A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

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Cora May Williams. A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

Table of Contents

PREFACE

A REVIEW OF EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS

Part I

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

CHARLES DARWIN

FOOTNOTES:

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

FOOTNOTES:

ERNST HAECKEL

FOOTNOTES:

HERBERT SPENCER

General Considerations

The Physical View

The Biological View

The Psychological View

The Sociological View

FOOTNOTES:

JOHN FISKE

FOOTNOTES:

W. H. ROLPH

"Biological Problems" ("Biologische Probleme," 1884)

The Problem of Food-taking

The Problem of Perfectibility

Animal or Natural Ethics

Humane Ethics

FOOTNOTES:

ALFRED BARRATT

Definitions

Proposition I

Proposition II

Proposition III

Proposition IV

Proposition V

The Origin of the Moral Sense

Of the Social Relation of the Individual

The Unselfish Emotions

Of the Relation of Man To Nature

Of the Will

Of Obligation

Of Pleasures that are called Bad

FOOTNOTES:

LESLIE STEPHEN

"The Science of Ethics" (1882)

B. CARNERI

FOOTNOTES:

HARALD HÖFFDING

"Ethics" ("Ethik," 1887)

FOOTNOTES:

GEORG VON GIZYCKI

"Moral Philosophy" ("Moralphilosophie," 1889)

FOOTNOTES:

S. ALEXANDER

"Moral Order and Progress" (1889)

Statical Analysis—Moral Order

Dynamical Analysis—Moral Growth and Progress

FOOTNOTES:

APPENDIX TO PART I

PAUL REE

FOOTNOTES:

A REVIEW OF EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS

PART II

INTRODUCTION

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER I

THE CONCEPTS OF EVOLUTION

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER II

INTELLIGENCE AND "END"

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER III

THE WILL

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IV

THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THOUGHT, FEELING, AND WILL IN EVOLUTION

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER V

EGOISM AND ALTRUISM IN EVOLUTION

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VI

CONSCIENCE

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII

THE MORAL PROGRESS OF THE RACE AS SHOWN BY HISTORY

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIII

THE RESULTS OF ETHICAL INQUIRY ON AN EVOLUTIONAL BASIS

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IX

THE IDEAL AND THE WAY OF ITS ATTAINMENT

FOOTNOTES:

Works on Philosophy

PUBLISHED BY

MACMILLAN & CO

Отрывок из книги

Cora May Williams

Published by Good Press, 2019

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"In order to convince ourselves of the wonderful power of the sense of duty among animals, we need only to destroy an ant-hill. Immediately we see, in the midst of the destruction, thousands of zealous citizens employed, not in the rescue of their own precious lives, but in the protection of the beloved community to which they belong. Brave soldiers of the ant-state prepare to offer strong resistance to our intruding finger; instructors of youth rescue the so-called ant-eggs, the precious larvæ, on which the future of the state depends; busy workers immediately begin with undiminished courage to clear away the ruins and to prepare new dwellings. But the admirable state of civilization among these ants, among bees and other social animals, has been developed, just as has been our own, from the rudest beginnings.

"Even those finest and most beautiful forms of human emotion which we especially celebrate in poetry are to be found prefigured among the animals. Have not the tender mother-love of the lioness, the touching affection between male and female parrots, the self-sacrificing fidelity of the dog, been long proverbial? The noblest emotions of sympathy and love, which direct action, are here, as with human beings, nothing else than ennobled instinct." Beginning with this conception, the Ethics of Evolution has to seek for no new principle, but, on the contrary, to trace back the old rules of duty to their scientific basis. Long before the rise of all church-religion, these natural commandments regulated the lawful relations of human beings, as of gregarious animals. This significant fact the church-religions should utilize, instead of disputing. For the future does not belong to that Theology which declares war against the triumphant Theory of Evolution, but to that which makes it its own, acknowledges it, and turns it to advantage.

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