19th Century Ethics

DarwinAnd

Freud

Late 19th/Early 20th Century: Skepticism as a Worldview

• Skepticism:1. Humans are incapable of

achieving lasting social and moral progress in this world.

2. Lasting progress is impossible because of humankind’s innate aggression.

3. Lasting progress is impossible because of the limitations of human reason.

Charles Darwin

• Charles Robert Darwin (1809 – 1882) was an English naturalist who realized and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called Natural Selection.

Charles Darwin

• The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community and much of the general public in his lifetime.

Evolution

• Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection underlies all modern biology.

• It enables us to 1. decipher our genes and

fight viruses2. to understand Earth's

fossil record and rich biodiversity.

Evolution

• Simple yet at times controversial, misunderstood and misused for social goals, the theory remains unchallenged as the central concept of biology.

• Charles Darwin, reluctant revolutionary, profoundly altered our view of the natural world and our place in it.

Social Darwinism in Britain

Social Darwinism in Britain

× British economist.

× Advocate of laissez-faire.

× Adapted Darwin’s ideas from the “Origin of Species” to humans.

× Notion of “Survival of the Fittest.”

× British economist.

× Advocate of laissez-faire.

× Adapted Darwin’s ideas from the “Origin of Species” to humans.

× Notion of “Survival of the Fittest.”

Herbert SpencerHerbert Spencer

Social Darwinism in America

Social Darwinism in America

William Graham SumnerFolkways (1906)

William Graham SumnerFolkways (1906)

$ Individuals must have absolute freedom to struggle, succeed or fail.

$ Therefore, state intervention to help those at the bottom of society is futile!

$ Individuals must have absolute freedom to struggle, succeed or fail.

$ Therefore, state intervention to help those at the bottom of society is futile!

Evolutionary Ethics• Evolutionary ethics tries

to bridge the gap between philosophy and the natural sciences by arguing that natural selection has instilled human beings with a moral sense, a disposition to be good.

Evolutionary Ethics• If this were true, morality

could be understood as a phenomenon that arises automatically during the evolution of sociable, intelligent beings and not, as theologians or philosophers might argue, as the result of divine revelation or the application of our rational faculties.

Evolutionary Ethics• Morality would be

interpreted as a useful adaptation that increases the fitness of its holders by providing a selective advantage.

Darwin to Freud

• In 1859, when Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, Sigmund Freud was three years old.

Darwin to Freud

• As a young student and later, during his early years as a dedicated scientific researcher, Freud greatly admired Darwin, who had gained considerable popularity throughout Europe.

Darwin to Freud

• In his Autobiographical Study, Freud would recall that "Darwin's doctrine was a powerful attraction, since it promised to provide an extraordinary way to understanding the universe."

Sigmund Freud

• Sigmund Freud [1856 – 1939] was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology.

Sigmund Freud

• Freud is best known for1. Theories of the unconscious

mind2. Defense mechanism of

repression3. For creating the clinical

practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.

Sigmund Freud

• Freud was deeply committed to a scientific and secular world view.

• He viewed religion as superstition and a form of mental illness or neurosis.

Freud the Atheist

• Freud saw humankind’s belief in God as a childish wish for a strong father figure.

• Freud saw religious rituals as neurotic and belief in miracles as delusions.

• Christopher Hitchens• Sam Harris• Richard Dawkins

Freud and Aggression

• In Freud’s view human beings are motivated by their aggressive and sexual drives based in what he called the “Id.”

Freud’s Id

• The “Id” of aggression and sex is based on humankind’s animal evolutionary past.

Freud’s Id

• Freud argued that the basic emotions (love, fear, hate, and, especially, lust) stemmed from the Id and that reason, as a sort of afterthought, evolved many millions of years later.

Freud and Ethics

• Freud’s Ethics: • Moral ideals in the name

of which individuals renounce any instinctual impulses that are irreconcilable with the ideals of the superego or conscience [culture’s moral values].

Civilization and Its Discontents

• Freud's theme is that what works for civilization doesn't necessarily work for man.

• Man, by nature aggressive and egotistical, seeks self-satisfaction.

• But culture inhibits his instinctual drives. The result is a pervasive and familiar guilt.

Freud’s “Death Instinct”

• People have death or destructive drives around a wish to die concerning the later transformed in understanding aggressive drive.

Freud’s “Death Instinct”• At one time Freud considered

this death wish to be outputted as sadism, coming from a basic sexual instinct, but after the First World War he increasingly accepted another basic instinct from the far past of evolution based on people going back to inorganic nature and therefore self destruction.

Freud’s “Death Instinct”

• The deepest drive in human beings is self-destruction.

• Freud can be classified as a pessimist about human beings.