aquitting darwinism of the accusation of intrinsic immorality

Daniel Dennett, like Thomas Kuhn, notes that science is necessarily based in some kind of philosophy, and that the choices scientists make while “doing science” are framed by their perspectives and morals. That is, science is value-laden. Dennett deeply praises Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, but issues arise when we note that Darwin directly appeals to one of Thomas Malthus’ core ideas: “population explosion and famine were inevitable, given the excess fertility of human beings, unless drastic measures were taken.” Historical Malthusians have used this framing to argue for mass genocide and eugenics in order to “check” the human population. Dennett seems to off-handedly dismiss criticism of Darwin’s appeals to Malthus, and instead calls this appeal “purely logical.” The relevant critiques that may render Darwinism immoral for this use of Malthus would be the historical Malthusianism and social Darwinism that seem to logically follow. However, I argue that, while it is true that science is value-laden, Darwin’s theory is not intrinsically immoral in this sense because eugenicists and social Darwinists incorrectly project Darwin’s objective view on fitness onto their subjective racist and classist views and thus misrepresent Darwin’s theory as well as commit the naturalistic fallacy, so social Darwinism does not logically follow from Darwinism. A correct use would not ever justify eugenics, and thus the theory is not intrinsically immoral due to Darwin’s use of Malthus.

In order to prove that social Darwinism does not logically follow from Darwinism, we must provide an account of what social Darwinism is. This is difficult because social Darwinists provide many, oftentimes conflicting, definitions. However, generally, social Darwinism is thought to be the idea of “survival of the fittest” (which was coined by social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, rather than Darwin himself) as it applies to human populations, rather than plants and animals as was intended by Darwin. This implies that those who are “more fit” will naturally rise to the top of society, while those who are weak and disadvantaged will naturally fall behind. Social Darwinism also became a justification for (and synonymous for) eugenics (to increase the amount of so-called-“fitter” humans in a population), laissez-faire capitalism (to strip poorer individuals of resources because only those who are “fit” ought to survive), and mass genocide (of those who were “less fit”).

Social Darwinism hinges on the idea of a “survival of the fittest,” but social Darwinists seem to completely misunderstand what Darwin actually meant by the term “fitness.” Social Darwinists like Spencer take “fitness” to mean “physical fitness” according to their personal beliefs — they often see rich and White as equivalent with “fit,” while “poor and non-White” seem to mean “unfit.” However, Darwin’s fitness was simply a measure of reproductive success — a “fitter” organism is one that can produce more offspring, and a “fitter” trait is one that can help an organism survive in an environment. It is strange and anti-Darwinist, then, that many social Darwinists believe that poor individuals are the least fit, when poor people tend to have more children. Also, it is possible that we may be living in a starkly different social and economic system in just hundreds of years of time (which is clearly not enough time for evolution to occur) — why must we be best adapted to success in our current society, when it has the potential to change relatively quickly? Darwin never meant to apply the situation of organisms in nature to humans living in modern society for the reason my previous statements are problematic to social Darwinism: a struggle for existence to live in nature is fundamentally different from the struggle to live in modern society, thus Darwin’s theories are completely inapplicable to human society. Social Darwinists project their subjective racist, classist, and ethnocentric views on Darwin’s objective classification of fitness. This projection is a fundamental misunderstanding of Darwinism, and thus is not a valid interpretation. This framework is explicitly immoral, but does not logically follow from Darwinism, and thus does not render Darwinism itself immoral.

Social Darwinism also hinges on the naturalistic fallacy, which is a fallacy of the form: “Something is the case in nature, thus it ought to be how humans operate.” It is clear to see how this is a fallacy through the example “it is the case that many animals are cannibals, then humans ought to be cannibals as well.” In the case of social Darwinism, Darwinism describes the world (this is how nature operates, through natural selection), it doesn’t prescribe our affairs (this ought to be how we operate, we must engage in a forced natural selection through eugenics, laissez-faire, and genocide). Further, Darwin is explicit in that natural selection has no agenda and no specific predetermined destination, unlike the eugenics that stems from social Darwinism.

Another obvious issue of social Darwinism is that it is explicitly Lamarckian. Social Darwinists believe that social characteristics acquired during an individual’s lifetime (such as an ability to accumulate wealth under capitalism) can be passed down, which is why some social Darwinists sought to weed out people who they believed were not industrious enough, in order to “better” the gene pool. However, Darwin believed that there were certain heritable traits, and thus a correct usage of Darwinism would not justify this interpretation because these traits are not heritable.

A clear counter argument presents itself: if Darwinists and social Darwinists derive their conclusions from the same three premises, accepting Darwinism due to these premises might accidentally validate social Darwinism, which we have already declared is immoral. However, an issue with this argument is that social Darwinists misapply one of these premises to human society — namely, Darwin’s premise that a struggle for existence is necessary for natural selection. The premise can be applied to the natural world because organisms in the wild have no way to mitigate against the dangers of predation, limited resources, environmental changes, and other natural factors. However, it cannot be applied to human society because human structures are immensely more complex: we have found ways to mitigate against all of the aforementioned dangers, and have developed structures to allow for the well-being of individuals, regardless of their “fitness.”