Charles Darwin, sexual selection and the evolution of other-regarding ethics

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dc.contributor.authorHale, Piers J.
dc.date.accessioned2022-03-14T19:28:21Z
dc.date.available2022-03-14T19:28:21Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.description.abstractAlthough many read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species as an endorsement, rather than merely a description, of individualism and competition, in Descent of Man (1871) Darwin intended to show that natural selection could account for the most noble aspects of human morality and conscience. He did so in response to Alfred Russel Wallace's 1869 statement to the contrary. In doing so, Darwin appealed to the natural selection of groups rather than individuals, and to the maternal, parental and filial instincts, as the origin of truly other-regarding moral sentiments. Further, the inheritance of acquired characters and sexual selection had important implications for Darwin's understanding of how other-regarding ethics might prevail in an evolutionary framework that seemed to reward self-interest. In a short addendum to this essay I highlight just three of a number of Darwin's contemporaries who were impressed by this aspect of his work: the science popularizer Arabella Buckley, the Scottish Presbyterian scholar Henry Drummond and the anarchist geographer and naturalist Peter Kropotkin. In closing, I point to an extensive network of others who framed their concerns about both the ‘labour question’ and the ‘woman question’ in evolutionary terms, as a fruitful area for future research in this direction.en_US
dc.description.peerreviewYesen_US
dc.identifier.citationBJHS Themes, Volume 6: Descent of Darwin: race, sex, and human nature, 2021, pp. 157 - 177 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/bjt.2021.5en_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1017/bjt.2021.5en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11244/334973
dc.languageenen_US
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.titleCharles Darwin, sexual selection and the evolution of other-regarding ethicsen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
ou.groupDodge Family College of Arts and Sciences::Department of History of Scienceen_US

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