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The Herd as a Means

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2022

David L. Hull
David L. Hull*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
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Extract

In 1886 Friedrich Nietzsche noted the following basic error in the philosophies of his day, ”…to place the goal in the herd and not in single individuals! The herd is a means, no more! But now one is attempting to understand the herd as an individual and to ascribe to it a higher rank than to the individual—profound misunderstanding!!! Also to characterize that which makes herdlike, sympathy, as the more valuable side to our nature!” (Nietzsche 1901, p. 403).

The recent flap over sociobiology has stemmed largely from the fear that biology is being used to justify a Nietzschean view of human societies, as if the chief good in human relations must be basically selfish, as if apparently altruistic behavior is fundamentally hypocritical. From Darwin to the present, biologists have blithely attributed the presence and persistence of all sorts of traits, including behavioral traits, to the “good of the species”.

Type
Part II. Unity of Science— Group Selection and Sociobiology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1980 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1980 , 1980 , pp. 73 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

The research for this paper was supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1980-1981. I wish to thank Elliott Sober and William Wimsatt for commenting on an early draft of this paper.

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