Transcript Social Darwinism - The British Empire

Social Darwinism
The Appliance of Science to
Philosophy!
Charles Darwin
1809 - 1882
• British Naturalist
• HMS Beagle 1831 – 1836
– Plymouth
– Galapagos
• Tortoises
• Finches
• Long Gestation Period
– Ultra-Cautious
• Combines own observations, fossils and
embryos
– 6,000 years old?
• Articulates work of many other biologists
– Lamarck,
• Cannot explain ‘how’
• Malthus Influence
– Balance
• Not enough food to feed all
– Struggle for survival
Evolutionary Theory
• The resources of an environment are limited.
Creatures produce more offspring than can
possibly survive. Members of a species must
compete for limited resources and for survival.
• No two members of a species are exactly alike.
Each organism contains an individual combination
of inherited traits. Some traits are useful for
survival; other traits are not.
• Organisms that have useful traits reproduce in
greater numbers. Their offspring inherit the traits.
Organisms with unfavourable traits eventually die
off. The fittest survive.
• Nature selects different traits at different times.
Varieties within a species gradually create a new
species.
The Origin of Species
1859
• Full title
– On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for
Life
• Theory One
– Evolution does occur (Descent with Modification)
• Theory Two
– Evolutionary change is gradual
• Theory Three
– Evolution takes place through natural selection
• Theory Four
– Millions of species descend from a single life form through
specialisation
Natural Selection
• “As many more individuals of each species
are born than can possibly survive, and as
consequently there is a frequently recurring
struggle for existence, it follows that any
being, if it vary in any manner profitable to
itself, under the complex and sometimes
varying conditions of life, will have a better
chance of survival and thus be naturally
selected. From the strong principle of
inheritance, any selected variety will tend to
propagate its new and modified form.”
The Descent of Man
1871
• Charles Darwin considers whether
humans, like every other species, are
descended from some pre-existing
form;
• the manner of human development;
• the value of the differences between
the so-called races of humans.
Whose side is he on?
• He thought himself a Liberal
– Challenges Liberalism
• Are all men born equal?
– If differences required
– What point are all men equal
– Supports Liberalism
• Supports progress and change
– Impresses Karl Marx
• Competition
– "an extension to the animal and vegetable world of
laissez faire economics."
» Bertrand Russell
• Romantic Appeal
– Naturalism
• Challenges Church
– Biblical Immutability
– Creationism
• “An embarrassing discovery and the less said
about it the better.”
Herbert Spencer
• Predates & Overlaps Darwin
• The Development Hypothesis 1852
• A Theory of Population, Deduced from the
General Law of Animal Fertility 1852
– Natural Selection Mechanism
– But exclusively Human
– he proposed that those humans who invested less
in reproduction and more in education were better
off and would therefore eventually become the
select members of their generation
• Father of Social Darwinism
• Coins “Evolution” and “Survival of the Fittest”
Herbert Spencer’s
‘Survival of the Fittest’
• And here it must be remarked, that the
effect of pressure of population [...] is not a
uniform effect, but an average one. [...] For
as those prematurely carried off must, in
the average of cases, be those in whom the
power of self-preservation is the least, it
unavoidably follows, that those left behind
to continue the race are those in whom the
power of self-preservation is the greatest-are the select of their generation.
Social Darwinism
• Social Scientists Applying a Law of Nature
to Human Societies
• The notion that Human affairs are a jungle
in which only the fittest of nations, classes,
or individuals will survive.
• Both societies and organisms grow during
most of their existence; baby to adult, town
to city.
– As they grow, they become increasingly
complex.
• Imperialists are big fans
Justifying Imperalism
• “Within the human species, nations are
locked in a struggle for survival.
Everywhere, civilized nations are
supplanting barbarous nations. Advanced
civilization, obviously, has inherited
valuable traits from its ancestors.
Underdeveloped cultures, except in hostile
climates, will soon die off. Therefore,
natural order obligates powerful, civilized
nations to appropriate the limited resources
of the weak.”
Social Evolution
• Societies move from simple structures to various levels of compound
structures.
– Simple: consists of separate families.
– Compound: consists of families organized into clans.
– Doubly Compound: Clans are organized into tribes.
– Trebly Compound: Tribes are further organized into nations.
• An increase in size of the society results in increase in structure, which in
turn produces differences in power and roles of the members. Different
members or groups of members also start to play different, specialized
roles.
• There is a movement from a military to an industrial society.
– At the beginning, society is characterized by the compulsory
cooperation of its members -- the military society.
– The industrial society is characterized by the voluntary cooperation of
its members.
– The highest order is called the Ethical State, where common resources
may be used to perfect the human character
Racial Theories
• Appealed to Nationalists and Romantics
– Idea of Unique Racial Kinship Groups
– Blood forms a distinct and special stream
• Caucasian Race invented late 18th Century
• Aryan Race first used to refer to
Caucasians in 1848
• England
– Experiments to prove Anglo-Saxon descendents
more intelligent than Celtic descendents
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
1855 - 1927
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Englishman living in Germany
Challenges Social Darwinist Inevitability
Race Struggle
Credits Teutons as the most Creative Culture
– Germans are the last true Aryan branch
• Blames the Jew Paul for racial chaos of
Roman Empire
– “True history begins from the moment when the
German with mighty hand seizes the inheritance of
antiquity”
• Anti-Semite
– “Whoever maintains that Christ was a Jew is either
ignorant or dishonest”
• Germans need to suppress Judaism to save
world from racial intermingling, degeneracy &
racial chaos
Rousseau
Charles
Darwin
Kant
Herbert
Spencer
Hegel
Houston
Chamberlain
Schopenhauer
Nietzsche
Nationalism/
Fascism
Question
• “The fascist regimes which emerged
in the 1920s and 1930s adopted an
aggressive nationalism which was
developed from the Romantic
movement of the nineteenth century.”
To what extent do you agree with this
statement