Conclusion

Abstract

Since its advent in the mid-nineteenth century Darwinism has stirred up debate about many questions touching the very heart of human existence. Not least among these is: How should we live? While many philosophers and theologians ruled this question outside the purview of science, most prominent advocates of Darwinian theory—including biologists, physicians, social theorists, and popularizers—believed Darwinism had far-reaching ramifications for ethics and morality. Many argued that by providing a naturalistic account of the origin of ethics and morality, Darwinism delivered a death-blow to the prevailing Judeo-Christian ethics, as well as Kantian ethics and any other fixed moral code. If morality was built on social instincts that changed over evolutionary time, then morality must be relative to the conditions of life at any given time. Darwinism— together with other forms of historicism ascendant in the nineteenth century—thus contributed to the rise of moral relativism.