This book is a collection of essays on moral philosophy by Frances Power Cobbe. The essays are based on her critical scrutiny of Charles Darwin's theories and their impact on moral and ethical values. Cobbe's analysis of Darwin's work contributes to the debate on the compatibility of science and religion, and how we should define morality in a secular age. Her arguments are still relevant today and offer a stepping stone for readers looking to learn more about this delicate and ever-evolving subject. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ... essay vii. A pre-historic religion.1 Ancient History, it has been well said, tends continually more to become the History, not of Facts, but of Opinions and Sentiments. What actually occurred at any given time and place, what deeds were done, what words were spoken, what were the characters of the actors of each scene, grows ever more doubtful as we are enabled to check one narrative by another; or to apply to the antique chronicle the rules by which we determine the value of modern evidence. But on the other hand, the common Belief of contemporary and succeeding generations concerning those doubtful things said and done, and the feelings, whether of admiration or of contempt, wherewith they regarded the actors and speakers, are matters very plainly revealed to us, and afford to the student of human nature his best and safest materials. In proportion as such a view of the proper scope of ancient history becomes recognized, and books are written more carefully collating and delicately weighing the indices of opinion and feeling, and expending less time in disquisitions over irrecoverable details of facts, it may be hoped that there will arise for us quite a new aspect of the old world. We shall live again--not with the few who acted its great dramas of war and conquest, but with the many who looked on at them at lesser or further distance, and felt their hearts beat, like our own, with triumph and regret, love and detestation. We shall learn, not what Theseus and Regulus did, but what were the types of character which the whole Greek and Roman nations set up as their ideals. We shall acquire a true knowledge, not of the History of the Six Days of Creation or of the Exodus, but of what the Hebrews in the time of their kings believed about...

The philosophically most challenging science today, arguably, is no longer physics but biology. It is hardly an exaggeration to state that Charles Darwin has shaped modern evolutionary biology more significantly than anyone else. Moreover, since Darwin's day, philosophers and scientists have realized the enormous philosophical potential of Darwinism and have tried to expand his insights well beyond the limits of biology. However, no consensus has been achieved. The aim of this collection of essays is to revive a comprehensive discussion of the meaning and the philosophical implications of "Darwinism." The contributors to Darwinism and Philosophy are international scholars from the fields of philosophy, science, and history of ideas. A strength of this collection is that it brings together sustained reflection from American and Continental philosophical traditions. The conclusions of the contributors vary, but taken together their essays successfully map the problems of interpreting "Darwinism."