THE ETHICS OF EVOLUTION
131. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLE.--The title, "The Ethics of
Evolution," seems to assume that the evolutionist, frankly accepting
himself as such, must be prepared to join some school of the moralists
different from other schools, and basing itself upon evolutionary
doctrine.
That the ethical views of individuals and of communities of men may
undergo a process of evolution or development is palpable. The ethical
notions of the child are not those of the man, nor are the moral ideas of
primitive races identical with those of races more advanced
intellectually and morally.
But it is one thing to maintain that morals may be in evolution in
individuals and in communities, and quite another to hold that the
acceptance of the doctrine of evolution, broadly taken, forces upon one
some new norm by which human actions may be judged. It was possible for
as ardent an evolutionist as Huxley to hold that evolution and ethics are
not merely independent, but are actually at war with one another, the
competitive struggle for existence characteristic of the one giving place
in the other to a new principle in which the rights of the weak and the
helpless attain express recognition. [Footnote: HUXLEY, _Evolution and
Ethics_, New York, 1894. See, especially, the _Prolegomena_.] And
Sidgwick, that clearest of thinkers, maintains [Footnote: _The Methods
of Ethics_, Book I, chapter vi, Sec 2.] that we have no reason to assume
that it is our duty as moral beings simply to accelerate the pace in the
direction already marked out by evolution.
It should be remembered that the word evolution may be used equivocally.
It is not evident that all evolution is in the direction of a life, brute
or human, that we commonly recognize as higher. There is retrogression,
as well as progress, where such retrogression is favored by environment.
We may call this, if we please, _devolution_. Were the conditions of
his life very unfavorable, man could not live as he now lives; and,
indeed, were they sufficiently unfavorable--for example, if the earth
cooled off to a certain point--he could not live at all, but would have
to give place to a lowlier creature better fitted to the conditions. Must
the man who foresees this end approaching strive to hasten its arrival,
or should he oppose it? In a decadent society, to come nearer to the
problems which concern us in ethics, must a man strive to realize the
social will expressed in progressive decadence? Should he hasten the
decline of the community?
That those who study man as a moral being, like those who study man in
any of his other aspects, will be more or less influenced in their
outlook by the broadening of the horizon which results from a study of
what the students of the evolutionary process have to tell us, may be
conceded. But when we admit this, we do not necessarily have to look for
a new norm by which to judge conduct. We seem, rather, forced to ask
ourselves how this broadening of the horizon affects the norms which have
heretofore appealed to men as reasonable. To be sure, any evolutionist
has, in the capacity of a moralist, the right to suggest a new norm. But,
in that case, he must, like any other moralist, convince us that it is a
reasonable one.
132. EVOLUTION AND THE SCHOOLS OF THE MORALISTS.--Those who have
suggested the norms discussed above, no one would think of as greatly
influenced in their ethical teaching by the doctrine of evolution. Locke,
Price, Butler and Sidgwick; Aristippus and Epicurus; Paley and Hobbes;
Bentham and Mill; Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius; Janet, Green, and the
rest, no one would be inclined to class simply as evolutionary moralists.
Some of them never thought of evolution at all. How would it affect their
standards of right and wrong were evolution expressly taken into account?
Would the standards have to be abandoned? Or would the men, as broader
men, merely have to revise some of their moral judgments?
(1) It might be supposed that the acceptance of evolutionary doctrine
would bring into being a grave problem for the intuitionist, at least. If
the body and mind of man are products of evolution, must we not admit as
much of man's moral intuitions? Then why not admit that these may be
replaced some day by other moral intuitions to be evolved in an unknown
future?
He who reasons thus should bear in mind that Sidgwick, who by no means
repudiated the doctrine of evolution, was an intuitionist, and placed his
ultimate moral intuitions on a par with such mathematical intuitions as
that two and two make four. If all intuitions are a product of evolution,
Sidgwick might claim that the moral intuitions he accepts fare no worse
than those elementary mathematical truths which we accept without
question and without reflection. And he might maintain that an appeal to
evolution need cast no greater doubt upon ultimate moral truth than upon
mathematical. If intuitionism in all its forms is to be rejected, it
seems as though it must be done upon some other ground than an appeal to
evolution.
(2) As to the egoist. It is not easy to see how the appeal to evolution
need disconcert him. Should he be so foolish as to maintain that egoism
is always, in fact, necessary and unavoidable on the part of every living
creature, he might easily be refuted by a reference to the actual life of
the brutes, where altruism can be shown to play no insignificant role.
But if he simply maintains that the only _reasonable_ principle for
a man to adopt is egoism, he may continue to do so. He makes the self and
its satisfactions his end. How can it concern him to learn how the self
came to be what it is, or what it will be in the distant future? He
panders to the present self; he may assume that it will be reasonable to
pander at the appropriate time to the self that is to be, whatever its
nature.
(3) The utilitarian remains such whether he makes the greatest good of
the greatest number to consist in pleasure or in some other end, such as
self-preservation. Some utilitarians, who have been inclined to emphasize
the good of man, rather than to extend even to the brutes the goods to be
distributed, may be influenced to extend the sphere of duties, if they
will listen to the evolutionist, who cannot well leave out of view
humbler creatures. [Footnote: "Thus we shall not go wrong in attributing
to the higher animals in their simple social life, not only the
elementary feelings, the loves and hates, sympathies and jealousies which
underlie all forms of society, but also in a rudimentary stage the
intelligence which enables those feelings to direct the operations of the
animal so as best to gratify them." HOBHOUSE, _Ethics in Evolution_,
chapter i, Sec 4.]
He may broaden his sympathies. But this need not compel him to abandon
his fundamental doctrine.
(4) A very similar conclusion may be drawn, when we consider the
influence of an acceptance of the doctrine of evolution upon those who
would turn to man's nature, to perfection, or to self-realization, as
furnishing the norm of human conduct.
A Marcus Aurelius could, with little reference to evolution, accept man's
nature, or Nature in the wider sense, as marking out for man the round of
his duties. A modern Darwinian might fall back upon much the same
standard, while clearly conscious of the fact that man's nature is not
something unchangeable, and while inclined to view Nature in general with
different eyes from those of the Roman Stoic. No sensible evolutionist
would maintain that a creature of a given species should act in defiance
of all the instincts of creatures of that type, merely on the ground that
species may be involved in a process of progressive development.
Nor need the perfectionist abandon his perfectionism in view of any such
consideration. He who measures perfection by the degree of activity
exercised in action, may admit that the coming man will be more perfect
than it is possible for any man to be now; but that need not prevent him
from holding that it is man's present duty to aim at the only perfection
possible to him, he being what he is. Similar reasoning will apply to any
other conception of perfection likely to be adopted, consciously or
unconsciously, by any adherent of the school in question.
As for the self-realizationist, a very little reflection seems sufficient
to reveal that the maxim that it is man's duty to become all that it is
in him to become is in no wise refuted by the claim that man may, in the
indefinitely distant future, become much more than many people have
supposed or now suppose.
(5) There remains the doctrine of the Rational Social Will as furnishing
the norm of conduct. I have tried to show that this doctrine must rest
upon broad views of man and of man's environment. It is the very essence
of the rational will to take broad views, to consider the past, the
present, and the future. Surely the adherent of this school may let the
evolutionist work in peace, may thank him for any helpful suggestions he
has to offer, and may develop his own doctrine with little cause for
uneasiness at the thought that information given him may refute his
fundamental principle.
However, it is not out of place for him to point out, if revolutionary
measures of any sort are suggested by this or that evolutionist, that
ethics is a discipline which is concerned with what men have to do, here
and now. It must take into consideration what is advisable and feasible.
Utopian schemes which break violently with the actual order of things and
the normal development of human societies may be suggested by
evolutionists, as they have been suggested by men who were not
evolutionists at all. They are not to be taken much more seriously in the
one case than in the other.
133. THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL EVOLUTIONISTS.--Such considerations seem to
make it evident that the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution should
have no other influence upon us as moralists than that of making us take
broad views of man and of his environment. It still remains to find a
norm of conduct, and evolutionists, like other men, may develop ethical
systems which are not identical. It is worth while here to touch very
briefly upon the suggestions of one or two individual evolutionists.
Those who speak of the ethics of evolution are very apt to have such in
mind.
Thus, Darwin, whose study of the lower animals led him to believe that
the social instincts have been developed for the general good rather than
for the general happiness of the species, defines the "good" as "the
rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health,
with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they have
been subjected." The "greatest happiness principle" he regards as an
important secondary guide to conduct, while making social instinct and
sympathy primary guides. [Footnote: _The Descent of Man_, chapter
iv, concluding remarks. ]
Spencer maintains that the evolution of conduct becomes the highest
possible when the conduct "simultaneously achieves the greatest totality
of life in self, in offspring, and in fellow-men." "The conduct called
good," he writes, "rises to the conduct conceived as best, when it
fulfills all three classes of ends at the same time." But life he does
not regard as necessarily a good. He judges it to be good or bad
"according as it has or has not a surplus of agreeable feeling." Hence,
"conduct is good or bad according as its total effects are pleasurable or
painful." [Footnote: _The Data of Ethics,_ chapter in, Sec Sec 8 and 10.
]
To be sure, Spencer criticises the utilitarians, and thinks little of the
Benthamic calculus of pleasures. He believes that we should substitute
for it something more scientific, a study of the processes of life. In
his earlier writings he appears to be largely in accord with the
intuitionists in judging of conduct, regarding intuitions as having their
origin in the experiences of the race. Nor does he ever seem inclined to
break with intuitionism completely. But, as we have seen above (Sec 108),
there appears to be nothing to prevent a utilitarian from being an
intuitionist of some sort, as well.
Stephen, in his clear and beautifully written work on morals, also
accepts the general happiness as the ultimate end of reasonable conduct;
and he, too, criticizes the current utilitarianism. He writes: "This, as
it seems to me, represents the real difference between the utilitarian
and the evolutionist criterion. The one lays down as a criterion the
happiness, the other the health of society." [Footnote: _The Science of
Ethics_, London, 1882, chapter ix, 12.] By which, of course, he does
not mean merely physical health, but such a condition of vigor and
efficiency as carries with it a promise of continued existence and well-
being in the future.
It is not necessary to multiply instances. It can readily be seen that
all three of the writers cited are utilitarians, and the last two are
what have been characterized as hedonistic utilitarians. That they
suggest this or that means of best attaining to the desired goal does not
put them outside of a school which embraces men of many shades of
opinion.