1.4 Evolution And Ethics
Last modified 07/05/2008
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The most glaring symptom that something is awry is visible in the attempts
to expound the evolution of ethics in the context of Darwinism. Darwin's theory
is simply incapable to achieving this task, and yet we see the attempt made in
any case to apply selectionist reasoning to a series of artificial situations,
such as the evolution of altruism, in the attempt to 'save the paradigm' by
making ethical behavior a paradoxical product of the theory. Many debates over
the issues of group selection and kin selection reflect the hidden ideological
economism with its premium on the justification of selfishness that lurks in the
disguised version of classical liberalism that Darwin's theory descends
from.
The thesis of natural selection arises as a seeming universal generalization, and, strange to say, becomes a kind of 'should' in the minds of many who take the nihilist implications of Darwinism as a new form of pseudo-ethical 'clearing house' for the 'remnants' of religious consciousness. The issue is crystal clear in the figure of Nietzsche, one of the first casualties of Darwinism, despite his clever disguise of the influence of Darwin, and who makes no apology for the unvarnished nihilist implications of the new world of scientism. Darwin's theory can't handle ethics, that is, the evolution of an ethical agent whose basis of action must be the freedom of choice to act ethically. There is no getting around this issue, and the glaring limits of the theory should be obvious. Part of the difficulty is the immense counterweight of religious tradition claiming to resolve just these issues, and eager to posit the complementary interaction of 'science and religion' in the preservation of their eroding place in the context of secular modernity. |
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