Element contents
Social Darwinism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2021
Summary
This Element is a philosophical history of Social Darwinism. It begins by discussing the meaning of the term, moving then to its origins, paying particular attention to whether it is Charles Darwin or Herbert Spencer who is the true father of the idea. It gives an exposition of early thinking on the subject, covering Darwin and Spencer themselves and then on to Social Darwinism as found in American thought, with special emphasis on Andrew Carnegie, and Germany with special emphasis on Friedrich von Bernhardi. Attention is also paid to outliers, notably the Englishman Alfred Russel Wallace, the Russian Peter Kropotkin, and the German Friedrich Nietzsche. From here we move into the twentieth century looking at Adolf Hitler - hardly a regular Social Darwinian given he did not believe in evolution - and in the Anglophone world, Julian Huxley and Edward O. Wilson, who reflected the concerns of their society.
Information
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781108879026Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 29 April 2021
Bibliography
Allen, E., and others. 1975. Letter to the editor. New York Review of Books, sec. 22, 18, pp. 43–44.Google Scholar
Bannister, R. J. 1979. Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Bellomy, D. C. 1984. ’Social Darwinism’ Revisited. Perspectives in American History n.s. 1: 1–129.Google Scholar
Bowler, P. J. 1988. The non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broad, C. D. 1944. Critical notice of Julian Huxley’s Evolutionary Ethics. Mind 53: 344–67.Google Scholar
Brown, M. J. 2013. Values in science beyond underdetermination and inductive risk. Philosophy of Science 80: 829–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browne, J. 1995. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Volume 1 of a Biography. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Browne, J. 2002. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place. Volume 2 of a Biography. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Burton, D. H. 1965. Theodore Roosevelt’s Social Darwinism and Views on Imperialism. Journal of the History of Ideas 26: 103–18.Google Scholar
Chamberlain, H. S. 1899. Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Foundations of the Nineteenth Century). Munich: Bruckmann.Google Scholar
Chambers, R. 1846. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. 5th ed. London: J. Churchill.Google Scholar
Clark, M. 1994. Nietzsche’s immoralism and the concept of morality. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals. Editor R. Schacht Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Common, T., Editor. 1901. Nietzsche as Critic, Poet, and Prophet: Choice Selections from His Works. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company.Google Scholar
Crook, P. 1994. Darwinism, War and History: The Debate over the Biology of War from the ‘Origin of Species’ to the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1845. Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the World [2nd ed.]. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1871. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1958. The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow. London: Collins.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1985. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1987. Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836–1844. Editors Barrett, P., Gautrey, P. J., Herbert, S., Kohn, D., and Smith, S.. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Desmond, A. 1998. Huxley: From Devil’s Disciple to Evolution’s High Priest. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Dixon, T. 2008. The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, M. A., and Evans, H. E.. 1970. William Morton Wheeler, Biologist. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, R. J. 1997. In Search of German Social Darwinism. Rereading German Social History: From Unification to Reunification, 1800–1996. Author and Editor Evans, R. J., 119–44. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fisher, J. 1877. A history of landholding in Ireland. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5: 228–326.Google Scholar
Forrest, B., and Gross, P. R.. 2004. Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gilkey, L. B. 1985. Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock. Minneapolis: Winston Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. 1964 a. The genetical evolution of social behaviour I. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7: 1–16.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. 1964 b. The genetical evolution of social behaviour II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7: 17–32.Google Scholar
Harrington, A. 1996. Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hawkins, M. 1997. Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1988. Introduction to the Philosophy of History. Translator L. Rauch. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1991. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Editor Wood, A.. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, R. 1944 [1992]. Social Darwinism in American Thought [1860–1915]. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hume, D. [1739–1740] 1978. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, D. [1757] 1963. A Natural History of Religion. Hume on Religion. Editor Wollheim, R.. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Huxley, J. S. 1948. UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press.Google Scholar
Huxley, T. H. 1893. Evolution and Ethics with a New Introduction. Edited by Ruse, M.. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. [1785]1959. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Kant, I. [1795]1970. Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch. Kant: Political Writings. I. Kant, 93–130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kellogg, V. L. 1917. Headquarters Nights: A Record of Conversations and Experiences at the Headquarters of the German Army in France and Belgium. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, P. 1902. Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution. Boston: Extending Horizons Books.Google Scholar
Lankester, E. R. 1880. Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebo, L. 2008. The Devil in Dover: An Insider’s Story of Dogma v. Darwin in Small-Town America. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Leonard, T. C. 2009. Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism: The Ambiguous Legacy of Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 71: 37–51.Google Scholar
Maine, H. J. S. 1861. Ancient Law; Its Connection to the Early History of Society, and Its Relation to Modern Ideas. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1863[2008]. Utilitarianism. J.Bennett http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/mill1863.pdf.Google Scholar
Moore, J. R. 1986. “Socializing Darwinism”: Historiography and the Fortunes of a Phrase. Science as Politics. Editor Levidow, L.. London: Free Association Books.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 1954. Twilight of the Idols. The Portable Nietzsche. Editor and translator W. Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 1966. Beyond Good and Evil. Translator W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 1983. Untimely Meditations. Translator R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 1997. Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality. Translator R.J. Hollingdale. Editors Clark, M., and Leiter, B.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 1998. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translators M. Clark, and A. Swensen. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 2001. The Gay Science. Translator J. Nauckhoff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 2006. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translator A. Del Caro. Editors A. Del Caro, and R. Pippen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pence, C. H. 2011. Nietzsche’s aesthetic critique of Darwin. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 33, no. 2: 165–90.Google Scholar
Pennock, R. 1998. Tower of Babel: Scientific Evidence and the New Creationism. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Radick, G. 2018. Darwinism and Social Darwinism. The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought. Editors Breckman, Warren and Gordon, Peter E.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 1980. Kantian constructivism in moral theory. Journal of Philosophy 77: 515–72.Google Scholar
Richards, R. J. 1987. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Richards, R. J. 1992. The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Richards, R. J. 2008. The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Richards, R. J. 2013. Was Hitler a Darwinian? Disputed Questions in the History of Evolutionary Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Richards, R. J., and Ruse, M.. 2016. Debating Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 1979 a. The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 1986a. Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. Editor. 1988 a. But is it Science? The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 1996. Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2005. The Evolution-Creation Struggle. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2013. The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2017a. Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us About Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2017c. A Darwinian pilgrim’s early progress. Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4, no. 151–164.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2017d. A Darwin’s pilgrim’s middle progress. Journal of Cognitive Historiography, 2019. 4, no. 165–179.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2017e. A Darwinian pilgrim’s late progress. Journal of Cognitive Historiography 4: 180–198.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2018. The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M. 2021. A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ruse, M., and Richards, R. J., Editors. 2017. The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Segerstrale, U. 1986. Colleagues in conflict: An in vitro analysis of the sociobiology debate. Biology and Philosophy 1: 53–88.Google Scholar
Shermer, M. 2002. In Darwin’s Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, H. 1876. The theory of evolution in its application to practice. Mind 1: 52–67.Google Scholar
Spencer, H. 1851. Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed. London: Chapman.Google Scholar
Spencer, H. 1852a. A theory of population, deduced from the general law of animal fertility. Westminster Review ns. 1: 468–501.Google Scholar
Spencer, H. 1852b [1868]. The development hypothesis. The Leader. Reprinted in Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative. H. Spencer, 377–83. London: Williams and Norgate.Google Scholar
Spencer, H. 1857 [1868]. Progress: Its law and cause. Westminster Review LXVII: 244–67.Google Scholar
Spencer, H. 1882. Political Institutions: Being Part V of the Principles of Sociology. London: Williams and Norgate.Google Scholar
Stitch, S. 1978. The recombinant DNA debate. Philosophy and Public Affairs 7: 187–205.Google Scholar
Strauss, D. F. 1835 [1892]. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. Translator G. Eliot, New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Strauss, D. F. 1872. The Old Faith and the New. Translator M. Blind. Buffalo, N. Y.: Prometheus.Google Scholar
Sumner, W. G. 1914. The Challenge of Facts: and Other Essays. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Todes, D. P. 1989. Darwin Without Malthus: The Struggle for Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trivers, R L. 1971. The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46: 35–57.Google Scholar
Von Bernhardi, F. 1920. Vom Kriege der Zukunft. Nach den Erfahrungen des Weltkrieges. Berlin: Mittler.Google Scholar
Wallace, A. R. 1858. On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology 3: 53–62.Google Scholar
Wallace, A. R. 1864. The origin of human races and the antiquity of man deduced from the theory of natural selection. Journal of the Anthropological Society of London 2: clvii-clxxxvii.Google Scholar
Wallace, A. R. 1905. My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions. London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Weikart, R. 2004. From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wheeler, W. M. 1910. Ants: Their Structure, Development and Behavior. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. S., and Wilson, E. O. 2007. Rethinking the theoretical foundation of sociobiology. Quarterly Review of Biology 82: 327–48Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O. 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O. 1992. The Diversity of Life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O. 2006. The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this element is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.
- 17
- Cited by