Kevin Zhao

Professor Beatty
Darwin and Revolution

The evolution of morality

As Darwin remarks in his book The Descent of Man, altruism
does not appear to be an evolutionary advantage in the natural
selection of the fittest individuals. Altruistic individuals who are
willing to sacrifice for their fellow men and communities tend to
perish early in times of war and crisis, and therefore one naturally
assumes that they are less likely to pass on their altruistic genes to
their offspring (Darwin, p163). However, as Darwin investigates
further, he points out that there appears to be a much more
compelling and deeper explanation of the usefulness of morality in
the process of natural selection of man. It turns out that when we
show a desire to help others, we expect to receive their help in
return and therefore obtain mutual security and preservation
(Darwin, p163).
Although Darwin displays in his book a certain level of
skepticism regarding the anti-nature evolutionary advantage of
moral qualities in men, he affirms the advancement of human
morality as a upward progress that elevates our society to a higher
position and enables men to become more highly civilized and
refined. Similar to Malthus claim on the role prudence plays in
preserving desirable traits and eliminating undesirable traits in

society, Darwins positive affirmation of the value of morality is

supported by his recognition of the parallel of struggle for existence
between nature and human society and by the intrinsic importance
of morality that is unique to human sentiment and contributes to
the progress of society and the prosperity of nation.
In what appears to be a scathing critique of the distortion of
the laws of natural selection by external interference of human
society, Darwin affirms the noble value of sympathy. He writes,
with savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We
civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the
progress of eliminationnor could we check our sympathy, if so
urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of
our nature (Darwin, p168). Modern society, by means of poor law,
medical intervention and modern technology, has preserved weak
and debilitated individuals who would have been eliminated in the
state of nature. Nietzsche also argues that the artificial value of
Christianity has distorted our natural sense of good and made
modern men subservient and weak while suppressing the strong
and passionate individuals. While Darwin recognizes that this
sympathy for evolutionarily disadvantaged members of our species
is counter to the natural tendency of evolution, he thinks that the
moral quality of sympathy has a value of its own in a civilized
human society. What distinguishes human society from the animal
kingdom is precisely our ability to express feelings and emotions
and we have evolved further because of our unique ability. Here,

Darwin shows that he is not the heartless advocate of the bloody,

raw struggle for existence that many of his critics make him appear
to be. He appears to be quite sympathetic to the value of human
morality. In another example, Darwin, who first questioned our
modern medical intervention that prevents the sick from their
natural death, emerges as a defender of human morality as he
remarks that the surgeon who is trying to save the patient is not
motivated by cold calculation of natural selection but by his
sympathy and love for a human life (Darwin, p179). Moreover, as
Darwin mentions earlier, the instinct of sympathy was originally
acquired through natural selection (Darwin, p163). By displaying
sympathy for each other, we can also help each other in times of
crisis and therefore preserve our existence. More importantly, our
society constantly undergoes an evolution of favoring the
preservation of those with noble moral qualities and eliminating
those who are morally inferior. Darwin writes, In regards to moral
qualities, some elimination of the worst dispositions is always in
progress, even in the most civilized society (Darwin, p172). Again,
Darwin first points out the potential problems of the societys
distortion of the laws of natural selection where the poor and
intemperate reproduce at a much higher rate compared to the
sagacious and prudent individuals who tend to marry late and have
fewer offspring (Darwin, p174). However, as Darwin also points out,
the morally inferior individuals also have a much higher rate of

mortality. Our moral virtues appear to have an evolutionary

advantage.
Thomas Huxley in his essay Prolegomena observes a
process of evolution of human society that is remarkably similar to
the view of Darwin. Huxley writes, what is often called the struggle
for existence in society, is a contest, not for the means of existence,
but for the means of enjoyment (Huxley, XIV). What Huxley means
is that the evolutionarily advantageous traits of human society are
determined by the preferences of the masses in a certain context.
He writes, in a large proportion of cases, crime and pauperism have
nothing to do with heredity; but are the consequence, partly, of
circumstance and, partly, of the possession of qualities, which,
under different conditions of life, might have excited esteem and
even admiration (Huxley, p40). In other words, what is
advantageous for the evolution of men in society is defined not by
the outward physical and intellectual fitness but by what is socially
useful and good. Huxley remarks, since in a large number of cases,
the actual poor and the convicted criminals are neither the weakest
nor the worst (Huxley, p43). Similarly, Darwins view of the function
of sympathy and altruism in the process of evolution rests on the
fact that these qualities are socially beneficial and help the
preservation and the dominance of tribes and society. The struggle
for the means of enjoyment in modern society, namely possession
of wealth and capital, favors those with qualities such as energy,
industry, intellectual capacity and tenacity of purpose (Huxley,

p43). As Huxley demonstrates, it is the great body of the

moderately fit who possesses such favorable capacities and is able
to preserve their traits (43). Like Darwin, Huxley does not repudiate
what appears to be a severe disruption of the equilibrium of the
laws of nature, namely, the selection of traits by human society that
does not promote the survival of the fittest in its original sense.
Huxley writes, the struggle for the means of enjoyment is a process
that tends to the good of society (p43). Similarly, Darwin argues
that the rise of a nation depends on an increase in the actual
number of its population and on the number of men endowed with
high intellect and moral faculties (Darwin, p178). The seemingly
inconsequential morality that play little role in natural selection is
for Darwin an important factor in the progress and the evolution of
human society towards a higher, more prosperous state. As both
Darwin and Huxley point out, our feelings of remorse and fear of
reprobation of our fellow men, while entirely unnatural, compel us to
act in a just and socially appropriate way and therefore contribute to
the preservation of our society.
Finally, Darwin shows that he is aware of the harmful
consequences of excessive restraint placed upon humans by the
moral code of society when he criticizes the Catholic Church for
suppressing the voice of freedom. He writes of the evils that
Catholic Church has committed by executing the most courageous
and free individuals (Darwin, p179). As a utilitarian thinker, Darwin
is interested in this life here and now. The struggle for existence is

one of the main conditions that allows us to achieve earthly glory,

happiness and progress. Morality is useful in so far as it serves as a
form of environmental pressure that contributes to the development
of noble sentiments and the advancement of human species and to
the elimination of socially undesirable traits. However, when
morality gets in the way of human development and progress, it
should be condemned. Huxley also argues that excessive selfrestraint is destructive to human society (p19). Like Darwin, Huxley
also saw the parallel of struggle for existence that exists in both
nature and human society but he cautions against the weakening of
evolutionary pressure in human society that might preserve the
weak (p180). At some point Darwin would happily discard morality if
the progress of human race becomes completely arrested by our
moral restraint and he would happily embrace the Nietzschean
notion of superman who exemplifies human species in its finest,
strongest and most evolved form.

On Sexual Revolution
In his book, the Selection of Relation to Sex, Darwin writes,
when pairing of man is left to chance, with no choice exerted by

either sex, there can be no sexual selection (Darwin, p358). For

Darwin, sexual selection represents a conscious choice made by
men in earlier periods of history when he is guided more by his
instinct than by reason. The savage man, who was more powerful
than woman by nature, kept her in a poor state of bondage and
slavery and consciously selected the woman for her appearance
(Darwin, p371). The point Darwin is trying to make is that natural
selection does not justify the subordination of women to men in a
more advance and civilized society where men are more guided by
reason. Sexual selection in regards to the selection of favorable
physical traits of women is only a historical necessity but should be
open to modification and change as we progress. As Darwin also
demonstrates, in all other animal species, it is the female sex who
has the option of choosing the male companion who developed
various ways and faculties to try to charm the female sex. As Darwin
remarks, in lower class of animals, males use various sounds and
musical notes to charm the females (p332). Therefore, the existence
of women in human society as an object of ornamentation and
beauty selected by males can be seen as an abnormality rather than
an immutable occurrence of nature.
Drawing from Darwins theory of the arbitrariness of sexual
selection, Charlotte Perkins Gilman turns to the abnormality of the
subjugation of the female sex in human society. She remarks, we
are the only animal species in which the female depends on the
male for food, the only animal species in which the sex relation is

also an economic relation (Gilman, p5). Like Darwin, Gilman

compares the human species to all other kinds of animals and
insects and comes to the conclusion that the development of sexual
selection in human society is a deviance from the norms of the
nature. Furthermore, Gilman identifies the external environmental
pressure that causes the exclusion and oppression of certain races
of people and women in general: the economic relation in which
women have to depend on men for survival. What unites the view of
Darwin and Gilman is that sexual selection is a product of the
historical circumstance but not an innate feature of natural selection
that favors the preservation of certain desirable sexual traits.
In the concluding paragraph of the chapter on sexual
selection, Darwin remarks, it deserves particular attention that with
mankind all the conditions for sexual selection were much more
favorable, when men had only just attained to the rank of manhood
than during later times (Darwin, p383). The corresponding
explanation that Darwin gives is that in the early periods of the
history of mankind, men are guided more by instinct than by
passion and therefore they would overcome women by their
superior physical strength and mind, keep women in the condition of
bondage, practice infanticide, defend women against the intruders
and select women based on their external appearance (Darwin,
p383). What Darwin is suggesting is that women are selected for
their external appearances not by the laws of natural selection but
by the conscious effort of men. Women are forced to adapt to the

conditions that men have imposed on them, and as a result, they

are able to pass on the gene of physical attractiveness to their
offspring. As Darwin puts it, hence women have become more
beautiful, as most person will admit, than man (Darwin, p372).
Gilman makes a similar point in her essay that women were born
into a society whose values and moral codes are set by men. She
remarks, economic progress, however, is almost exclusively
masculine (Gilman, p8). As a result, a relationship of dependency is
established. Gilman points out that women have come to depend on
men for the essential social and economic services that are not
possible without the help of men. She writes, the labor now
performed by the women could be performed by the men, requiring
only the setting back of many advanced workers into earlier forms
of industry; but the labor now performed by men could not be
performed by the women without generations of effort and
adaptation (Gilman, P8). An important thing to note about Darwin
and Gilmans point is that men are not biologically superior to
women in a way that would cause the selection of women based on
physical appearance or the subjugation of women to the economic
relation of society. Darwin points out that in many other primitive
societies such as a village in Africa, women have the choice of
selecting the male companion and hold significantly more power
than traditional patriarchy societies. Darwin remarks, for in utterly
barbarous tribes the women have more power in choosing,
rejecting, and tempting their lovers, or of afterwards changing their

husbands, than might have been expected (Darwin, p373). Gilman

also writes, this is not owing to lack of essential human faculties
necessary to such achievements, nor to any inherent disabilities of
sex, but to the present condition of woman, forbidding the
development of this degree of economic ability (Gilman, P9).
Therefore, natural selection in the original sense of promoting the
survival of most favorable traits does not seem to apply to
patriarchal societies in which women are restrained from developing
their capabilities and full potential because of the artificial
conditions set by men. It may be true that in earlier societies
women are inferior to men in body and mind and therefore are
driven by laws of evolution to succumb to the more powerful male
species guided by instinct to dominate and subjugate women, but
as Darwin suggests, even though women have been selected for
beauty in long periods of history, they should receive a different
treatment when circumstances have changed so that men have
come to rely on the faculty of reason in modern society. Precisely,
Gilman would agree with Darwin that through the use of reason,
men could recognize that women should be allowed to develop their
physical and mental faculties to the fullest extent by laws of nature.
By looking at the numerous examples of animals and insect world
where females occupy considerably more power than men and
where male spiders only serve as a transient tool of fertilization and
are eaten alive by the female counterparts, Gilman sees that the
subjugation of women is an extraordinary abnormality according to

the laws of nature and that women are kept in the state of bondage
in human society not for the infallible reason of deity but for
irrational purpose that runs counter to natural selection. As Gilman
describes, women are reduced to sexual objects in society because
of this irrational economic relation. She remarks, it is not the
normal sex tendency, common to all creatures, but an abnormal
sex-tendency, produced and maintained by the abnormal economic
relation which makes one sex get its living from the other by the
exercise of sex functions (Gilman, p39).
Another important insight Gilman provides is the contradictory
masculine perception of women as mothers. Darwin mentions that
the sexual selection of women based on beauty is assumed by most
men as natural and coming from a long tradition and history, yet
Darwin thinks it is arbitrary and can change according to the change
in circumstance. Gilman also points out that men see women as
mothers who hold the sacred duty of maternal instinct and that
when women deviate from their assumed natural roles and became
wage workers, they are seen as house servants with a low status
(Gilman, p15). Yet one can easily recognize the glaring contradiction
in this masculine view of womanhood and maternal responsibility
and identity. The entire premise is predetermined by the male view
of females but not by some kind of natural laws or immutable truths.
It is also arbitrary. In the state of nature, this narrow view of women
as maternal guardian with no economic utility to society is clearly
absurd. Even in primitive societies, women hold important

responsibilities in the household and are accorded economic roles

instead of a symbolic, empty title with little meaning.