Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays [Paperback]

Thomas H. Huxley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2003

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: IndyPublish.com (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1404349650
• ISBN-13: 978-1404349650
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,706,409 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Where is "Science and Morals"?, August 11, 2008

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Evolution and Ethics, and Other Essays (Kindle Edition)

IF you are curious to read this collection of essays, I would suggest looking elsewhere. While most of the essays are correct, "Science and Morals" is completely - and erroneously - missing from this collection. It is replaced by an essay called "Natural Selection not Inconsistent With Natural Theology," and simply slipped in under the title of "Science and Morals."

To compound the difficulty with this edition, there is no formal 'Table of Contents.' To get to a certain essay, one literally needs to scroll through the entire book. One cannot simply click on an essay title in the table of contents and go to that essay. (One would really suspect that, as this is simply a copy of the Gutenberg Project's file, amazon might have put some work in and created a table of contents in order to justify that $1+ hike in price. (Why not just get it from Gutenberg for free?)

Other than that, this is an interesting essay collection and I must confess that the second essay - in which Huxley works at convincing us that the "secondary cause" of evolution does not rule out belief in the "primary cause" opf God - is interesting. Like the rest of the collection, it is just-as-relevant today as it was when first published.

The rest of the essays deal primarily with Huxley's desire to seperate himself with the then-in-vogue philosophy of social darwinism. Contra this, Huxley argues that while nature is, by itself, morally neutral, we must not see human morals as artificial, but as a legitimate part of the natural fabric. And so much about our moral sentiments and laws of civil society show us that our morals often contrast sharply with the social darwinist ethic of "survival of the fittest," and the brute struggle for existence.

This seeming contradiction only arises because, unlike Spencer and Sumner, Huxley was unwilling to regard our moral sentiments - even those that contradict the evolutionary struggle for existence - as unreal or unworthy of serious consideration. Instead, Huxley prefigured sociobiology and group selection theory by suggesting that altruistic sentiments are just as much an evolutionary product as selfish ones; which one is the morally correct one is the domain of philosophy rather than science.

Unfortunately, this essay collection does not contain SCIENCE AND MORALS. If you can get hold of that essay - supposed to be read with EVOLUTION AND ETHICS - it takes on a similar theme. There, Huxley is concerned with distancing himself from social darwinism in another way: denying that he is, like Spencer, a crass mateiralist. In this essay, Huxley defends the view that the 'intangibles' such as morals, the joys of art and music, consciousness, and free-will, are just as real as material things. Will science be able to explain consciousness one day? Perhaps, but that does not mean - as many present theoriests say - that consciousness is reducible; it simply is. In this sense, Huxley even goes so far as to call himslef an idealist of a Berkleyan bent.

These essays, I think, are supposed to be read togetehr because the view of EoE is simply an outgrowth of the thoughts in SaM. Huxley sees evolution as amoral, and only sees society as somewhat 'transcending' evolution because he is unwilling to suggest that morals that contradict the 'laws of evolution' as illusory, unreal, or not worthy of being considered seriously. He is not as scientistic as Spencer and the like in that.

This is a great work for anyone fascinated, as I am, in the history of the moral controversey surrounding evolution and sceintists' reactions to social darwinism and deriving moral conclusions from amoral facts. But I cannot give it any more than two stars, as it is missing SCIENCE AND MORALS which I think is essential for unnderstanding why Huxley takes the stance he does towards evolution, ethics, and why the latter need not be gotten from the former.