Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism

by James Rachels | Philosophy | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: Global Overview for this book
Registered by Vasha of Ithaca, New York USA on 9/16/2006
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Vasha from Ithaca, New York USA on Saturday, September 16, 2006
"Created from Animals argues that Darwinism does indeed undermine the traditional idea of human dignity, but that this is not a reason for rejecting Darwin's outlook. Instead, it is a reason for rejecting human dignity and replacing it with a better moral view. The result is a more enlightened ethic regarding both the value of human life and our treatment of non-human animals. The book's detailed presentation of this new ethic includes its specific consequences for such matters as suicide, euthanasia, and animal rights."

Journal Entry 2 by Vasha from Ithaca, New York USA on Monday, June 18, 2007
The first thing I would like to praise about this book is the elegance of its prose. I am currently reading the first chapter, which is an account of Darwin's theory and its historical context, oversimplified in a few respects but wonderfully clear. I've read this story many times, but Rachels' excellent telling keeps me interested.

Rachels introduces his own idea of Darwinian ethics with discussion of other serious attempts (which there turn out to have been surprisingly few of) to derive moral implications from evolution. The only one (of those he mentions) that is at all contemporary is "sociobiology"; he passes over it rather more briefly than it deserves, I think, devoting more lines to the forgotten and irrelevant Herbert Spencer. However, the discussion of sociobiology is fair as far as it goes, identifying real weaknesses, and of course Rachels doesn't fall into the trap of rejecting it simply because of the reactionary political messages some writers have derived from it. Here's his reply to simple-minded policy proposals based on notions of immutable human nature:

"One problem is that, while sociobiological results may be important for moral deliberation, they are important in a way that is different from what Wilson and his followers suggest. Suppose it were true that male dominance is an unavoidable consequence of human nature. It would not follow that feminist analysis of its evils is false. Feminists might still be right that women's lives are impoverished when they are consigned to an inferior social status. What would follow, perhaps, is that male dominance is ineradicable. But that would only be like discovering that a dread disease is forever incurable. We might have to live with that knowledge, but we surely would not be forced to think it a good thing. Nor would we have to cease our efforts to ameliorate the suffering of the disease's victims. Similarly, we could continue to regret male dominance, and we could go on trying to minimize its effect — by continuing to extend the legal protection of women's rights, by insisting that they be paid equal wages for equal work, and so on. Nothing in sociobiology could imply otherwise."

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The meat of the book is the rejection of the principle of "human dignity". St. Thomas Aquinas summed it up unimprovably:

"Of all parts of the universe, intellectual creatures hold the highest place, because they approach nearest to the divine likeness. Therefore the divine providence provides for the intellectual nature for its own sake, and for all others for its sake."

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