We explain what social Darwinism is and where it came from. We also explain the history of this set of theories and the theoretical problems it poses.
Herbert Spencer was the founder of social Darwinism.
What is social darwinism?
Social Darwinism is the name given to a series of sociological, economic and political ideas of a biological and evolutionary nature. These claim that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution has social applications. Because of this claim, social Darwinism is considered to be a form of biological reductionism.
Social Darwinism He argues that abundance and economic wealth correspond to the strongest due to their good biological adaptation.while those who are biologically weak see their power and wealth naturally decrease. This is a justification for the aggressiveness of liberal society, as well as a pseudoscientific attempt to explain economic and social class differences.
This school of sociological thought began with the philosophy of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), an English naturalist, sociologist, philosopher and anthropologist. Spencer is considered the father of social Darwinism. and he was the first theorist to seek the bases of morality in biological evolution, extrapolating Darwin’s evolutionary theory to the field of sociology.
Spencer’s work, like other forms of social Darwinism, has been received controversially. Although it was strongly received at its origins, due to its assimilation to fascism, social Darwinism has been largely rejected by most intellectuals in early twentieth-century Europe. Authors such as Gyorgy Lukács (1885-1971) have connected social Darwinism with the racism that preceded it and the fascism that followed.
Key points
- Social Darwinism is a theory that uses Darwin’s evolutionary ideas to explain sociological issues.
- The founder of this school of thought is Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English naturalist and sociologist.
- The central ideas of social Darwinism include the survival of the fittest and the idea of natural selection.
Origin of the term “social darwinism”
The origin of the term “social Darwinism” is controversial. While it is true that its main theorist was Spencer, Many authors of the time developed ideas similar to Spencer’s.mainly due to the context in which they wrote. Some of them were Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and Francis Galton (1822-1911).
Social Darwinism takes its name from Darwin’s theory. Indeed, the set of theories is named for its tendency to extrapolate Darwinian evolutionary and natural selection theories to the study of society by sociologists and economists.
The use of the term “Darwinism” comes from the article published by Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895) in his 1861 commentary on The origin of speciesby Charles DarwinThe phrase “social Darwinism” first appeared in Joseph Fisher’s 1877 article entitled The history of land ownership in IrelandHowever, it was not until 1944 that the term became popular in the United States thanks to the American historian Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970).
History of social darwinism
Social Darwinism has its origins in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. Darwin’s ideas meant the definitive abandonment of the theories of fixism (the conception of the world as a fixed and immutable reality since its creation) and gave way to the idea of natural selection and evolution of species.
Herbert Spencer, however, maintained that the idea arose from his own work and was not an extrapolation of Darwin’s work.This is true to the extent that Spencer’s work was influenced by the work of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and by the theory of Lamarckism. Lamarckism is the term used to refer to the theory of evolution developed by the Count of Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste Pierre de Monet (1744-1829).
Most of those who adhere to social Darwinism do not use the term to refer to their ideas. This is because there are numerous definitions of it, many of which are even incompatible with each other. Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics argues that part of the difficulty in establishing proper and common usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and survival of the fittest does not imply political commitment. Thus, A social Darwinist could be a socialist, an imperialist or a domestic eugenicist..
On the other hand, the term “Darwinism” includes a series of evolutionary points of view whose meaning was shifted by Spencer towards the “survival of the fittest”. Most of these ideas, generally referred to when speaking of “social Darwinism”, have their origin in works prior to Darwin’s work, so a direct connection should not be understood linked to the use of the term.
The theoretical problem of social Darwinism
Social Darwinism theoretically contains some contradictory points that relate to two central aspects of Darwin’s theory. The first refers to survival by natural selection. The second, subsumed in the first, refers to the “competitive” behavior of individuals of the same species to find food, escape predators or generate offspring. This is what is known as “survival of the fittest.” However, it was not Darwin but Spencer who coined the term “survival of the fittest” in his book Principles of Biology (1864).
- Fallacy of equivalenceThe first contradictory point is linked to the claim that the survival of the human species by natural selection is equivalent to the survival of other animal species. This is wrong: the only current human species is the dominant one on the scale of predation over the rest of the living species on the planet. There is no struggle to maintain the species against other animal species. Appealing to this argument is a fallacy of equivalence.
- Naturalistic logical fallacyHuman societies are governed by their own laws, whereas animals are governed by natural laws determined by instinct. Prescribing the natural world to the social world means that something “being” implies something “should be”. Thus, from a description –being–, a prescription –should– would be derived. This is a naturalistic logical fallacy.
References
- Vicén, FG (1984). Social Darwinism: Spectrum of an ideology. Yearbook of Philosophy of Law, (1), 163-176.
- Espina, A. (2005). Presentation: Social Darwinism: from Spencer to Bagehot. Kings, (110), 175-187.
- Calvo, BB (2012). Economic liberalism and social Darwinism. On the figure of Herbert Spencer. Astrolabio: international journal of philosophy, 47-54.
- Pérez, JLM (2009). The ideology of “social Darwinism”: the social policy of Herbert Spencer (I). Labor Documentation, (87), 11-80.
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