Larry Arnhart is Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University, 1425
West Lincoln Highway, DeKalb, IL 60115. His e-mail address is larnhart@niu.edu. This
paper was originally presented as a public lecture at Claremont McKenna College, 23
March 2000, sponsored by the Henry Salvatori Center. Portions of this paper were presented
at two conferences: the conference on “The Nature of Nature” at Baylor University,
Waco, Texas, 13–15 April 2000, sponsored by the Michael Polanyi Center; and the
conference on “Design and Its Critics” at Concordia University of Wisconsin, Mequon,
Wisconsin, 22–24 June 2000.
THE TRUTH, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY
OF DARWINISM
by Larry Arnhart
Abstract. As a young proponent of “creation science,” I rejected
Darwinian biology as false, bad, and ugly. Now I defend Darwinism
as true, good, and beautiful. Moreover, I now see Darwinism as compatible
with the natural piety that arises as one moves from nature to
nature’s God.
Keywords: creationism; Darwinism; intelligent design; morality;
natural law; natural religion.
As a high school student in West Texas in the 1960s, my mind and heart
were shaped by the fundamentalist Baptist churches I attended and by the
conservative political movement associated with Barry Goldwater and
Ronald Reagan. I began every day reading a few chapters from the Bible
according to a rigorous schedule so that I would read the Bible through
from beginning to end once a year. I took the account of creation in the
book of Genesis as a literal history of the beginnings of the world. Consequently,
I regarded Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection
as a denial of the biblical creation story. From reading Henry Morris
and other leaders in the creation science movement, I learned all the arguments
for why the Bible was more accurate in explaining the origins of
things. For me opposing Darwinism was part of my devotion to Goldwater
conservatism, because the conservative case for human freedom seemed to
[Zygon, vol. 36, no. 1 (March 2001).]
© 2001 by the Joint Publication Board of Zygon. ISSN 0591-2385
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me to assume a moral and religious view of human dignity that was denied
by Darwinian materialism.
When I went to my first high school biology class at Big Spring High
School in Big Spring, Texas, I came to class prepared to debate the teacher
and prove that Darwinian biology was both false and dangerous—false
because it was not supported by the factual evidence and dangerous because
it promoted a materialistic view of the world that subverted God’s
moral law. I was surprised when neither the teacher nor the textbook in
the class made any reference to evolution or Darwin. I discovered that the
very people I admired for their opposition to Darwinism had succeeded in
Texas in removing any study of Darwinism from the public schools. I was
deeply disappointed. I urged the teacher to say something about Darwinian
evolution. I argued that surely the public schools were obligated to
promote intellectual debate about science. I was frustrated that I had been
deprived of my chance to win the glory that would have come from destroying
Darwinism before my classmates.
Because of that experience of my youth, I understand and respect those
who oppose Darwinian biology for moral or religious reasons. But now I
defend Darwin and Darwinism. When I was in high school, I thought
Darwinian biology was false, bad, and ugly. It was false because the scientific
evidence and biblical revelation were against it. It was bad because it
promoted a hedonistic view of the human condition that was morally corrupting.
It was ugly because it promoted a materialistic and reductionistic
view of the universe that was flat and uninspiring.
But now I see Darwinian biology as true, good, and beautiful. It is true
because the weight of the relevant evidence and arguments favors it. It is
good because it supports a biological understanding of the natural moral
sense. It is beautiful because it evokes wonder before the intricate order of
living forms as emergent products of an evolutionary drama.
The issues at stake here are deep. For example, consider the remarks of
historian Carl Becker in his classic book, The Declaration of Independence
(1942). At the end of his book, Becker concluded that Thomas Jefferson’s
appeal to “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” must be considered a
“faith” that “could not survive the harsh realities of the modern world,”
because it had been refuted by Darwinian biology. After all, Darwin had
shown “that all things human might be fully accounted for without recourse
to God or the Transcendent Idea,” and “man was only the most
highly organized of the creatures,” so that human history must be seen,
Becker suggested, as “only a more subtly negotiated struggle for existence
and survival.” “Industrial exploitation, Machiavellian politics, war—what
were these, what had they ever been, but Nature’s instruments for enabling
those to survive who had the power?” (Becker 1942, xviii–xix).
Becker’s remarks were first published in 1922, only three years before
the famous trial of John Scopes, the public school teacher in Tennessee
Larry Arnhart 79
who was charged with teaching Darwinian evolution in violation of a state
law. Becker’s remarks illustrate the sort of moral nihilism associated with
Darwinism that provoked the opposition of people like William Jennings
Bryan, who spoke for the prosecution at the Scopes trial (Larson 1997,
39–59).
Becker changed his view, however, in a second edition of his book, published
in 1942. In his Introduction he declared that “the incredible cynicism
and brutality of Adolf Hitler’s ambitions” had forced all men to
reconsider the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. Phrases such as
“the inalienable rights of men” had come to “denote realities—the fundamental
realities that men will always fight for rather than surrender” (Becker
1942, 274–79).
And yet, if Becker was right in his original view of Darwinism, it would
seem that to believe in the “rights of men” as rooted in nature is contrary to
the reductive materialism of Darwinian science. In my youth, I would
have agreed with Becker. But now I believe Becker was wrong: Darwinian
biology does not refute appeals to natural standards of right and wrong,
because a Darwinian account of human nature actually provides scientific
support for ethical naturalism, for a moral sense rooted in human nature,
for what I now call “Darwinian natural right” (Arnhart 1998; 2000; 2001).
DARWINIAN TRUTH
But before considering the moral implications of Darwinism, let us consider
its claim to truth. In arguing for the truth of Darwinism, I do not
assert that Darwinian theory can be demonstrated conclusively with the
precision and certainty that would leave no room for reasonable doubt.
Rather, I assert only that Darwin’s theory is supported by the preponderance
of the evidence and arguments. In fact, that is all that Darwin himself
ever claimed for his position.
Darwin’s basic argument for his theory moves through three propositions.
First, there is great variation in the traits of living organisms. Second,
much of that variation is transmitted by inheritance from parents to
offspring. Third, those inherited variations that enhance survival and reproduction
will tend to be preserved, while those that impede survival and
reproduction will tend to be eliminated, and through this process of natural
selection new species will arise by descent from ancestral species. Although
Darwin did not think natural selection was the only mechanism of
evolutionary change, he thought it was the primary mechanism for shaping
the adaptive design of organisms.
One of the most serious objections to his theory acknowledged by Darwin
was the absence of a geological record that would show the sort of
finely graduated transitional forms that must exist to confirm his theory.
He thought this could be explained by the imperfections in the geological
80 Zygon
record arising from the fact that many organic forms would not leave a
fossil record (Darwin 1859, 279–311).
Another objection was that organs of extreme perfection such as the eye
could not have been designed from simpler forms by natural selection.
Darwin conceded, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ
existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive,
slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” But,
he insisted, “I can find out no such case” (1859, 189). He suggested, for
example, that there are numerous gradations of vision beginning with organisms
that can only detect light, and such variation would be sufficient
for natural selection in forming visual systems of increasing perfection
(1859, 186–88).
Darwin conceded that there were many problems that he could not
resolve. For example, he could not explain the ultimate origin of life from
inorganic matter. Yet even if this remained one of those fundamental mysteries
beyond scientific explanation, he saw no reason why this and other
limitations on human knowledge should be fatal to his theory (Darwin
[1872] 1936, 367).
The continuing legal and political debate in the United States over the
teaching of Darwinism in the public schools has drawn attention to the
critics of Darwin’s theory, particularly those who argue that the biblical
account of creation is as good as or even better than Darwinism in explaining
the origin of species. In recent decades, there have been at least three
positions among these Creationist critics of Darwinism. Those like Henry
Morris defend the Genesis story of creation in six days as a literal account
of the beginning of the universe less than ten thousand years ago (Whitcomb
and Morris 1961; Morris 1985). Those like Phillip Johnson accept the
Darwinian claim that the earth is billions of years old, but they argue that
there is no clear evidence for the emergence of new species from ancestral
species by natural selection (Johnson 1991; 1995). Those like Michael Behe
accept the old age of the earth, and they even accept the Darwinian claim
that all organisms evolved from a common ancestor, but they deny that
Darwin’s theory can explain “irreducibly complex” mechanisms at the level
of molecular life that manifest the work of an “intelligent designer” (Behe
1996). Johnson and Behe have become allies in defending intelligent design
theory. Another member of their intellectual movement is William
Dembski, who has used mathematical probability theory to develop criteria
for detecting intelligent design as manifested in “specified complexity”:
we infer intelligent design in events that are highly improbable and that
also correspond to some specified pattern (Dembski 1998; 1999).
Henry Morris’s assertion of a young earth is implausible in denying the
geological evidence for the earth’s being much older than ten thousand
years. The discovery of radioactivity at the end of the nineteenth century
created a way to test the Darwinian theory of the old age of the earth,
Larry Arnhart 81
because knowing the rate at which radioactive isotopes decay allows us to
estimate the age of the rock in which the isotopes are found. A variety of
methods using different radiogenic minerals converge on the conclusion
that the oldest rocks on the earth are roughly 4.5 billion years old (Miller
1999, 63–80). This evidence is so clear that even Morris admits that these
measurements are probably valid, which would seem to refute his youngearth
theory. But then he argues that since God is omnipotent, he could
have created the world ten thousand years ago to have an “apparent age” of
billions of years, just as he created Adam to begin life as a mature adult.
Consequently, he says, “the ‘true age’ of the earth can only be known by
means of divine revelation” (Whitcomb and Morris 1961, 343-46). This
sophistical argument would require that we believe that God deliberately
created the world in such a way that we would be tricked into believing it
was older than it really was.
Philip Johnson has tried to escape from such absurdity by finding a way
to criticize Darwinism without asserting a literal reading of the Genesis
creation story. As Darwin recognized, evolutionary biology has all of the
difficulties that come from being a historical science concerned with unique
events in the past that cannot be directly observed or experimentally replicated
in the present. The record of the past—such as the geological record
of fossils—is incomplete, and therefore Darwin’s theory of evolutionary
history cannot be proven conclusively. Johnson exploits this limitation
inherent in any historical science by demanding complete historical and
experimental evidence for Darwin’s theory. He can then conclude that the
theory is unsupported by the evidence whenever the evidence is incomplete,
as it always will be. But this rhetorical move seems unreasonable to
me in denigrating the impressive evidence for Darwin’s theory.
One example of Johnson’s rhetorical strategy for dismissing evidence for
evolution is how he handles the studies of “Darwin’s finches” in the
Galapagos Islands. The thirteen species of finches unique to the Galapagos
show a pattern of similarities and differences that suggest they evolved
from an ancestral species that flew to the islands from the South American
continent one-half to one million years ago (Lack 1947; Grant 1986). One
of the primary traits distinguishing the various species is the size and shape
of the beak, with different beaks adapted for different kinds of food and
environmental demands, so that it seems that species have been shaped by
natural selection for the diverse ecological niches of the islands. Direct
observations by Peter and Rosemary Grant over many years have shown
variations in beak size and shape in response to environmental fluctuations
such as droughts that favor some kinds of beaks over others. The Grants
extrapolated from the observed effects of natural selection on beak size and
shape within a species to explain the diversification of species over a half
million or more years from a common ancestor.
82 Zygon
This forces Johnson to concede that “in some cases, convincing circumstantial
evidence exists of evolution that has produced new species in nature”
(Johnson 1991, 19). But Johnson generally does not want to concede
even this much to the Darwinians. He claims that extrapolating from
evolutionary change within a species of finch to explain the gradual evolution
of one finch species from another is mere speculation. Like most of
the Creationist critics of Darwinism, Johnson argues that the evidence for
microevolution (evolutionary change within species) does not support
macroevolution (evolutionary emergence of new species from ancestral
species). But in dismissing such extrapolation, Johnson sets up a standard
of evidence that is unreasonable given the impossibility of directly observing
evolutionary changes over hundreds of thousands or even millions of
years (Johnson 1991, 25–28).
As Robert Pennock has argued, we can compare the biological evolution
of species and the cultural evolution of languages. Just as we can infer
that modern languages have evolved from ancient languages through the
accumulation of gradual changes over time, even though we cannot directly
observe one language changing into another, so we can infer that
modern species of life have evolved from ancestral species through the accumulation
of gradual changes over time, even though we cannot directly
observe one species changing into another. And just as there is no absolute
distinction between different dialects of the same language and different
languages, so there is no absolute distinction between different varieties of
the same species and different species (Pennock 1999, 117–79).
Johnson further confuses the debate by saying, “I believe that a God
exists who could create out of nothing if he wanted to do so, but who
might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process instead”
(Johnson 1991, 14). In another passage, he says that “God could work
through evolution, or natural selection, and in limited respects he does”
(Johnson 1997, 88). Does this suggest that God might have chosen to
allow the finches in the Galapagos to diversify into thirteen species from
an ancestral species through a history of natural selection? If so, then it
would seem that Creationism is fully compatible with Darwinian theory,
and there really is no debate. But this contradicts Johnson’s general argument
against Darwinism.
If Johnson’s point were that evolutionary theory cannot be proven beyond
a reasonable doubt because of the limitations on evidence for a historical
science, I would agree. But it does not follow from this that we
should therefore refuse to consider the available evidence as favoring the
probable truth of Darwin’s theory.
In fact, even an apparent ally of Johnson’s, Michael Behe, judges that
there is enough evidence to support the Darwinian conclusion that all
species, including human beings, arose from a common ancestor by descent
with modification by natural selection (Behe 1996, 5, 175–76, 227–28,
Larry Arnhart 83
231, 242). Even so, Behe maintains that one kind of biological system
cannot be explained by Darwin’s theory—namely, any system that is “irreducibly
complex.” By this he means “a single system composed of several
well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function,
wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively
cease functioning.” Such a system “cannot be produced directly (that is,
by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work
by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor
system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is
missing a part is by definition nonfunctional” (Behe 1996, 39). To illustrate
this, Behe uses his favorite analogy, a mousetrap, which is irreducibly
complex because it could not perform its function of catching mice if any
one of its interlocking parts were absent.
If Darwinian gradualism cannot explain irreducibly complex systems,
and if the alternative explanations that rely on “unintelligent causes” are
insufficient, then, Behe concludes, we must infer that such complex systems
are products of intelligent design, in which design means “the purposeful
arrangement of parts” (Behe 1996, 193). The primary evidence
for Behe’s position comes from his description of six kinds of biomolecular
mechanisms—bacteria moved by a flagellum, cells moved by cilia, blood
clotting, cellular transport systems, the immune system, and the biosynthesis
of proteins and nucleic acids. In each case, he shows first the great
complexity of these systems, and then he claims that no scientist has so far
succeeded in explaining clearly and precisely how these complex biochemical
systems emerged gradually by Darwinian evolution. According to Behe,
scientists should conclude from this that the only way to explain such
biological complexity is to infer intelligent design.
There are many possible criticisms of Behe’s argument. I will consider
three. The first, and perhaps most fundamental, is that Behe’s argument
from ignorance is fallacious. Our inability to explain the evolutionary
pathways for the biochemical mechanisms that Behe uses as examples does
not prove that such pathways do not exist. After all, the history of science
is the history of finding good explanations for what previously was unexplained,
and so future advances in knowledge might eventually explain the
evolutionary origins of the biochemical systems that now seem beyond
such explanation.
Behe’s argument from ignorance—like any such argument—is both
strong and weak. It is strong to the extent that Behe can convince us that no
scientist has so far presented a persuasive explanation of molecular evolution
by Darwinian processes. And yet his argument is weak to the extent that
developing such an explanation in the future remains a realistic possibility.
My second criticism of Behe’s argument is that it is sophistically constructed
so that it could never be falsified. Even if we explain the evolutionary
origin of some biochemical mechanism, Behe can always say that
84 Zygon
whatever remains unexplained is the evidence for intelligent design. To
refute his appeal to supernatural causes we must explain everything by
natural causes. But because science will never succeed in explaining everything,
he can never be refuted.
Behe often accepts the Darwinian explanations for the origin of anatomical
structures. And even at the level of molecular biology, he sometimes
concedes that Darwinian theory is adequate. For example, he accepts
the Darwinian explanation for the origin of hemoglobin—the protein that
carries oxygen in the blood—as having evolved through a natural modification
of the simpler protein myoglobin. Here, he admits, “the case for
design is weak” (Behe 1996, 207). Yet as long as there are other biological
systems that are not yet explained so clearly by natural causes, Behe can
infer intelligent design.
My third criticism of Behe’s position is that to save his argument for
intelligent design he must portray his intelligent designer as a cosmic
jokester. A common Darwinian objection to any argument for intelligent
design is the argument from imperfection. If life was created by an intelligent
designer with omnipotent power, why are there so many apparent
imperfections in the living world? For example, the eye seems in many
respects to be perfectly designed for vision, but actually, as Darwin indicated,
even seemingly perfect organs like the eye show imperfection in
their design (Darwin 1859, 201–2). The location of the blood vessels and
nerves in front of the retina blocks the incoming light, and this also makes
it necessary for the optic nerve to poke through the wall of the retina on
the way to the brain, which creates a blind spot. Darwin would explain
this design flaw as a consequence of the contingencies of evolutionary history
in which natural selection had to tinker with whatever was available
for adaptation to visual function. But if the eye was specially designed by
an omnipotent and intelligent designer, one would expect a better job.
The imperfections in nature’s design seem to be evidence that nature is not
completely the product of an intelligent designer.
Behe rejects such reasoning, however; he says this falsely assumes that
we can know the motives of an intelligent designer. “The inference to
design can be held with all the firmness that is possible in this world,” he
insists, “without knowing anything about the designer” (Behe 1996, 197).
The irreducible complexity of the biological mechanisms in the visual system
can be explained only by inferring an intelligent designer. This inference
is valid even if we know nothing about the motives of the designer.
We cannot rule out the possibility that the designer wanted eyes to have
blind spots to serve some purpose that is not apparent to us. “Features that
strike us as odd in a design,” Behe suggests, “might have been placed there
by the designer for a reason—for artistic reasons, for variety, to show off,
for some as-yet-undetected practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason—or
they might not. Odd they may be, but they may still be designed
Larry Arnhart 85
by an intelligence” (1996, 223–24). It is hard to take seriously such an
assertion that what look like the sort of imperfections that one would expect
to result from evolutionary history are actually displays of a cosmic
jokester who wants to show off.
I would emphasize, however, that Darwinian explanations of life as governed
fully by natural laws do not deny the existence of God as the creator
of those laws. Although Darwinian science assumes the regularity of nature
as governed by causal laws, we can infer that those laws were originally
created by God. Thus, Darwinism is compatible with belief in the biblical
God. Indeed, there is a long tradition of theistic evolutionism, from Asa
Gray to Howard Van Till (Livingston 1987; Van Till 1986).
As Kenneth Miller indicates, the Creationist critics of Darwinism actually
show a remarkable lack of faith in God’s omnipotence, because they
generally assume that God lacks the power to create a world in which life
could evolve by natural laws (Miller 1999, 217–18, 267–69, 288–89).
Occasionally, as I have indicated, creationists like Johnson will suggest that
an omnipotent God could have used Darwinian natural laws to create everything,
but they cannot say this without giving up the debate.
Although the Creationist criticisms of Darwinism are ultimately implausible,
I believe that allowing our public school students to study and
debate those criticisms in their biology classes would promote a better understanding
of scientific argumentation. If students were to study some
Creationist texts along with Darwin’s writings and some contemporary
texts defending Darwin, they could judge the arguments and evidence for
themselves. Science education in the public schools often consists of mindless
memorization of scientific formulas so that students have no understanding
of how one goes about weighing the evidence and arguments for
and against scientific ideas. A lively classroom debate over Darwinism
would be a great improvement, and it might actually prepare students to
become citizens capable of judging scientific controversies that have legal
and political consequences.
It would be good for high school students to see how a scientific debate
can become an exercise in rhetorical persuasion. They might notice that
the rhetorical situation in the debate between intelligent design theory and
Darwinism is such that those who take the negative side tend to look stronger
than those who take the affirmative. The proponents of intelligent
design look good when they are challenging the Darwinians to show empirical
evidence for the step-by-step evolutionary pathway of complex
biological mechanisms. The Darwinians look good when they are challenging
the intelligent design theorists to explain exactly where and how
the intelligent designer intervened in the natural order. As with any historical
science that requires reconstructing the past from fragmentary evidence,
Darwinian theory depends heavily on theoretical models based on
speculative scenarios. The critics of Darwinism can exploit this weakness,
86 Zygon
even as they try to hide the weakness in their own position by refusing to
specify the miraculous workings of the intelligent designer.
DARWINIAN GOODNESS
Part of any classroom debate in the public schools should be a consideration
of the moral implications of Darwinism. Most of the opposition to
Darwinian theory is motivated not by a purely intellectual concern for the
truth or falsity of the theory but by a deep fear that Darwinism denies the
foundations of traditional morality. This is evident in Johnson’s warning
that Darwinism promotes moral relativism and nihilism by denying the
traditional notion of natural moral law (Johnson 1995, 138–53). That
fear is mistaken, however, because Darwinism shows how morality is rooted
in human nature and thus confirms the idea of natural law.
From the very beginning of Darwin’s thoughts about evolution by natural
selection—as recorded in his notebooks from the late 1830s—he wanted
to explain the biological basis for morality. In exploring this topic, he
studied the history of moral philosophy. But it was not until 1871, in The
Descent of Man, that he published his biological theory of morality as rooted
in a natural moral sense (Darwin 1871, 1:70–106, 2:390–96; 1987, 619–
29). Darwin thus revived a tradition of ethical naturalism that goes back
to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.
“Of all the differences between man and the lower animals,” Darwin
declared, “the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important”
(1871, 1:70). Morality in the strict sense, it seems, is uniquely human.
How do we explain this? Darwin formulates his biological theory of morality
in a single proposition: “any animal whatever, endowed with well
marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience,
as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or
nearly as well developed, as in man” (1871, 1:71–72). Human beings are
moral animals because they have the cognitive capacity to compare their
desires or passions and judge that some are more important or enduring
than others. As social animals, they feel concern for the good of others,
and they feel regret when they allow their selfish passions to impede the
satisfaction of their social passions. The word ought, Darwin concludes,
signifies the consciousness that since some passions are more persistent
and central to one’s life than others, one cannot be fully happy if one does
not satisfy those stronger passions.
Darwin sees morality as having emerged through four overlapping stages
(1871, 1:72–73). First, social instincts would have led human ancestors to
feel sympathy for others in their group, which would promote a tendency
to mutual aid. Second, the development of the intellectual faculties would
allow early human ancestors to perceive the conflicts between instinctive
desires, so that they could feel dissatisfaction at having yielded to a momentarily
strong desire (like fleeing from injury) in violation of some more
Larry Arnhart 87
enduring social instinct (like defending one’s group). Third, the acquisition
of language would permit the expression of social opinions about good
and bad, just and unjust, so that primitive human beings would respond
to praise and blame in satisfying their social instincts. Finally, the capacity
for habit would allow individual conduct to conform to social opinions
through acquired dispositions. As a result, Darwin concludes, “a highly
complex sentiment, having its first origin in the social instincts, largely
guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest,
and in later times by deep religious feelings, confirmed by instruction
and habit, all combined, constitute our moral sense or conscience.” This
moral sense could eventually express itself in fundamental principles such
as the Golden Rule—“to do unto others as ye would they should do unto
you” (1871, 1:165–66).
To illustrate how human morality arises from practical reasoning about
social instincts, Darwin often speaks of sexual mating and parental care.
All social attachment is probably an extension of the parental and filial
affections, which were shaped by natural selection to secure care for offspring
who could not have survived without such care. Sometimes the
desire of parents to care for their young will conflict with other desires that
are momentarily stronger, but the human capacity to deliberately compare
alternative scenarios of action allows human parents to see that caring for
their children must generally be one of the central features of a whole life
well lived. The moral and legal institution of marriage arises from human
deliberation as a formal custom to sanction the sexual, parental, and economic
union of husband and wife to serve their natural desires for mating
and parenting.
Similarly, Aristotle concluded from his biological studies of animal behavior
that all social cooperation arises ultimately as an extension of the
natural impulses to sexual coupling and parental care of the young. Some
animals provide little care for their offspring. But the more social and
more intelligent animals care for the complete development of their young.
Aristotle observed that human beings and the other political animals are
characterized by the great duration and intensity of parental care, which
includes not only feeding and protecting the young but also passing on the
habits and knowledge required for living in groups with complex social
structures (History of Animals 588b23–89a9; Generation of Animals 753a8–
14; Nicomachean Ethics 1155a1–33, 1159a27–37, 1160b23–62a29).
Thomas Aquinas continued Aristotle’s biological reasoning about ethics
in defending his idea of natural law or natural right. Natural right, Aquinas
declared, “is that which nature has taught all animals.” Sexual mating and
parental care belong to natural law because they are natural inclinations
that human beings share with some other animals. And although the rationality
of human beings sets them apart from other animals, human reason apprehends
natural inclinations such as mating and parenting as good (Summa
88 Zygon
Theologica I–II, q. 94, a. 2). Aquinas speaks of the human disposition to
marriage as a “natural instinct of the human species” (Summa Contra Gentiles
bk. 3, chap. 123).
Adam Smith continued in this same tradition of ethical naturalism in
his book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith showed how ethics could
be rooted in the moral sentiments of human nature and the natural inclination
to sympathy. Like Aristotle and Aquinas, Smith argued that marriage
is natural because it is rooted in natural instincts or inclinations shared
with other animals (Smith [1790] 1976, 219–27; 1978, 141–43).
But while Smith spoke repeatedly of nature as instilling those moral
sentiments that would promote the survival and propagation of human
beings as social animals, he could not explain exactly how it was that nature
could shape the human animal in this way ([1790] 1976, 77–78, 87,
142, 219). Such an explanation was later provided by Darwin, who showed
how these natural dispositions could have been shaped by natural selection
in human evolutionary history. Thus, Darwin provided a modern biological
account of human nature that could support the tradition of ethical
naturalism that began with Aristotle.
Recently, Edward O. Wilson has sought to revive this Darwinian view
of ethical naturalism. Since morality is ultimately rooted in the moral
sentiments of human nature, Wilson argues, a natural science of morality
would require a biology of the moral sentiments. In pursuing this project,
he sees himself as continuing a tradition of ethical reasoning that began with
Aristotle and continued with Smith and Darwin (Wilson 1998, 238–56).
Likewise, I have argued for a Darwinian version of ethical naturalism
that I call Darwinian natural right (Arnhart 1998; 2001). The good is the
desirable, I claim, because all animals capable of voluntary movement pursue
the satisfaction of their desires as guided by their information about
the world. Only human beings, however, can pursue happiness as a deliberate
conception of the harmonious satisfaction of our desires over a whole
life, because only we have the cognitive capacities for reason and language
that allow us to formulate a plan of life, so that we can judge present actions
in the light of past experience and future expectations.
If the good is the desirable, then human ethics is natural insofar as it
satisfies natural human desires. I have argued that there are at least twenty
natural desires that are manifested in diverse ways in all human societies
throughout history (Arnhart 1998, 29–36). Those twenty natural desires
include sexual mating and parental care. Darwinian biology shows how
these desires could have been shaped by natural selection as part of human
nature.
Like the Hobbesian utilitarians, I recognize the natural selfishness of
human beings, but I also recognize their natural sociality. Like the Kantian
transcendentalists, I recognize the role of reason in formulating moral rules,
but I also recognize that the motivational foundation of ethics is not the
Larry Arnhart 89
logic of pure reason but the satisfaction of natural desires. Like the Burkean
relativists, I recognize the importance of cultural traditions in shaping moral
development, but I also recognize that the universality of the natural human
desires allows us to criticize and reform cultural traditions that frustrate
those natural desires.
The importance of the natural moral sense rooted in human biology
becomes clear when we consider those few human beings who apparently
have no moral sense. In explaining how the moral sense depends on the
social instincts, Darwin speaks of those who lack social emotions—who
are not moved by love and sympathy—as “unnatural monsters,” who might
become the “worst criminals” because they are “entirely destitute of conscience”
(Darwin 1871, 1:89–92). Aristotle and Aquinas thought such
depravity could arise from three possible causes—from injury, from habituation,
or from innate temperament (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
1148b15–49a20; Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics”
secs. 1368–75). A physical injury could cause mental disorder. Bad habituation,
as in those abused from childhood, could cause morbid behavior.
Or an inborn abnormality of temperament could cause a brutal disposition.
In the terminology of modern psychology, those who have no moral
sense are psychopaths. They are people like Ted Bundy, who brutally murdered
at least thirty-six young women and perhaps over a hundred before
he was executed in Florida in 1989. Psychopaths are ruthless social predators
who, with no feeling of guilt or regret, charm, manipulate, deceive,
attack, and sometimes kill other human beings. Harming others, even
friends and family members, does not bother them, because they are incapable
of feeling the pain of others. Egoistic, deceitful, greedy, and impulsive,
they are utterly asocial creatures who restlessly crave whatever capricious
pleasures excite them at any moment without regard to social norms.
I have argued that psychopaths suffer from an abnormal poverty of desire:
they lack the social desires that support the moral sense in normal
people (Arnhart 1998, 211–30). Without that moral sense, psychopaths
must be treated by the rest of us as moral strangers whose dangerous conduct
can be restrained only by force. Far from denying the reality of the
natural moral sense, the existence of psychopaths shows that the normal
pattern of natural desires is the ultimate ground for morality, and therefore
moral persuasion is impossible with those few human beings who lack the
natural desires typical of all other human beings.
Modern explanations of the causes of psychopathy fall into the three
categories suggested by Aristotle. Injuries to certain parts of the brain can
induce previously normal people to display some of the traits of psychopathy.
Some psychopaths have been hurt by the unhealthy circumstances of their
childhood, which have habituated them to act with a cynical and cold
indifference to the feelings of others. But many if not most psychopaths
express an inborn temperament to not feel social emotions, and this seems
90 Zygon
to arise from some abnormal functioning of the frontal lobes of the brain.
Philosophers like Immanuel Kant sometimes argue that morality requires
a purely rational logic of universal rules free from any emotions or
desires. Psychopaths show that this cannot be true. There is no evidence
that psychopaths have any deficit in their capacity for abstract rationality
or pure logic. Their immorality comes not from any defect of abstract
reason but from their emotional poverty. They cannot be moral, because
they lack the social emotions—such as sympathy, guilt, and shame—that
sustain moral conduct.
From a Darwinian view of morality, we can see that a moral sense is
natural, because no society of psychopaths could survive, and therefore
natural selection would tend to favor dispositions for acquiring a moral
sense. But as is usually the case in biology, natural here denotes not a
necessity that arises in every case but a propensity that arises in most cases:
as a result of human evolutionary history, human beings generally have a
natural propensity to learn the social norms required for living as social
animals, but a few—because of abnormalities of birth or environment—
will not show that propensity for moral learning.
Believing that this view of morality as rooted in a natural moral sense is
supported by Darwinian biology, I reject Becker’s assumption that Darwinism
must deny that there are any natural standards of right and wrong.
WhenThomas Jefferson spoke of the “inalienable rights of man” and when
we today speak of “universal human rights,” there is an implicit appeal to a
universal human nature manifested as natural desires that are expressed
throughout history in all human societies. For example, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 justifies “the right to marry and to
found a family” by declaring that “the family is the natural and fundamental
group unit of society” (Brownlie 1981, 24). As we have seen, Darwin
would explain the naturalness of the family as an expression of the natural
human desires for mating and parenting.
Darwinian biology thus helps us to understand the natural origins of
such desires and how they support a natural moral sense. In allowing us to
correctly understand that natural moral sense, Darwinism is not only true
but also good.
DARWINIAN BEAUTY
Not only is Darwinism true and good, it is also beautiful. It uncovers the
intellectual beauty of nature by revealing the intricate order of living forms
as arising from a grand evolutionary drama directed by natural law. Darwin
conveys the beauty of that drama in the final paragraph of The Origin
of Species.
It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many
kinds, with birds singing in the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and
Larry Arnhart 91
with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately
constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other
in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. . . .
From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we
are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly
follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been
originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst
this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple
a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
being evolved. (Darwin 1859, 490)
Like Darwin, I see “grandeur in this view of life.” I also see natural
piety, a sense of joyful awe before the lawful order of nature, as evidence
for a divine lawgiver. This natural piety is implied in Jefferson’s appeal at
the beginning of the Declaration of Independence to “the laws of nature
and of nature’s God,” because, as James Madison noted, the most universal
and persuasive proof for God’s existence will come from reasoning “from
the effect to the cause, from nature to nature’s God” (Madison 1884, 3:503).
Phillip Johnson would scorn such natural piety as “deism,” and he warns
that it is a mistake “to exchange the Creator God of the Bible for the lifeless
First Cause of deism” (Johnson 1997, 16–17). But Johnson himself
would seem to appeal to natural religion when he urges Christian theists to
“stake their claim on evidence from nature” (1995, 202).
Darwin’s natural religion appears not only at the end of The Origin of
Species but also at the beginning in his epigraph from Francis Bacon, which
states the Baconian idea of the “two books” through which God is revealed
—general revelation through nature and special revelation through the Bible.
This idea was deeply rooted in early modern science and Christian theology
(Moore 1986). The epigraph reads:
Let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think
or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of
God’s word, or in the book of God’s works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let
men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both. (Bacon, in Darwin
1859, ii)
As a young man, I began each day reading from the “book of God’s
word.” Now, I still read the Bible, though not with the same regularity.
And sometimes I begin my day by reading Darwin, which helps me to
understand “the book of God’s works.” Reading Darwin is no substitute
for reading the Bible. But as Darwin suggests, both kinds of reading are
ultimately expressions of the human desire to understand the wondrous
order of nature by reading the mind of God.
92 Zygon
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