Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

44
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005)
Eve-Marie Engels
and tribe. Cooperation among members of the same community and tribe ensured survival
in confrontation with nature and foreign groups, thus becoming a strategy for the
struggle for existence.
Compared to our early apelike and human progenitors, our instincts are however reduced
in several ways, concerning the quantity, the specialization and the strength of
instincts. The condition for the development of genuine morality is this reduction of
instincts along with the evolution of reason, judgment and language. Nevertheless the
social instincts still give the impulse to our social and moral actions. They however have
to be oriented by reason (cf. Engels 2006).
Thus although the “first foundation or origin” of morality (Darwin 1877, pg. 637) lies
in social instincts and these constitute the roots of our “moral sense”, they alone do not
suffice to explain the phenomenon of morality. As Darwin argues, genuine morality
consists in the “moral sense or conscience”, in a “sense of right and wrong”, this being
something only man possesses. Darwin begins the fourth chapter of his Descent of Man
by expressing his “complete” agreement with those who view the moral sense or conscience
as by far the most significance difference between man and animal. In doing so
he cites James Mackintosh’s survey and discussion of the issue entitled Dissertation on
Ethical Philosophy (1837) as well as Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, quoting a passage
on duty (Kant 1788, pg. 86). Here, in the First Book of Part One, Third Main Section,
Kant raises the question as to the origin of duty. As Darwin observes, this question
had been treated by numerous authors before, but never from the perspective of natural
history.
This does not mean that Darwin reduces man’s moral sense to social instincts, however.
On the contrary, for him, man’s moral sense constitutes a qualitatively new capacity
not found in the social instincts, - one which had so far been found to exist exclusively in
man. As he argues, genuine morality does not mean blindly following instincts; it involves
consciously made judgments and actions in accordance with principles like Kant’s
law of morality and the Golden Rule. This presupposes that an organism’s intellectual
faculties such as memory, anticipation, imagination etc. have reached a certain level of
development which, according to scientific insights gained so far, man alone possessed.
For Darwin, “a moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past and future actions
or motives, and of approving or disapproving of them. We have no reason to suppose
that any of the lower animals have this capacity; therefore, when a Newfoundland
dog drags a child out of water, or a monkey faces danger to rescue its comrade, or takes
charge of an orphan monkey, we do not call its conduct moral. But in the case of man,
who alone can with certainty be ranked as a moral being, actions of a certain class are
called moral, whether performed deliberately, after a struggle with opposing motives, or
impulsively through instinct, or from the effects of slowly-gained habit.” (Darwin 1877,
pg. 115f).
Due to the fact that man is equipped with certain intellectual faculties, human social
action of the kind described above can be evaluated as moral irrespective of what occasioned
the individual action in question. What is decisive is whether the action was carried
out by a being capable of morality or not.