Evolution and Ethics

T. H. Huxley

5 ideas

1. The garden carved from wild heath

   In the Prolegomena Huxley pictures a patch of southern English land. Before Caesar's invasion it was a wild tangle of plants struggling for existence. Once it is fenced and cultivated, the gardener suppresses competition, supplies water and shelter, and brings in chosen plants, yet the garden reverts to wild heath as soon as his effort stops. This case is the model for civilization as an artificial 'state of art' that the 'state of nature' constantly works to reclaim.

2. Ethical progress means combating the cosmic process

   The social progress of humanity comes from checking the cosmic process of struggle and selection at every step, not from imitating it. That process is replaced by an 'ethical process' whose aim is not the survival of those fittest for current conditions. Its aim is to make as many people as possible fit to survive, through self-restraint and mutual help instead of ruthless self-assertion.

3. Survival of the fittest is not the best

   'Fittest' means only best adapted to the prevailing conditions, and it carries no moral praise. If the climate cooled, the 'fittest' might be lichens and diatoms. A theory that explains how traits spread under selection therefore cannot tell us which traits are good, so no ethics can be read directly off evolution.

4. The administrator versus the eugenic ruler

   Huxley imagines a colony run by a wise administrator who selects its people the way a breeder selects stock. So the lens asks of any social policy whether it relies on a selector wiser than any human can be, and whether it corrodes the bonds it depends on.

5. Conscience is a socially bred brake on self-assertion

   Human success in the struggle for existence came from innate self-assertive and aggressive tendencies. Living in society requires curbing those same tendencies, and that pressure produces sympathy and an internalized 'artificial personality' that Huxley calls conscience. The result is a permanent tension inside each person, because the traits that made us winners in nature are the ones ethics must restrain.

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