Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

Charles Darwin’s moral sense – on Darwin’s ethics of non-violence
biological foundation (Höffding 1910, pg. 460). Following Alfred Russell Wallace, Darwin
sees the particular advantage of man’s intellectual and linguistic capacities in his ability
to remain in a harmonious relationship to the changing universe without undergoing
bodily change (Darwin 1877, pg. 132). 6 Darwin operates on the assumption that the
intellectual faculty of man evolved as a result of natural selection (Darwin 1877, chap.
III, IV), some aspects of which, he argues, developed primarily or even exclusively for
the advantage of the community, being only indirectly advantageous for the individual
(Darwin 1877, pg. 67; cf. S. 133). The variability of man’s intellectual faculties and his
linguistic flexibility enable man to devise diverse techniques for adapting to changing life
conditions, Darwin argues. This is how he succeeded in becoming the “most dominant
animal that has ever appeared on this earth” (Darwin 1877, pg. 52). Applying this formulation
of the idea of “free intelligence”, Darwin distinguishes the flexibility of man’s cognitive
performance from the automatism of instincts (Darwin 1877, pg. 72). In the
course of evolution, he says, the achievements of free intelligence and the role which
experience plays as opposed to that played by the instincts become increasingly significant
factors. And they are also the necessary precondition for the development of a
moral sense, as will be elucidated in the following.
The point of departure for Darwin’s reflections on the morality of mankind is his assumption
that primitive man, the early, human progenitors of civilized man, possessed
well-developed social instincts like those already to be found in many animals, including
the “apelike progenitors” of primitive and modern man. Because man descended from
non-human beings who were already invested with social instincts, we do not come into
this world as tabula rasa, he argues, but rather with an evolutionary heritage of social
instincts. An important element of such social instincts is sympathy for members of the
same community or tribe. Darwin explains the emergence of these instincts in terms of
this theory of natural selection, ascribing to them a function necessary for preserving the
community. In his view, such social instincts include parental love, love of one’s offspring,
sociability, faithfulness, willingness to help etc.. Darwin explains the emergence
of complex instincts as resulting from the natural selection of variations on simple forms
of instinctive actions, positing that such variations occur as the result of unknown causes
which effect the organization of the brain. For want of a better explanation, he refers to
such variations as occurring “spontaneously”. (Darwin 1877, pg. 72).
For Darwin, sympathy forms the basis, “the foundation-stone”, of all social instincts
(Darwin 1877, pg. 103). As he contends, the “instinct of sympathy” is the root of our
“moral sense or conscience” because our moral sense, like the instinct of sympathy, is
directed towards the good of the community, not towards egoistic striving for our own
happiness. As he posits, the radius of social instincts originally only extended to the
members of the same community or tribe, not to all members of the species. Initially,
man was not interested in preserving the species as in preserving his own community
6 In contrast to his earlier work, in his later studies Wallace upholds the view that man and his mental faculties
cannot be explained by the theory of natural selection; for a more detailed analysis of this, cf.. Engels
1989, pp. 405-407. Darwin was very disappointed and wrote to Wallace: “I hope you have not murdered too
completely your own and my child.” (ML II, pg. 39).
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