A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

by Cora May Williams

The assertion that increase of ability for self-preservation leads to better care for the young, and makes of such care a duty, is likewise erroneous. For, up to the highly organized class of the crustacea, we have no example of care for the young. In the struggle for existence, the species which survive must be such as not only are in themselves best fitted for survival, but as also bring forth best fitted progeny. Nor has Spencer made clear on what ground natural process is to be regarded as identical with duty. In truth he has succeeded in showing only that care for the young is wide-spread in the animal kingdom, from which fact naturally follows that it is a quality which tends to the preservation of species.

It cannot be conceded that such a perfection as Spencer pictures, where each shall fulfil all the functions of his own life in the most perfect and complete manner without interfering with a like freedom in others, is possible. The assertion involves the extension to all living beings of that ideal principle of equal claims which Spencer repudiates with regard to man,—showing that not all men are capable of a like degree of happiness and that individuals desire, moreover, pleasure differing in quality. Furthermore, a world of beings which, like the animals and many plants, can support life only by means of organic material, must, in order to exist, destroy organic life, either animal or vegetable. The theory does not even hold with regard to individuals of the same species; Spencer himself acknowledges the truth of the principles of Malthus and of Darwin, according to which, even with the lowest rate of increase, a struggle of competition must soon arise between individuals of the same species.

Nor does Spencer's proof of the fundamental character of altruism hold, on investigation. He demonstrates that through the animal species up to man, there is less and less self-sacrifice of the mother animal in giving birth to offspring. But this physical sacrifice is not altruism; altruism lies in conscious care for the young after birth, and this is not lessened, but increased, the higher we ascend.

That morality is but greater adjustment of acts to ends cannot be admitted. If, in ordinary speech, the word good refers to greatest adjustment to ends, whatever the ends may be, that is no proof that it must have the same significance in Ethics. A good shot may be a good one in that it hits the mark; but what if it kill a man? The acts of criminals may be as well adjusted to their ends and as easy to predict as those of a good man. Spencer's theory would lead, consistently carried out, to the principle that the means justify the end, an assertion that is even more dangerous than its opposite. The fact is, that in Ethics it is the nature of the end which is of importance.

Spencer endeavors to show that only normal exercise of function is favorable to life, and so moral;—that excess and deprivation are both injurious. It is not true, however, that excess is always injurious; within certain bounds it is made up for by reserves in the animal organism. Or, if Spencer should answer to this objection, that his "normal" is not to be represented by a sharp line, difficult to keep to, but by a broad road within which excess is safe, such a representation would both burden his theory with two dividing-lines, and moreover would not save it. For he has not deemed it necessary to treat the concept "normal" to an exact definition, and we find him using it in his later deductions in an entirely new sense—not as equilibrium between capacity of function and its exercise, but in the ideal significance of a harmony between the claims of the individual on the one side, and those of the environment on the other. This normal is nowhere actually to be found and cannot, from the nature of things, be arrived at. By addition of this significance, the word normal becomes indefinite in meaning, and is used, now in one sense, now in the other. Normal exercise of function has, however, nothing to do with the claims of the environment, which generally demands, indeed, a deviation from the normal.

Nor is Spencer's analysis of the beginning of the process of food-seizure, adduced in support of the theory that happiness and morality are commensurable, confirmed by facts. According to this theory, the process of food-taking begins with the contact of animal and food, in which act the commencement of diffusion of food in the body of the animal causes a pleasure which leads to the seizure of its prey and the further act of devouring it. The theory might hold of the lowest organisms, but could not be true of any animal furnished with an impenetrable shell or skin. Nor would the seizure follow with sufficient promptness if it were left to the action of the pleasure caused by diffusion. Moreover, we should expect to find, according to this theory, a much more general and finer development of the organ of taste among the animals,—to find it as a special organ on the lowest planes of animal life; it is, on the contrary, the latest of the special senses to develop. It is the reaction on the sense of touch, the lowest and most general of the special senses, which causes the seizure of nourishment. We must, therefore, deny that pleasure is the motive to the seizure of food, and so, too, reject the conclusion that it is the motive to every other act.

Besides arguing that normal function brings pleasure, Spencer has attempted to prove that all pleasure has its spring in normal function, and is therefore moral. Could he succeed in so doing, hedonism would be proved. For since all schools agree in regarding happiness as the end of life, and since all these, in common, acknowledge happiness to be an excess of pleasure over pain, enjoyment might be regarded as the absolute guide. But if, as Spencer acknowledges, pleasure and morality are only in a perfectly adapted society commensurate, then in only such a society can pleasure be the criterion; and since we do not live in a perfectly adapted society, the theory is not applicable to us, and if practicably applied would be fatal to society.

Against Spencer's theory of the final spontaneity of morality, many objections may be urged, among others especially the one that such a morality ceases to be morality at all, virtue being possible, as Kant has demonstrated, only where a certain conquest of desire is achieved. Such a morality is, moreover, unattainable, an extravagant fancy.

The Problem of Food-taking

Rolph thinks Spencer's theory awakes the conjecture that it was not first arrived at through investigation, but rests upon a preconceived opinion, as do to a greater or less extent all theories on this subject. It seems as if the author had first attached himself to that theory which best accorded with his scientific bias, and then tried whether this theory might be proved or supported by facts of biology and psychology. One might surmise, from the very skilful, but often too artificial argument, that the author pursued the following train of thought. Pleasure, and indeed the greatest possible pleasure, is the end of endeavor in the organic world, that is, the psychical cause of endeavor. May it not also be the physical cause?