Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T19:04:33.425Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Darwin’s politics of selection

From natural to artificial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2019

Luis Manuel Sanchez
Luis Manuel Sanchez*
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Arequipa, Perú
*
Correspondence: Luis Manuel Sanchez, 77 Sunderland Drive, Bribie Island, Queensland, Australia. Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The uses of natural selection argument in politics have been constant since Charles Darwin’s times. They have also been varied. The readings of Darwin’s theory range from the most radically individualist views, as in orthodox socio-Darwinism, to the most communitarian, as in Peter Kropotkin’s and other socialist perspectives. This essay argues that such diverse, contradictory, and sometimes even outrageous political derivations from Darwin’s theory may be partially explained by some incompleteness and ambivalences underlying Darwin’s concepts. “Natural selection,” “struggle for existence,” and “survival of the fittest” are open concepts and may suggest some hierarchical and segregationist interpretations. Circumstantially, Darwin accepted social “checks,” such as discouraging marriage of “lower” individuals to prevent them from reproducing, in a vein of Malthusian politics. This makes Darwin’s theory of selection by struggle collide with his theory of social instincts, by which he explains the origins of morality. It also favors reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or The Descent of Man from opposite, mostly ideological perspectives. Darwin’s position is ambivalent, although hardly unreasonable. The recognition he makes of social instincts, as well as the use of the concept of artificial selection, entails accepting the role of human consciousness, by which social evolution cannot be reduced to natural evolution, as socio-Darwinians did next and as some neo-Darwinists seem to repeat. On these grounds, this essay argues the inadequacy of the conventional model of natural selection for understanding politics. If we want to describe politics in Darwin’s language, artificial rather than natural selection would be the concept that performs better for explaining the courses of politics in real society.

Keywords

Natural selectionartificial selectionconsciousnesssocial instinctssocial Darwinismneo-DarwinismevolutionsociobiologybiopoliticsDarwinWallaceHuxleyKropotkin
Type
Perspective
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , Spring 2019 , pp. 72 - 102
Copyright
© Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Hale, P. J., Political Descent: Malthus, Mutualism, and the Politics of Evolution in Victorian England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).Google Scholar
Crook, P., Darwinism, War, and History: The Debate over the Biology of War from “Origin of Species” to the First World War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Weikart, R., From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).Google Scholar
Hoquet, T., “The evolution of the origin (1859–1872),” in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought, Ruse, M., ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 160.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 352.Google Scholar
Bowler, P. J., “The changing meaning of ‘evolution’,” Journal of the History of Ideas , 1975, 36(1): 95–114, at p. 102.Google Scholar
Chambers, R., Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (London: Churchill, 1884).Google Scholar
Bowler, p. 110.Google Scholar
Bowler, p. 104.Google Scholar
Comment by R. L. Carneiro, in D. Freeman et al., “ The Evolutionary Theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer [and Comments and Replies],” Current Anthropology, 1974, 15(3): 211–237, at p. 223.Google Scholar
Ruse, Michael, ed., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), introduction.Google Scholar
T. Hoquet, p. 162.Google Scholar
Rogers, J. A., “Darwinism and social Darwinism,” Journal of the History of Ideas , 1972, 33(2): 265–280, at p. 273.Google Scholar
Rogers.Google Scholar
Weikart, R., “A recently discovered Darwin letter on social Darwinism,” Isis: A Journal of the History of Science , 1995, 86(4): 609–611.Google Scholar
Darwin, C., The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1871], 1981), pp. 167, 168.Google Scholar
Schweber, S. S., “Darwin and the political economists: Divergence of character,” Journal of the History of Biology , 1980, 13(2): 195–289, at p. 197.Google Scholar
Papavero, N. and Moraes dos Santos, C. F., “Darwinian evolutionism? Contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace to the theory of evolution,” Revista Brasileira de História , 2014, 34(67), at p. 16.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. and Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo, “What Darwin got wrong,” April 7–8, 2012, p. 6, http://www.math.chalmers.se/∼ulfp/Review/darwinwrong.pdf, accessed January 30, 2019.Google Scholar
Comment by D. Freeman, in Freeman et al., p. 218.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 390.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 41.Google Scholar
Darwin, C., quoted in Ruse, p. 15.Google Scholar
Darwin, C., On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1861, p. 92.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 152–153.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 180.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 403.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 136, 154.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 403.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 139.Google Scholar
Stack, D., The First Darwinian Left: Socialism and Darwinism 1859–1914 (Cheltenham, UK: New Clarion Press, 2003), p. 86.Google Scholar
Crook, 1994, p. 24.Google Scholar
Beck, N., “Social Darwinism,” in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought, Ruse, M., ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 200.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 115.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., “Piers J. Hale, political descent: Malthus, Mutualism, and the politics of evolution in Victorian England,” Population and Development Review , 2015, 41(4): 721–724, at p. 722.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 149.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 15.Google Scholar
T. H. Huxley, quoted in Hale, p. 49.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 66.Google Scholar
Wallace, A. R., Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1870), pp. 265–267.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 43.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 126.Google Scholar
Bagehot, W., Physics and Politics (Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Batoche Books Limited, 2001), p. 120.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 73.Google Scholar
Gondermann, T., “Progression and retrogression: Herbert Spencer’s explanations of social inequality,” History of the Human Sciences , 2007, 20(3): 21–40, at p. 28.Google Scholar
Spencer, H., Social Statics: or, The Conditions Essential to Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed (London: John Chapman, 1851), p. 268.Google Scholar
Spencer, p. 280.Google Scholar
Spencer, p. 200.Google Scholar
Spencer, p. 196.Google Scholar
Spencer, p. 199.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 76.Google Scholar
Gondermann, p. 24.Google Scholar
Gondermann, p. 28.Google Scholar
Gondermann, p. 22.Google Scholar
Gondermann.Google Scholar
Gondermann, p. 25.Google Scholar
Gondermann, p. 25.Google Scholar
H. Spencer, quoted in Gondermann, p. 26.Google Scholar
Gondermann, p. 27.Google Scholar
Gondermann, p. 29.Google Scholar
H. Spencer, quoted in Gondermann, p. 29.Google Scholar
Wallace, A. R., “Human Selection,” 1890, Alfred Russel Wallace Classic Writings, Paper 5, http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlps_fac_arw/5, accessed February 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Wallace.Google Scholar
H. M. Stanley, quoted in Wallace.Google Scholar
Galton, F., Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (New York: Macmillan, 1883), electronic ed. published by Galton Archives, 2004, http://galton.org/books/human-faculty/text/human-faculty.pdf, p. 198, accessed March 9, 2019.Google Scholar
Galton, [1883] 2004, p. 220.Google Scholar
Galton, F., Hereditary Genius, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1892), p. 345., galton.org/books/hereditary-genius/text/pdf/galton-1869-genius-v3.pdf, accessed February 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Holt, N. R., “Darwinism: Evolution or revolution?,” Magazine of History , 1989, 4(2): 30–33, at p. 33.Google Scholar
de Gobineau, A., The Inequality of Human Races, trans. Adrian Collins (London: Heinemann, 1915).Google Scholar
Hale, p. 76.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 312.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 330.Google Scholar
Holt, p. 32.Google Scholar
Haeckel, E., The Riddle of the Universe, trans. Joseph McCabe (London: Watts & Co, 1939), p. 4.Google Scholar
Haeckel, quoted by Anton Pannekoek, Marxism And Darwinism (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1912), pp. 20–30.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, R., Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Bannister, R. C., Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979).Google Scholar
Sutter, E., “The great generalization: The theory of evolution in American political and social thought after the Civil War,” Ashbrook Statesmanship Thesis, Ohio State University, 2013, http://ashbrook.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Sutter-Printable.pdf, accessed January 30, 2019.Google Scholar
Sutter, p. 3.Google Scholar
Sutter.Google Scholar
Sutter, p. 13.Google Scholar
W. Sumner, quoted in Sutter, p. 15.Google Scholar
Sutter, p. 15.Google Scholar
J. Barret, quoted in Sutter, p. 21.Google Scholar
Cobb, C., foreword to H. George, Progress and Poverty (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 2006), p. ix.Google Scholar
Comment by M. Harris, in Freeman et al., p. 226.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1890.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, p. 330.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, p. 330.Google Scholar
van Wyhe, J., “Alfred Russel Wallace,” in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought, Ruse, M., ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 167.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, pp. 318–319.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, p. 312.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, p. 319.Google Scholar
Stack, D., “The first Darwinian left: Radical and socialist responses to Darwin, 1859–1914,” History of Political Thought , 2000, 21(4): 682–710, at p. 691.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, pp. 327–328.Google Scholar
Stack, 2000, p. 693.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, p. 329.Google Scholar
Stack, 2000, p. 693.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 69.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1890.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1890.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1890.Google Scholar
Beck, N., “Social Darwinism,” Working Paper 2012-15, Papers on Economics and Evolution, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography, 2012, p. 198, http://hdl.handle.net/10419/88263, accessed February 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Marchant, J., Birth-Rate and Empire (London: Williams and Norgate, 1917), p. 101.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H., “Natural Rights and Political Rights,” 1890, http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE1/NatR.html, accessed February 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H., “The Struggle for Existence in Human Society,” 1888, http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE9/Str.html, accessed February 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Huxley, Thomas Ht., Evolution & Ethics and Other Essays (London: Macmillan And Co., 1895), p. 203. https://ia802909.us.archive.org/35/items/a588314000huxluoft/a588314000huxluoft.pdf, accessed March 9, 2019.Google Scholar
Huxley, [1893] 2002, p. 92.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H., quoted in M. Freeden, “Biological and evolutionary roots of the new liberalism in England,” Political Theory, 1976, 4(4): 471–490, at p. 473.Google Scholar
Hale, pp. 168–172.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 196.Google Scholar
Ritchie, D., Darwinism and Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891), p. 8.Google Scholar
Ritchie, p. 141.Google Scholar
Ritchie, p. 8.Google Scholar
Ritchie, p. 14.Google Scholar
Ritchie, pp. 19–21.Google Scholar
Ritchie, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar
Ritchie, pp. 21–29.Google Scholar
Ritchie, pp. 141.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, P., Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (New York: New York University Press, 1972), introduction.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, introduction.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, introduction.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, introduction.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, chap. 8.Google Scholar
Stack, 2000, p. 699.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, chap. 8.Google Scholar
Aveling, Edward, The Gospel of Evolution, From “The Atheistic Platform”, Twelve Lectures (London: Freethought Publishing Company, E.C., 1884). Kindle edition, location 13 of 367, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36270/36270-h/36270-h.htm, accessed 9 March of 2019.Google Scholar
Aveling, Edward, location 87 of 367.Google Scholar
Aveling, Edward, location 226 of 367.Google Scholar
George, p. 265.Google Scholar
Marx, K., A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1993), preface.Google Scholar
Crook, P., Darwin’s Coat-Tails: Essays on Social Darwinism (New York: Peter Lang, 2007).Google Scholar
Weikart, R., “Darwinism and death: Devaluing human life in Germany 1859–1920,” Journal of the History of Ideas , 2002, 63(2): 323–344.Google Scholar
Naour, P., Wilson, E. O., and Skinner, B. F., A Dialogue between Sociobiology and Radical Behaviorism (New York: Springer, 2009), p. 22.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O., Sociobiology: The Abridged Edition (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 3.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O., quoted in A. Somit, “Wilson’s on Human Nature,” Political Psychology, 1980, 2(1): 59–63, at p. 60.Google Scholar
Somit, p. 61.Google Scholar
E. O. Wilson, quoted in Somit, p. 61.Google Scholar
E. O. Wilson, quoted in Somit, p. 61.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O., On Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1975), chap. 5.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O., quoted in Somit, p. 63.Google Scholar
Somit, p. 60.Google Scholar
Naour, p. 32.Google Scholar
Darwin, C., The Origin of Species (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909), p. 179.Google Scholar
Alexander, R., “The evolution of social behavior,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics , 1974, 5: 325–383, at pp. 326, 377.Google Scholar
Alexander, p. 377.Google Scholar
Somit, A. and Peterson, S. A., “Biopolitics after three decades — A balance sheet,” British Journal of Political Science , 1998, 28(3): 559–571, at p. 567.Google Scholar
Somit and Peterson, 1998, p. 562.Google Scholar
Somit, A. and Peterson, S. A., “Rational choice and biopolitics: A (Darwinian) tale of two theories,” Political Science & Politics , 1999, 32(1): 39–44, at p. 40.Google Scholar
Masters, R. D., “Evolutionary biology and political theory,” American Political Science Review , 1990, 84(1): 195–210, at p. 196.Google Scholar
Masters, R. D., “The biological nature of the state,” World Politics , 1983, 35(2): 161–193, at p. 188.Google Scholar
Naour, p. 28.Google Scholar
Somit and Peterson, 1998, p. 566.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 71.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 71, n. 5.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 98.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 73.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 72–73.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 127.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 83.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 163.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 163–164.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 165–166.Google Scholar
Williams, George C., Adaptation and Natural Selection (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966).Google Scholar
Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Sober, E. and Wilson, D. S., “A critical review of philosophical work on the units of selection problem,” Philosophy of Science , 1994, 61(4): 534–555, at p. 534.Google Scholar
Wilson, Sociobiology, p. 3.Google Scholar
Dawkins, Richard, cap. II.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. S., “Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, and the consensus of the many,” Evolution Institute, January 1, 2015, https://evolution-institute.org/article/richard-dawkins-edward-o-wilson-and-the-consensus-of-the-many, accessed February 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J., The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 613ff.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 82.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 86.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 92.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 97–98.Google Scholar
Darwin The Descent..., pp. 97–98.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 98.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar
Lecky, W. E. H., History of European Morals, from Augustus to Charlemagne, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1869), pp. 7–14.Google Scholar
Lecky, p. 14.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 105.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p.70.Google Scholar
Darwin, [1871] 1981, p. 92.Google Scholar
Lecky, pp. 12, 13.Google Scholar
Eldredge, N., Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate (Phoenix, AZ: Giant Paperback, 1995).Google Scholar
Quoted in H. Rolston III, Genes, Genesis, and God: Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 126.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O., The Social Conquest of Earth (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2012).Google Scholar
Wilson, 2012.Google Scholar
Allen, E., Beckwith, B., Beckwith, J., Chorover, S., and Culver, D. et al. , “Against Sociobiology,” New York Review of Books , November 13, 1975.Google Scholar
Rose, S., Lewontin, R. C., and Kamin, L. J., Not in Our Genes (New York: Penguin, 1984), p. 245.Google Scholar
Rose, Lewontin, and Kamin, p. 133.Google Scholar
McGinnis, J. O., “The Origin of Conservatism,” National Review , 1997, pp. 49, 31.Google Scholar
Caiazza, John, “Political Dilemmas of Social Biology”. Political Science Reviewer, Fall, 2005 – Vol. 34, No. 1. https://isistatic.org/journal-archive/pr/34_01/caiazza.pdf), p. 225.Google Scholar
Caiazza.Google Scholar
Becchio, G. and Leghissa, G, The Origin of Neoliberalism (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 172, 173.Google Scholar
Becchio and Leghissa, p. 294.Google Scholar
Beck, 2012, p. 12.Google Scholar
Rand, A., Philosophy: Who Needs It? (London: A Signed Book, 1984).Google Scholar
George, p. 266.Google Scholar
Stack, 2000, p. 688.Google Scholar
Sutter, p. 28.Google Scholar
Sutter, p. 28.Google Scholar
Caiazza, p. 239.Google Scholar
Hoquet, p. 160.Google Scholar
Carneiro, p. 223.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, p. 269.Google Scholar
Lewontin, R. C., “The structure and confirmation of evolution theory,” Biology and Philosophy , 1991, 6: 461–466.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. and Piattelli-Palmarini, M., “What Darwin got wrong: Update for the paperback edition: Replies to our critics,” p. 12, http://www.scienceonthenet.eu/files/palmarini_darwin_got_wrong.pdf, accessed February 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Sapp, J., Evolution by Association: A History of Symbiosis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Gould.Google Scholar
Meloni, M., “How biology became social, and what it means for social theory,” Sociological Review , 2014, 62(3): 593–614, at p. 601.Google Scholar
Meloni.Google Scholar
Beattie, P., “The ‘chicken-and-egg’ development of political opinions: The roles of genes, social status, ideology, and information,” Politics and the Life Sciences , 2017, 36(1): 1–13.Google Scholar
Wallace, 1870, p. 326.Google Scholar
Darwin, The Origin of Species(New York: P F Collier & Son, 1909), pp. 120, 300, 301.Google Scholar
Commons, J. R., “Natural selection, social selection, and heredity,” in The Arena, Ridpath, J. C., ed. (Boston: Arena Company, 1897), vol. 18, pp. 90–98.Google Scholar
Commons.Google Scholar
Commons.Google Scholar
Ward, L. F., “Mind as a social factor,” Mind , 1884, 9(36): 563–573.Google Scholar
Hale, p. 297.Google Scholar
Stock, G., “quoted in D. Sewell,” in The Political Gene (London: Picador, 2002), p. 216.Google Scholar
Price, A., “You’re an animal: The fatal human impact of evolutionary mismatch,” Good, December 22, 2013, https://www.good.is/features/the-fatal-human-impact-of-evolutionary-mismatch, accessed January 30, 2019.Google Scholar
Erlich, P. R., “Intervening in evolution: Ethics and actions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 2001, 98(10): 5477–5480.Google Scholar