I. Basic Interpretation

If you are interested in learning more about Social Darwinism after reading Watson’s essay, please go to the Primary Source Documents to read some of the texts mentioned in the essay. Biographies of John Dewey, and Woodrow Wilson are also available. As you go back to the primary sources, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Apart from its impact on biology, why was Darwin’s Origin of Species a revolutionary book?
2. What does “Social Darwinism” have in common with Darwin’s original theories?
3. Why did the Social Darwinists think it was necessary to reject almost all traditional moral reasoning?
4. In the Social Darwinists’ texts, how do they demonstrate their intention to put thought about history and law on a “scientific” footing?
5. After rejecting traditional political reasoning, how do the Social Darwinists propose to go about making political and legal decisions?
6. What is Lester Frank Ward’s critique of Social Darwinist thought? Would he have considered himself a social Darwinist?
7. Why does William Graham Sumner deny that ethics have a role in politics?
8. How does Social Darwinism reduce philosophy “from the wholesale to the retail level,” according to John Dewey?

II. Connections to Other Thinkers

In order to understand Social Darwinism, it is important to place it in its proper context. Social Darwinists made a conscious break with the political and legal thought of the past, whether rejecting earlier ideas outright or interpreting them in Darwinian terms. As you learn more about Social Darwinism, consider how it interacts with the ideas of earlier and later thinkers.

1. John Dewey writes very dismissively of traditional moral and political thought, claiming that theorizing about the natural law is “a confession of inability to master the courses of things that specifically concern us.” This argument should put you in mind of the arguments of Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias, who argues that morality and law are ideas devised by the weak and powerless to assert control over reality. Do John Dewey and the other Social Darwinists really mean to argue for such a “genealogy of morals”? Do they agree with one another on the illegitimacy of moral arguments? Defend your conclusions with reference to the primary sources.
2. Thomas Hobbes, in his Leviathan, advances the idea of the state as a single organism, with the ruler and the subjects constituting its various parts. Many Social Darwinists similarly describe the nation as an organism. In your reading of the Social Darwinist thinkers in this section, do you see any similarities to Hobbes’s thought? Is the resemblance merely superficial, or are there correspondences between Hobbes’s theories about the sovereign and the Social Darwinists’ about the nation?
3. Political thinkers who discuss raison d’état, such as Machiavelli and Guicciardini, generally argue that a state is permitted, or even obliged, to do whatever is necessary for its survival and prosperity. Social Darwinists likewise argue that nations are obliged to grow and develop constantly. “Reason of state,” however, mainly referred to the decisions of rulers, while the Social Darwinists concerned themselves with the life of the whole people. Did the Social Darwinists merely propose a “democratized” version of raison d’état, or does their Darwinist thinking bring something fundamentally new to their understanding of history and politics?
4. Oliver Wendell Holmes infamously defended compulsory sterilization for “feeble-minded” persons in the case of Buck v. Bell, contending that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” In this, he was influenced by the thought of the Social Darwinists, with their emphasis on maintaining a healthy gene pool in society. Are involuntary sterilization, and other coercive means of altering a nation’s racial stock, natural consequences of a Social Darwinist viewpoint, or is this an extreme extrapolation of the Social Darwinists’ arguments? In your opinion, what might the Social Darwinists discussed in this section have to say about the judgment in Buck v. Bell?
5. It is characteristic of the Social Darwinists to engage in sweeping dismissals of all earlier moral and political thought, as when Lester Frank Ward declares that “philosophy has always been negative and nihilistic, and has always antagonized the common sense of mankind.” What does Ward mean by his description of earlier philosophy as “negative and nihilistic”? Is this description accurate? Many of the thinkers discussed on this website claimed that their philosophy was soundly based on common sense, and was an accurate guide to understanding and to action. How might they engage with Ward’s characterization of their thought?
6. William Graham Sumner describes moral opinion as “an opinion that a usage is favorable to welfare.” Aristotle similarly argued that what was virtuous for man was what promoted human flourishing. Yet Sumner is very clearly not an Aristotelian. What are the differences in worldview that cause Aristotle and Sumner to reach such different conclusions about morality and politics, starting from such a similar definition? Can these views be reconciled?
7. The Social Darwinists placed great emphasis on the importance of progress. Progressivists, however, typically argue that progress is necessary on account of some moral rule: that justice or equality demands a change in social structures. How is the “progress” advocated by Social Darwinists like and unlike the goals of progressives? What issues might they agree or disagree on?
8. W.E.B. Du Bois founds his argument against racist laws on the premises of Social Darwinism. He does not appeal to any inalienable rights that men of all races share, but he argues that, empirically, no race is inferior to any other. Compare this to the arguments for racial equality advanced by figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., who based their arguments on claims about a universal law. Compared to these, what advantages and disadvantages do you think Du Bois’s arguments have?

III. Critical Interpretation

With a basic understanding of the Social Darwinists, let us examine their ideas more critically. Can society and law be accurately described in Darwinian terms? Are the methods of the natural sciences useful for political and legal thought? Are there implications of Social Darwinism of which its proponents may not have been aware? Use the questions below as a guide:

1. In “The American Code,” Sumner describes what he believes to be the essential values of the American people, including “the rights of conscience, the equality of all men before the law, the separation of church and state, religious toleration, freedom of speech and of the press,” etc. Traditionally, Americans have argued that these values are either self-evident, or are rooted in sound moral and political principles: that is to say, these values are not merely popularly accepted, but generally valid also. Do Sumner’s Social Darwinist ideas allow him to defend these American views, or is he limited to stating that they have found wide acceptance in America? How might Social Darwinists go about arguing for or against a given moral or political value? Do their principles allow them to make such arguments?
2. Sumner argues that there are no universally valid political principles, but rather “views which prevail, at a time, for a while, and then fade away and give place to other views.” At the same time, he seems to argue that the Social Darwinist view of man and of society is the accurate one. In his view, is Social Darwinism also a view that will “fade away and give place to other views,” or is it true at all times and places? Why might Sumner not consider Social Darwinism to be as provisional and temporary as other political views?
3. Lester Frank Ward argues in Mind as a Social Factor that other Social Darwinists have been wrong to treat society and human life as a purely biological and material phenomenon. Our mental life as humans, he argues, puts us in a special category as rational beings. Analysis of human life, he argues, must take mind into account. Despite this, Ward is anxious to assert his belief in a Darwinist view of the world. Is his position tenable? Does Ward’s concept of mind differ from that of earlier theorists? If so, how? Has Ward reintroduced “metaphysics” into our understanding of politics?
4. Social Darwinism is based on the idea that the scientific conclusions of Darwinism have philosophical implications; that, after Darwin, all science and philosophy must be remade in a Darwinian form. John Dewey, for example, believes that Darwin has eliminated “permanency” from knowledge, and that universal, timeless truth must now be acknowledged to be an impossibility. Do you think this position can validly be inferred from Darwin’s claims? Did the Social Darwinists exaggerate the implications of the theory of evolution? In your opinion, can a Darwinian explanation of human origins be reconciled with a concept of natural law?
5. One of the themes of Social Darwinism is an insistence that human life and the life of human communities are natural processes that can be studied like any other. Almost all the Social Darwinists discussed in this section, however, believe that Social Darwinism supports some social arrangements more than others. If Social Darwinism is merely a way of describing and predicting empirical features of society, how can it support policy recommendations like Sumner’s call for laissez-faire economics? Do you think there are any hidden moral and political principles in the Social Darwinists’ thought?
6. Aristotle argues that an understanding of what is right for man can be derived from an understanding of the sort of thing man is, and therefore that natural law is derived from an understanding of nature. The Social Darwinists believe that their Darwinian science has given them an insight into nature that was not available to previous generations of thinkers. On a traditional understanding, a deeper understanding of nature ought to imply a deeper knowledge of the natural law. Why do the Social Darwinists argue that this is not the case?

IV. Connections to Contemporary Concerns

At the opening of the twentieth century, Social Darwinism was a prominent school of thought that had a great impact on our country’s laws. Even today, Darwin’s theory of natural selection and its philosophical implications continue to create controversy. Let us now turn to some contemporary issues that may shed light on Social Darwinism and its legacy in our society:

1. In recent American history, there has been a perennial debate over the legitimacy and efficacy of social welfare programs, in which some argue that the state has a responsibility to look after its citizens’ needs, and others argue that the state has no right to do for people what they ought to do for themselves. Some Social Darwinists argued that welfare programs were illegitimate because, by preserving members of society that could not preserve themselves, they allowed unfit members of society to survive, bypassing the law of the survival of the fittest that the Social Darwinists believed was the mechanism behind all progress. Do you see traces of Social Darwinism in some contemporary arguments about welfare? Do you think the Social Darwinists’ argument ought to be taken seriously, or is it too heartless to deserve our attention?
2. Throughout American history, proponents of social and political change have generally made an effort to cast their proposals in terms of generally accepted values and ideals. How might a Social Darwinist explain this? Is idealist language merely a smokescreen to hide the struggle for dominance that motivates all politics, as some Social Darwinists might suggest? Are there elements in American politics that seem to defy the claims of the Social Darwinists?
3. Social Darwinists generalize a rule from biology to serve as a general principle by which to interpret history. Just as animals struggle to survive and dominate their environment, so also political institutions, races, and ideals struggle for control of the world. Does it follow from this argument that nations should work to spread their culture, ideals, and government as broadly as possible? Can the spread of American culture around the world, and American efforts to establish democracies in other countries, be explained in terms of Social Darwinism? Do you think such an explanation tells the whole story?
4. The basic insight of Social Darwinism is that society and politics ought to be understood in the model of organisms’ struggle to survive. In nature, however, the struggle to survive is often brutal, and takes place in the absence of any regulating principles or laws. Consider for a moment what a social system based on Social Darwinism would look like. Some Social Darwinists, like Lester Frank Ward, did not advocate society’s emulation of the brutal competition of nature. Is there an inherent tension between the tenets of Social Darwinists and the advocacy by some of its followers for social engineering to solve social problems? In your opinion, what changes to our common understandings of law and politics would be necessary in order to bring them into line with the worldview of the Social Darwinists?