To put things in a longer term historical context, the criticisms of naked apeism and sociobiology are in the tradition of left criticism of Social Darwinism.
" The simpler aspects of Social Darwinism include the fact that humans, especially males, need competition in their lives in order to survive in the future, and that the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid, although most Social Darwinists of the early twentieth century supported better working conditions and salaries, thus giving the poor a better chance to provide for themselves and distinguishing those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority. Darwin also believed that males are superior to females (! -CB), which can be attached to Social Darwinist theory."
Charles
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Social Darwinism
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Social Darwinism is a term used to describe a concept in social theory which holds that Darwin's theory of evolution of biological traits in a population by natural selection can also be applied to competition between societies or groups within a society espousing variations in ethic and underpin a political ideology with success determined by shifts in the number of adherents to a particular ideology. It is also used to critique human social institutions. Initially expressed in the writings of English philosopher and author Herbert Spencer, and of William Graham Sumner, Social Darwinism first became popular in the late 19th century and continued in popularity until the end of World War II. The application of the term to 19th and 20th century modes of thought, however, generally did not occur until after the publication of American historian Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought in 1944, which codified the concept in the sense it is generally used today. Thus the term is an anachronism, although it is still widely used by historians. In many ways it would be more proper to call it "Social Spencerism" instead of "Social Darwinism".
Historically, proponents of Social Darwinism often used the theory to justify social inequality as being meritocratic, and it has also been used to justify racialism and imperialism, in a cultural application of Herbert Spencer's idea of the "survival of the fittest." Thus, Spencer's notion of the evolution of society and man's moral faculty had been altered to something quite contrary to his philosophy. Social Darwinism itself does not necessarily engender a political position. Some Social Darwinists argue for the inevitability of progress and social reform, while others emphasize the potential for the degeneration of humanity. To a certain extent, Social Darwinism, like Darwinian evolution, has been associated with the controversial field of Eugenics. Social Darwinism was also an important facet of National Socialist ideology, but it also was used by many Anarchists and Communist. For example, the Anarchist communist philosopher Peter Kropotkin was a Social Darwinist, believing that many forms of collectivism were present in biology.
While Social Darwinism applies the concept of evolution and natural selection to human cultural systems, the extent to which the ideologies related to it are a part of Darwin's biological theory of evolution or Spencer's classical liberal philosophy is arguable.
Darwinism and theories of social change
Theories of social evolution and cultural evolution are common in European thought. The Enlightenment thinkers who preceded Darwin, such as Hegel, often argued that societies progressed through stages of increasing development. Earlier thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes' 17th century portrayal of the state of nature seems analogous to the competition for natural resources described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is distinct from other theories of social change because of the way it draws Darwin's distinctive ideas from the field of biology into social studies.
Darwin's unique discussion of evolution was distinct in several ways from these previous works: Darwin argued that humans were shaped by biological laws in the same way as other animals, particularly by the pressure put on individuals by population growth, emphasizing the natural over the supernatural in human development. Unlike Hobbes, he believed that this pressure allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits accumulated in the population over time to allow the emergence of a new species.
However, Darwin felt that 'social instincts' such as 'sympathy' and 'moral sentiments' also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man:[1] Thus it seems Darwin did believe that social phenomena were shaped by natural selection.
Theorists and Sources of Social Darwinism
Herbert Spencer. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Herbert_Spencer.jp g/200px-Herbert_Spencer.jpg> Enlarge Herbert Spencer.
Despite the fact that Social Darwinism bears Darwin's name and Darwin's works were widely read by Social Darwinists, the theory also draws on the work of many authors, including Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton.
Herbert Spencer's ideas, like that of evolutionary 'progressivism', stemmed from his reading of Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were influenced by those of Darwin. However Spencer's major work in the field of Social Darwinism, "Progress: Its Law and Cause" was released two years before the publication Darwin's "Origin Of Species", and his second, "First Principles", was printed in 1860. In regards to social institutions, however, there is a good case that Spencer's writings might be classified as 'Social Darwinism'. He argues that the individual (rather than the collectivity) is the unit of analysis that evolves, that evolution takes place through natural selection, and that it affects social as well as biological phenomena.
In many ways Spencer's theory of 'cosmic evolution' has much more in common with the works of Lamarck and August Comte than Charles Darwin. Darwin's theory is concerned with population, while Spencer's deals with the way an individual's motives influence humanity. Darwin's theory is probabilistic, i.e. based on changes in the environment that sooner or later influence the change of individuals, but do not have any single, specific goal. Spencer's is deterministic (the evolution of human society is the only logical consequence of its previous stage), fatalistic (it cannot be influenced by human actions), single path (it travels a single path, cannot skip any stages or change them) and progressively finalistic (there is a final, perfect society that will be eventually reached). Darwin's theory does not equal progress, except in the sense that the new, evolved species will be better suited to their changing environment. Spencer's theory introduces the concept of social progress - the new, evolved society is always better than the past.
Thomas Malthus. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Malthus.jpg> Thomas Malthus.
Spencer's work also served to renew interest in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work does not itself qualify as Social Darwinism, his 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population, was incredibly popular and widely read by Social Darwinists. In that book, for example, the author argued that as an increasing population would normally outgrow its food supply, this would result in the starvation of the weakest and a Malthusian catastrophe. According to Michael Ruse, Darwin read Malthus' famous Essay on a Principle of Population in 1838, four years after Malthus' death. Malthus himself anticipated the Social Darwinists in suggesting that charity could exacerbate social problems. Another of these social interpretations of Darwin's biological views, later known as eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, so could be said for mental qualities (genius and talent). Galton argued that social mores needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision, in order to avoid over-breeding by "less fit" members of society and the under-breeding of the "more fit" ones.
Francis Galton. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Francis_Galton_185 0s.jpg/180px-Francis_Galton_1850s.jpg> Enlarge Francis Galton.
In Galton's view, social institutions such as welfare and insane asylums were allowing "inferior" humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors." Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies such as those which would be undertaken in the early 20th century, as government coercion of any form was very much against their political opinions.
In Germany, the publication of Ernst Haeckel's best-selling Welträtsel ('Riddle of the Universe') in 1899 brought Social Darwinism to a very wide audience, and it took on something of the nature of a new religion imbued with a romantic and symbolistic mysticism. This lead to the formation of the Monist League in 1904, with many prominent citizens, including the Nobel Prize winner, Wilhelm Ostwald. By 1909 it had a membership of some six thousand people. It promoted eugenic reform and became an important progenitor of the Völkisch movement and, ultimately, of the National Socialist German Workers Party of Adolf Hitler.
Thus Social Darwinism sometimes differs from Darwin's own work, and with modern theories of evolution that have developed in the century and a half since Darwin's first writings.
The simpler aspects of Social Darwinism include the fact that humans, especially males, need competition in their lives in order to survive in the future, and that the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid, although most Social Darwinists of the early twentieth century supported better working conditions and salaries, thus giving the poor a better chance to provide for themselves and distinguishing those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority. Darwin also believed that males are superior to females, which can be attached to Social Darwinist theory.
