persistence or recurrence over time, (b) the suggestion that animals with memory and community and language may come afterwards to feel dissatisfied with an action which at the time satisfied the stronger desire. Read again the words after "secondly":
As soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motions would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling of dissatisfaction, or even misery, which inevitably results,... from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise as often as it perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time strong, but neither enduring in its nature, nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression.This is a theory of choice and of conscience: we choose, all animals choose, in accordance with the desire strongest at the moment; but afterwards the animal may regret the choice, because some conflicting desire that was overridden is more persistent. Presumably the function of conscience is to reinforce the social instinct, so that at the moment of choice it will provide the stronger impulse.
Read now p.151-2. "Relativism" is the theory that what is right or wrong varies from one society to another. A relativist holds not merely that what is thought or believed to be right or wrong differs from one society to another, but that right and wrong really do differ from one society to another. According to some people morality is entirely relative to society, according to others there is a common core of morality but also a part that is relative to the social circumstances. Darwin is here saying that morality is relative to the species (assuming that other species besides human beings have moralities), but it is not clear whether he holds that it is entirely relative or only partly so.
He repeats the idea on p.150 under "secondly":
Each individual would have an inward sense of possessing certain stronger or more enduring instincts, and others less strong or enduring; so that there would often be a struggle... and satisfaction, dissatisfaction or even misery would be felt, as past impressions were compared during their incessant passage through the mind.When he goes on to refer to an "inward monitor" telling the animal that it would have been better to have followed the one impulse rather than another, I suppose this is a metaphorical way of saying that the animal will feel dissatisfied if the persistent impulse has been pushed aside by a temporarily stronger but less persistent one. If this is what he means then we have a sketch of an explanation of the species relativism of morals: different species of animals will differ as to which instincts they have and their relative strength and persistence, and consequently they will differ as to what this inward monitor "tells" them about right and wrong.
READ Ch.4, pp. 153-5. These are examples showing that other species besides human beings are sociable, suggesting that other species may exhibit moral characteristics. Social animals aid one another, and in some cases give aid even at some cost or risk to themselves. Notice the reference to the "true hero" on p.155
READ Ch.4, pp. 155-65.
Notice on p.160, 4 lines down the reference to acquired instincts of domesticated animals: selective breeding may modify instincts. ("Instinct" is clearly an important term for Darwin. It corresponds to Adam Smith's propensities. The Latin word from which it is derived means an incitement or impulsion.)
Notice near the bottom of p.160, the suggestion that some instincts may not act through pleasure and pain:
In many instances it is probably that instincts are followed from the mere force of inheritance, without the stimulus of either pleasure or pain... Hence the common assumption that men must be impelled to every action by experiencing some pleasure or pain may be erroneous.The same point is made in the second paragraph of p.164.
On p.163, he suggests that some instincts or impulsions may be due directly to natural selection, others may be the indirect result of other impulsions that may be due to natural selection, others are due simply to habit acquired during the individual's life time.
On p.163, he suggests the natural selection may select for capacity for sympathy. Sympathy impels animals to help one another, and if this is important to the survival of a species "it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities which include the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would... rear the greatest number of offspring". Yes, but would those be the offspring of the most helpful individuals--or would helpfulness actually handicap an individual in leaving offspring?
On pp.164-5 he discusses the conflict between the maternal impulse and the impulse to migrate. He suggests that an impulse, even if not at any time stronger, may prevail by being more persistent over some tract of time (though perhaps not at other times).
Now this slightly complicates the distinction on p.150 between the persistent social instinct and the temporarily stronger instinct. Perhaps he shouldn't say that it is not at any time stronger; maybe the point is that if it is persistent then eventually there will be a moment at which it is stronger and prevails, and causes an act that so alters the situation that the other impulse cannot effectively reverse the situation (e.g. the impulse to migrate may prevail while the parents are not attending to their offspring, and if they start to migrate they will not again be stimulated to parental behaviour by the presence of the offspring).
One of Adam Smith's propensities--sympathy is the first one Darwin mentions, others are fidelity of comrades, obedience to the leader of the tribe; also desire for approbation (another of the propensities recognised by Adam Smith).
READ pp.168-74 (Darwin's heading:1 "The more enduring social instincts conquer the less persistent instincts.") Some comments: Go back to p.150 and read the passage beginning "secondly"; the ideas in that passage are elaborated in this one.
P.169 mentions one class of cases, in which the social instinct is simply stronger than the self-regarding instinct. But on p.171 he goes on to say that this cannot explain other cases. "It is untenable, that in man the social instincts... possess greater strength...". "Why, then, does man regret" following self-regarding impulses rather than social ones--i.e. why is there such a thing as conscience? The answer is in the next paragraph: the propensity to judge ourselves as other members of our society would judge us acts more persistently than the self-regarding impulses do. We think continually of others' imagined approbation or disapprobation, whereas the desire to satisfy hunger is temporary.
Obviously this account of conscience resembles Adam Smith's. What Darwin adds is a naturalistic explanation of why we take conscience so seriously. Adam Smith says that God's providence has given us several inborn propensities that lead us to judge our own conduct from the viewpoint of the ideal, impartial and enlightened spectator. Darwin does not idealise the spectator: the relevant propensity is to care about what actual members of our own tribe actually think. But he is trying to explain, as Smith did not, the mechanisms by which this concern for the good opinion of others may on occasion prevail over strong self-regarding impulses. What explains the phenomenon is the persistence of the social instinct.
The swallow example makes the point that part of the mechanisms is intelligence and memory: "If, from being endowed with great mental activity, she could not prevent the image constantly passing through her mind"--which, as things are, does not happen. Re-read pages 148-9 and notice the reference to the supremacy of conscience, and to the development of the intellectual powers.
This theory is summed up on p.174, "At the moment of action.." etc.
READ now pp.178-82, "The strictly social virtues at first alone regarded"
We come now to Chapter 5:
In this passage Darwin raises the question how natural selection would have developed the intellectual and moral faculties. The intellectual faculties pose no great difficulty: "The individuals who were the more sagacious, who invented and used the best weapons or traps .. would rear the greatest number of offspring".
The development of the moral facilities is harder to explain. One possible explanation is through competition between tribes--the tribes with the greatest number of courageous, self-sacrificing individuals would prevail in war, and that tribe's characteristics would spread because the tribe and its descendants would spread. But on p.200 he asks, how within the limits of the same tribe did a large number become endowed with these qualities? Isn't it the case that natural selection will eliminate individuals with these qualities?
It is extremely doubtful whether the offspring of the more sympathetic and benevolent parents... would be reared in greatest numbers... He who was ready to sacrifice his life... would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature.Competition between tribes cannot explain why some tribes have more virtuous members to begin with, and if somehow virtue does arise natural selection might eliminate the virtuous. In fact Darwin does not seem to have a solution to this problem, but he continues to argue as if tribal competition were sufficient.
(The gene theory was invented after Darwin's time, but in a passage not included in the selections he mentions a fact relevant to the modern explanation of how altruism makes evolutionary sense:
Even if they left no children, the tribe would still include their blood-relations; and it has been ascertained by agriculturalists that by preserving and breeding from the family of an animal which when slaughtered was found to be valuable, the desired character has been obtained. (pp. 198-9)According to the gene theory, a character may be carried by relatives, even if they do not themselves exhibit it. In helping their kin, individuals are helping the propagation and survival of their own genes.)
"Aided by inherited habit" (p. 199), "Habits... tend to be inherited" (p. 201): Darwin accepted from earlier biologists (e.g. Lamarck) that characteristics acquired during lifetime (e.g. habits) can be passed on to descendants not only by learning but by physical inheritance. (In his thinking this figured as a minor mechanism, much less important than natural selection.) Modern biologists do not accept the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
READ p.201 "Each man would soon learn that if he aided his fellow-man, he would commonly receive aid in return". This doesn't go far toward explaining the origin of commitment to morality, which requires far more than that we help others who might later, because of this, help us.
READ p.203 "Although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man [and woman] and his [their] children over the others of the same tribe": This is already more than he has a right to say. Not only does it give a slight advantage, or none, but it is in fact a burden and a handicap. As he remarked on p.200, "He who was ready to sacrifice his life... would often leave no offspring".
In the rest of this paragraph he goes on to restate his earlier idea that once (in some unexplained way, and against the force of natural selection) a tribe comes to have self-sacrificing members, the tribe will prevail in competition with others and their offspring will become more numerous. Notice that this could never explain the growth of an attitude of fairness or justice toward members of other tribes. On Darwin's account, in which warfare between tribes is the selecting agency, it is the military character that will be selected, not qualities conducive to peace and inter-tribal cooperation. Of course the military character and nationalist antagonisms are a prominent part of human nature as we know it, but there are some traces in many individuals of opposite characteristics, and almost everyone would recognise those characteristics as morally superior. How, in Darwinian theory, could such characteristics survive natural selection?
Notice Darwin's remark (p.206) "this [propagation by the weak] must be highly injurious to the race of man... hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
But notice also that Darwin is not a social Darwinist. Six lines down into the next paragraph he says: "Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature". And a little lower down: "We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind". So the question then is whether these undoubtedly bad effects are so serious as to threaten the survival of civilised nations. If they were, then there would be a sort of ceiling on the development of civilisation--the evolutionary process would lead a nation to become civilised up to a point, but then it would inevitably deteriorate and be defeated eventually by some less civilised nation, which might in turn become too civilised and then be defeated by another, and so on indefinitely.
Darwin argues that this may not happen, because although civilised nations help the weak to survive and propagate there are still some checks on their propagation, and if these are strong enough there may be no net increase in the defective part of the population. One of these checks is mentioned that near the end of this passage that "the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound".
READ pp.210-11. This mentions more checks on the increase of the inferior.
READ P.212-17.
So there is a counter tendency, for the poor and reckless Irish Catholics do marry early and have lots of children while the intelligent Scottish presbyterians marry later and have fewer children and will be outnumbered. However, Darwin suggests, the poor may not be so prolific--they crowd into unhealthy towns, and so on. There is a see-saw, as Darwin lists the factors that favour or check the spread of inferior people like the Irish and finally he reminds us that "progress is no invariable rule". There can be no guarantee that a presently great civilised nation will continue to prevail and spread.
READ now p.218 The civilisation whose continued prevalence he is concerned about is that of the English speaking nations. The best hope he thinks lies in America. "Looking to the distant future...", he says, it is no exaggeration to say that the culture of Greece and Rome had its purpose and value as subserving the development of Anglo-Saxon civilisation in America. Thucydides and Plato have their value as preparing the way for infotainment and talkback.
Looking back over what we've read in Darwin: He offers his theory of natural selection as an explanation of how the human animal developed social instincts and in particular the instincts (such as sympathy) that are the basis of morality: morality helps human beings to adapt successfully and survive in difficult environments by helping one another. But as Darwin admits and I have emphasised, Darwin's evolutionary explanation does not quite work: it can't satisfactorily explain how within a cooperating group (such as a tribe) those who are most helpful to others will leave a greater number of offspring able to survive and propagate. And as for the social and political implications of the theory, it does seem to point to some program of eliminating defectives, or at least not allowing them to propagate. Darwin doesn't support such a program because he thinks that adopting it would itself cause moral deterioration. But if we decide that the various other checks he points out are not strong enough to prevent the increase in defectives, then we would be faced with a choice between allowing our civilisation to be defeated or adopting some eugenic program. (What if universalistic morality suggests that the opportunity to have offspring is a "human right", that people who have difficulty in propagating should get special help to give them an equal opportunity?)
That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and of which these are among the transitory expressions. And in the living world, one of the most characteristic features of this cosmic process is the struggle for existence, the competition of each with all, the result of which is the selection, that is to say the survival of those forms which, on the whole, are best adapted to the conditions which at any period obtain; and which are, therefore, in that respect, and only in that respect, the fittest. (p. 35)Evolution is usually thought of as the progressive development of ever more complex forms of life. But under some circumstances the selective pressures will lead to progressive simplification, or retrogression (pp. 36-7):
If our hemisphere were to cool again, the survival of the fittest might bring about, in the vegetable kingdom, a population of more and more stunted and humbler and humbler organisms, until the 'fittest' that survived might be nothing but lichens, diatoms and such microscopic organisms as those which give red snow its colour. (p. 81).The cosmos, according to Huxley, has an upward followed by a downward phase--entropy means that eventually life will dwindle and die out.
Suppose a garden (civilisation) is made. It is not part of the natural state of the landscape; it comes into existence and is preserved only by human effort. Human beings are, of course, part of nature:
No doubt, it may be properly urged that the operation of human energy and intelligence... the 'horticultural process', is, strictly speaking, part and parcel of the cosmic process. Man, physical, intellectual, and moral, is as much a part of nature, as purely a product of the cosmic process, as the humblest weed (p. 39).But all the same the horticultural process is in opposition to the general cosmic process:
No doubt, the Forth bridge and... are, in ultimate resort, products of the cosmic process.... Nevertheless, every breeze strains the bridge a little... From time to time the bridge must be repaired.... Antagonism is everywhere manifest between the artificial and the natural. Even in the state of nature itself, what is the struggle for existence but the antagonism of the results of the cosmic process in the region of life, one to another? (p. 40).READ pp. 40-42
Similarly, a human society could be established ("in such a country as Tasmania was in the middle of last century"), under an administrative authority selecting colonists like a gardener selects plants, "by selection directed towards an ideal".
The cosmic struggle for existence, as between man and man, would be vigorously suppressed; and selection, by its means, would be as completely excluded as it is from the garden (p. 43)Population increase would eventually require culling.
Supposing the administrator to be guided by purely scientific considerations, he would, like the gardener, meet this most serious difficulty by systematic extirpation, or exclusion, of the superfluous. The hopelessly diseased, the infirm, aged, the weak or deformed in body or in mind, the excess of infants born, would be put away, as the gardener pulls up defective and superfluous plants, or the breeder destroys undesirable cattle. Only the strong and the healthy, carefully matched, with a view to the progeny best adapted to the purposes of the administrator, would be permitted to perpetuate their kind. (p. 45)READ pp. 46-47.
Among bees (another social animal) the different types are biologically determined to their different social functions. But this is not true of human beings:
READ pp. 49-52.
Just as the "horticultural process" is part of the cosmic process, but in some ways in opposition to it, so is the "ethical process".
READ pp. 52-55.
The application of the horticultural procedure to society would destroy the ethical bonds which hold it together.
READ pp. 58-60, Top of p.59.
"The free expansion of the innate faculties of the citizen, so far as it is consistent with the general goal"; This seems to be Huxley's conception of the goal of political life.
READ extracts from the Romanes lecture, pp. 63-4.
Huxley goes on to discuss ancient ethical theories of the Greeks, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. On the views of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism,
READ pp. 73-4
On the Stoic denial that there is any evil except wrong doing,
READ pp. 77-8, 7 lines into 1st paragraph.
Philosophasters: pseudo-philosophers.
10 lines into paragraph "In the language of the Stoa", "hegemonic" means ruling.
P.78, 4 lines into paragraph: "But what part"
Categorical imperative: According to Immanuel Kant, the imperatives of morality are not hypothetical ("If you want... then do...") but categorical ("Do...", without any condition). Huxley then comes to modern ethical thinking:
READ pp. 79-82.
A few lines up from end of p.80, "Incompetent to furnish any better reason" than intuition: Note the claim that a theory that accounts for the biological or psychological origin of an evaluation is irrelevant to the question whether that evaluation is correct. In ethics Huxley seems to be an intuitionist.
P.81 "Fittest"; Cf. the remark on p. 35, quoted above, "... forms of life best adapted to the conditions which at any period obtain; and which are therefore, in that respect, and only in that respect, the fittest".
Mid p.82
"The fanatical individualism of our time"; His note refers to "Government: Anarchy or Regimentalism", in his Methods and Results, p. 383 ff (Q/171/.H9/vol. 1).
READ pp. 82-84.
"The downward route"; Cf.p.81 "if our hemisphere were to cool again.... down to humbler and humbler organisms", near end of p. 83.
4 lines below "The great year"; In Greek astronomy, the period during which all the objects of the heavens return to the same relative positions (as the "solar year" is the period it takes the earth to complete one orbit of the sun).
The quotations at the end of the lecture are from Tennyson.
Looking back over Huxley: His lecture is a strong repudiation of attempts to derive a "survival of the fittest" ethical or political philosophy from the Darwinian theory. The garden, civilisation, the ethical process, attempt to resist or at least postpone the workings of the cosmic process--even though the gardener, and the moral and civilised human being, are themselves products of the cosmic process. Huxley is not denying Darwin's claim that morality is due to evolution, but he is maintaining that morality, once it has evolved, requires an attempt to resist or control or direct the evolutionary process. Huxley also opposes the eugenic program, or as he calls it the pigeon-fanciers policy, in which the rulers try to breed the human population like an animal breeder breeds his animals. Recall Plato's Statesman (POL167 Readings, p.95, 310ff).
Now write your tutorial paper on one of the following questions. Then return for suggestions on further study.
2. What is Darwin's account of the development of conscience. Compare it with Adam Smith's and Mill's.
3. Does it follow from Darwin's theories that the weak, sick and handicapped should be left to fend for themselves?
4. What difference would it make to our view of human life and politics if we took seriously the idea that human beings and human society are, like other animals and plants, the product of the blind impersonal process of evolution?
Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and in me [as genes]: they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence... we are their survival machines (pp. 19-20).For a gene to survive in a competitive environment it must be "selfish", i.e. it must program its survival machine so as to enhance the gene's chances of being passed into future generations, at the expense of its competitors.
I shall argue that the predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour [i.e. the perpetuation of the gene will usually require its "survival machine" to act so as to enhance its own chances of surviving and having offspring at the expense of its competitors]. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances [namely when other individuals have the same genes--see chapter 6] in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. (p. 2).Thus Dawkins's account will attempt to explain, among other things, the existence (and limitations) of altruism.
The book does not advocate selfishness. Its ethical message, in so far as it has one, is
that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common goal, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. (p. 3).(Compare T.H. Huxley's remark that "the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process... but on combating it" ["Romanes Lecture", p. 82].) This presupposes that we can build on the limited altruism that heredity has programmed into us and combat the selfishness. "Our genes may instruct us to be selfish, but we are not necessarily compelled to obey them all our lives" (p. 3). Dawkins does not discuss the possibility that worried Huxley, that so far as we succeed in suppressing the "self-assertive" elements of human nature we may jeopardise the survival of the species; perhaps there is not much risk of this.
Talk of genes "manipulating by remote control", of their selfishness, of their achieving their selfish goals, etc., is convenient metaphor. "We allow ourselves the licence of talking about genes as if they had conscious aims, always reassuring ourselves that we could translate our sloppy language back into respectable terms if we wanted to" (p. 88; cf. pp. 89, 50, 196). To say that genes "aim at" their own survival means that their effects on individuals are such as to increase the probability that there will be future individuals having such genes. The reason why these effects happen is that genes that do not have such effects are eliminated by natural selection.
Similarly, in calling genes "selfish" Dawkins does not mean that genes have motives. Also, the selfishness or altruism of the individual "survival machine" may not be a matter of conscious motivation, though with human individuals it often is. And a "survival strategy" need not be consciously adopted plan: the term may be a metaphorical way of referring to the unconscious reaction of an organism to certain features of its environment (see p. 69). It is convenient to talk as if genes were selfish and adopted survival strategies.
A "strategy" is a predetermined behavioural policy, e.g. "be peaceable but retaliate when attacked". By some unspecified mechanism (which need not involve consciousness) the animal behaves as if it were following these instructions (p. 69 ff., p. 96). An "evolutionarily stable" strategy (ESS) is one that does well in comparison with other strategies even after it has become common.
Aggression may be a good strategy while aggressive individuals are rare, but if they do well and become numerous they will start to encounter one another and not do so well. A whole population of "peaceable retaliators" will do well, and will repel aggressive intruders. A "mixed" strategy (e.g. "behave as a peaceable retaliator mostly, but occasionally try aggression") may be an ESS. A mixture may be realised either by "polymorphism" (some individuals are always aggressive, others always peaceable retaliators, in an appropriate ratio), or all individuals may with appropriate frequency make unpredictable switches of behaviour; see p. 73. The mixture among human beings of selfishness and altruism, morality (according to various codes) and immorality, might be explained in this way. Evolutionary theory does not encourage the expectation that all individuals of a species will behave in the same way or that a given individual will always behave in the same way.
In Articles and Chapters read The Selfish Gene, chapter 12, on circumstances and ways in which individuals may cooperate.
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