A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of EvolutionWilliams, Cora May
Philosophy
A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution
Williams, Cora May
Ethics, Evolutionary
through natural selection, or are the indirect result of other instincts
and faculties, such as sympathy, reason, experience, and a tendency to
imitation; or again, whether they are simply the result of
long-continued habit." Darwin distinguishes between "the all-important
emotion of sympathy," and that of love. "A mother may passionately love
her sleeping and passive infant, but she can hardly at such times be
said to feel sympathy for it"; but he includes both love and sympathy
under the head of "sympathetic emotions"; and on page 163 he says: "With
mankind, selfishness, experience, and imitation probably add, as Mr.
Bain has shown, to the power of sympathy; for we are led by the hope of
receiving good in return to perform acts of sympathetic kindness to
others; and sympathy is much strengthened by habit." Again, on page 166,
"instinctive love and sympathy" would seem to be contrasted with love
and sympathy as habit, the increase of such feelings in the race through
habit, elsewhere more or less distinctly asserted, being here ignored:
"Although man, as he now exists, has few special instincts, having lost
any which his early progenitors may have possessed, this is no reason
why he should not have retained, from an extremely remote period, some
degree of instinctive love and sympathy for his fellows. We are, indeed,
all conscious that we do possess such sympathetic feelings; but our
consciousness does not tell us whether they are instinctive, having
originated long ago in the same manner as with the lower animals, or
whether they have been acquired by each of us during our early years."
But again, on page 220, sympathy is referred to as an element of the
social instincts:[13] "It should, however, be borne in mind that the
enforcement of public opinion depends on our appreciation of the
approbation and disapprobation of others; and this appreciation is
founded on our sympathy, which it can hardly be doubted was originally
developed through natural selection as one of the most important
elements of the social instincts"; though, on pages 167, 168, the social
instinct is again contrasted with sympathy, since according to Darwin
the desire for the approbation of others and the consequent yielding to
their wishes is the result of sympathy: "Thus the social instincts,
which must have been acquired by man in a very rude state, and probably
even by his early ape-like progenitors, still give the impulse to some
of his best actions; but his actions are in a higher degree determined
by the expressed wishes and judgments of his fellow-men." Again the
social and the maternal instincts and sympathy are identified and
classed as under the dominion of the moral sense, pages 168-170: "It is
evident, in the first place, that with mankind the instinctive impulses
have different degrees of strength; a savage, will risk his own life to
save that of a member of the same community, but will be wholly
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account