The Faulty Ethics of Darwinism

By Jake Ramgren

I can already hear them.

This topic has been discussed to bits, and I know that if this post gets any relevancy and someone from the evolution side sees this title, their blood will boil, steam will come out of their ears, and they will say "evolution is JUST A THEORY. It's not supposed to determine our ethics or where we get morality! It belongs only in the realm of science, not philosophy or metaphysics or anything else!"

I guarantee many evolutionists think this way. Jerry Coyne, a rather well-known evolutionary biologist and friend of Richard Dawkins, wrote in his book Why Evolution is True (2009):

How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can't. Evolution is simply a theory about the process and patterns of life's diversification, not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life. It can't tell us what to do, or how to behave. And this is a big problem for many believers, who want to find in their story of our origins a reason for our existence, and a sense of how to behave.

This is all well and good, except that it isn't.

It might surprise Coyne to hear that it was not believers of Christianity who looked at Darwinism as a source of ethics or a philosophical framework. It was evolutionists. It's also in the name. Mere scientific theories don't get the suffix "-ism" (we don't say "Newtonism" or "Einsteinsim"). This seems reserved for philosophies especially when paired with a name (we do say Confucianism, Marxism, etc.).

So, let's take a look through history and see how Darwinists have explained human morality. For the sake of simplicity, let's define ethics and morality by the widely accepted "Golden Rule," which western civilizations tend to agree is a good moral practice and guideline (and which Scripture lays out in Matthew 7:12).

Attempts to justify ethics through evolution date back to Darwin's very own bulldog. No, not a pet bulldog, but an intellectual contemporary of Charles Darwin who earned that nickname because he was always willing to argue for Darwin's theory even when Charles Darwin wouldn't. His name was Thomas Huxley, and he gave a lecture titled "Evolution and Ethics" in 1893, and the transcript can still be read today.

He said, "Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it." In other words, ethical behavior is unnatural. It is a rebellion against natural selection, which favors selfish or unethical behavior. Huxley's solution is that we must all come together and act moral regardless, to fight back against the evolutionary mechanism that got us this far. He may not say it that way, but it's hard to read his speech and not make that conclusion. I suppose that could be inspiring to people who like being rebels ("let's follow the Golden Rule to fight the system!") but I can't help but think this gives humans a nice excuse to be selfish and not feel bad about it ("Sorry, sir, stealing that wallet was just me following my nature. 'Survival of the Fittest,' am I right?").

Fast forward a bit, and philosopher John Dewey (1859-1952) disputed Huxley's framework and took a stab at deriving ethics from evolution himself. Dewey was a pragmatist, which means he values what "works" more than what is "true." His impact on politics (he loved democracy and wanted it to govern everything) and education (he wanted to teach kids what works for them rather than what's true) is difficult to overstate. 

How did he explain morality from a foundation of Darwinism? Read on.

We have then no reason here to oppose the ethical process to the natural process. The demand is for those who are fit for the conditions of existence in one case as well as in the other. It is the conditions which have changed.

(Dewey, in an essay titled "Evolution and Ethics")

As you can see, Dewey believed evolution favored moral action only in scenarios where altruism is a good thing (such as in many societies). Morality is entirely circumstance-dependent. This means that if conditions favored selfish action, there is no objective morality that prevents you from acting selfish. The Golden Rule applies to sometimes but is not applicable in all times and situations. 

How can it be? What is the evolutionary benefit to helping others if you don't get helped out in return? Living in a particular society, then, makes altruism evolutionarily beneficial. Outside of these circumstances, morality is whatever benefits you.

Let's take a look at one more example, from a biologist who lived even more recently than Dewey. Famous biologist E.O. Wilson (1929-2021) wrote a book called The Meaning of Human Existence in which he wrote this encouraging reflection:

Humanity, I argue, arose entirely on its own through an accumulated series of events during evolution. We are not predestined to reach any goal, nor are we answerable to any power but our own. Only wisdom based on self-understanding, not piety, will save us. There will be no redemption or second chance vouchsafed to us from above. We have this one planet to inhabit and this one meaning to unfold.

So, if human wisdom is all we have, then where do we get our morality? What is the Golden Rule and why must we follow it? To Wilson, our moral decisions are a collision between two competing forces. On the one hand is the evolutionary advantage of benefiting yourself by acting selfish. On the other hand is the evolutionary advantage of benefiting your society by acting selfless. selfish individuals fair better than selfless individuals. But Societies full of selfless people survive better than societies that are full of selfish people (which is why societies must create law enforcement to add extra incentive to behave). Therefore, in his words, "The eternal conflict is not God’s test of humanity. It is not a machination of Satan. It is just the way things worked out."

Let's review.

Huxley believed ethics are a rebellion against evolution. Dewey argued ethics are an evolutionary biproduct of living in societies. Wilson went a little deeper, proposing that ethics is the evolutionarily beneficial drive to benefit the society, as opposed to unethical actions which are evolutionarily beneficial to the self. 

Notice what they all have in common?

They all descriptively explain why humans differentiate between altruistic and selfish behaviors. They also descriptively explain why we even prefer that people act altruistically. But none of these ethical frameworks prescriptively explain why humans should choose altruism over selfishness. If I choose today to act selfish and only look out for myself, none of these philosophers could justify saying why I am wrong.

And that's a problem.

No, I am not saying evolutionists or atheists cannot act morally. Sometimes, they put Christians to shame in this regard. The point is that the Darwinian worldview absent God cannot justify the morality most people (including Darwinists) try to live by. 

Scripture suggests all humans have the law of God written on their hearts. This gives Christians an objective source for morality. Christians have the ability (a superpower, really) to point to the words of Christ in an ancient but world-changing book and say "this is why we should act in this way." 

Not only can they do that, but they can also build civilizations based on these Biblical moral principles. Now, atheists are welcome to live by the same rules of morality, such as the Golden Rule. I want them to. You want them to. They usually want to. The problem is, their worldview cannot justify or endorse such moral behavior. It can't show how acting immoral is objectively wrong. They must borrow from the moral foundations of Christianity and then argue that evolution is merely a scientific theory and is therefore irrelevant to the question.

I'll let author and apologist Nancy Pearcy drive this home:

Our claim as Christians is that only a Biblically based worldview offers a complete and consistent explanation of why we are capable of knowing scientific, moral, and mathematical truths. Christianity is the key that fits the lock of the universe.

She goes on. As the kids say, "let her cook!"

Moreover, since all other worldviews are false keys, we can be absolutely confident, when talking with nonbelievers, that they themselves know things that are not accounted for by their own worldview--whatever that may be. Or, to turn it around, they will not be able to live consistently on the basis of their own worldview. Since their metaphysical beliefs do not fit the world God created, their lives will be more or less inconsistent with their beliefs. Living in the real world requires them to function in ways that are not supported by their worldview.

(Both quotes from Pearcey's book Total Truth, italics in original).