Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

Charles Darwin’s moral sense – on Darwin’s ethics of non-violence
tence, however, in which there is no direct confrontation between the members of a
species; in this case, differing abilities to adapt decide the success of reproduction (differential
reproduction). The struggle for existence can even take on the form of cooperation
between individual members of a species or of different species (for ex. in the case of
symbiosis).
Thus in his Origin of Species, Darwin uses the expression “struggle of existence” in
at least five senses of the word, namely to designate 1) competition between individual
members of the same species (intraspecific “struggle”); 2) competition between individual
members of different species (interspecific “struggle”); 3) an organism’s struggle for
existence involving specific environmental conditions which it is subjected to (aridity,
cold, wetness etc.; 4) procreation; and 5) the dependency of organisms on one another.
Thus first of all, the situation described by Malthus, namely that the increase in lifesustaining
resources cannot keep up with the growth in population, does not necessarily
mean that a violent intra- or interspecific struggle takes place but rather allows for various
different coping strategies, one of these being cooperation. Secondly, it is not specific
for all forms of the struggle for life, as the example of the plant at the edge of the
desert fighting against aridity to preserve its existence shows. In this case, the struggle for
existence is to be attributed to the life of the plant under certain specific geographic conditions.
2. Charles Darwin’s ethics – mechanisms and limits of natural selection
in the context of moral and cultural development
In his work Descent of Man, which appeared twelve years after Origin of the Species,
Darwin pursues various goals. For one he aims to investigate whether his general theory
on the origin of species is applicable to mankind. Secondly, the question as to the origin
of man’s “moral sense or conscience” is to be treated exclusively from the perspective of
natural history, this constituting an endeavor which in his eye had never been undertaken
before. In this context, natural history does not mean a mere description of nature, but
rather the observation of human beings from the perspective of their origin of nonhuman
ancestors. Darwin asks himself “how far the study of the lower animals throws
light on one of the highest psychical faculties of man.” (Darwin 1877, pg. 102).
Darwin did not wait to consider the applicability of his theories for human beings until
after they were completely formulated and published in Origin of Species. Beginning
in the very early stages of theory formation, man – along with his cognitive, social and
moral capabilities and dispositions – constituted one of Darwin’s primary objects of
investigation, as his posthumously published notebook entries concerning “metaphysical
enquiries” from the years 1837-1839 illustrate (Barrett et al 1987). One also finds observations
on the evolutionary origin of mankind in those writings which were published
before 1871, in particular towards the end of Origin of Species, where Darwin sees a
potential for what he viewed to be much more meaningful fields of research in the “distant
future” which would devote themselves to man and his intellectual capacities and
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005)
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