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.His physiological utilitarianism 10 constituted the point of departurefor any number of subsequent theorists regardless of whether, likeErnst Haeckel or Jean-Marie Guyau, they sought to elaborate his insights9Rée, Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen, p.128.10As the social Darwinist Alexander Tille described Spencer s ethics in Von Darwin bisNietzsche, p.72. 62 Evolutionfurther, or, like William Rolph, they took issue with his conclusions.Inthis respect, Nietzsche was no different from many of his contemporariesin using Spencer as the launch pad for his own physiological ethics (V 1,6[123]), a project that took shape between the years 1880 and 1883.ButNietzsche s thorough reading and ultimate rejection of the Data of Ethics,which he eventually acquired in 1880, had consequences not only for hismoral philosophy, but also for his understanding of the process of evolu-tion itself.Indeed, as we shall see, Nietzsche s own conception of evolu-tion is in many ways not only anti-Darwinian, but also anti-Spencerianin character.In what follows, I shall first outline the theory of behaviourwhich he develops in opposition to Spencer, and describe how he effec-tively turns on its head the British philosopher s conviction that evolutiontends towards the refinement of altruistic impulses.In the second halfof this chapter, I shall return to the concept of the social organism inorder to explicate Nietzsche s physiological definition of morality, demon-strating at the same time how the two loci of biological evolution which hedistinguishes the sovereign individual on the one hand and the herd orspecies on the other give rise to two conflicting forms of morality, a dis-tinction that clearly anticipates his more famous differentiation of masterand slave moralities in Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy ofMorals.Nietzsche contra SpencerWhen, in a note written in 1885, Nietzsche dismissed Spencer s workas a mixture of bêtise and Darwinism (VII 3, 35[34]), he was certainlyflying in the face of contemporary public opinion.Spencer may be littleread today many modern critics share Nietzsche s estimation of hisachievements but in his own time he enjoyed an unequalled reputa-tion, in Europe and especially in the United States, as the pre-eminent philosopher of the doctrine of Development.11 It was he, not Darwin,who popularised the term evolution and he who coined the phrase sur-vival of the fittest.Yet these are today his only legacies; by the time of hisdeath in 1903 the vast edifice of his Synthetic Philosophy an ambitious,somehow typically Victorian attempt to unify the sciences of biology, psy-chology, sociology and morality through the theory of evolution had11Alexander Bain, in a letter to Spencer, quoted in Richards, Darwin and the Emergence,p.244.Even Darwin himself hailed Spencer as our great philosopher (Descent of Man,vol.I, p.123).For recent appraisals of Spencer s thought, see: J.D.Y.Peel, HerbertSpencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (London: Heinemann, 1971); James G.Kennedy,Herbert Spencer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); Richards, Darwinand the Emergence, chapters 6 and 7; Peter J.Bowler, Herbert Spencers Idee der Evolu-tion und ihre Rezeption , in Eve-Marie Engels (ed.), Die Rezeption von Evolutionstheorienim 19.Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), pp.309 23. The physiology of morality 63already begun to crumble, not least because it rested on rather shaky,Lamarckian foundations.Nietzsche may have described Spencer s thought as a brand of Darwinism , but the latter s conception of Evolution (note the capital E !) which was adumbrated in his first major work, Social Statics, asearly as 1851, and elaborated further in his essays The DevelopmentHypothesis (1852) and Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857) has intruth very little in common with that of the author of The Origin of Species.Spencer believed that biological evolution was just one instance of a de-velopmental process unfolding on a cosmic scale, which he derived fromthe principle of the conservation of energy.Throughout the universe,matter and motion were being constantly redistributed [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.His physiological utilitarianism 10 constituted the point of departurefor any number of subsequent theorists regardless of whether, likeErnst Haeckel or Jean-Marie Guyau, they sought to elaborate his insights9Rée, Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen, p.128.10As the social Darwinist Alexander Tille described Spencer s ethics in Von Darwin bisNietzsche, p.72. 62 Evolutionfurther, or, like William Rolph, they took issue with his conclusions.Inthis respect, Nietzsche was no different from many of his contemporariesin using Spencer as the launch pad for his own physiological ethics (V 1,6[123]), a project that took shape between the years 1880 and 1883.ButNietzsche s thorough reading and ultimate rejection of the Data of Ethics,which he eventually acquired in 1880, had consequences not only for hismoral philosophy, but also for his understanding of the process of evolu-tion itself.Indeed, as we shall see, Nietzsche s own conception of evolu-tion is in many ways not only anti-Darwinian, but also anti-Spencerianin character.In what follows, I shall first outline the theory of behaviourwhich he develops in opposition to Spencer, and describe how he effec-tively turns on its head the British philosopher s conviction that evolutiontends towards the refinement of altruistic impulses.In the second halfof this chapter, I shall return to the concept of the social organism inorder to explicate Nietzsche s physiological definition of morality, demon-strating at the same time how the two loci of biological evolution which hedistinguishes the sovereign individual on the one hand and the herd orspecies on the other give rise to two conflicting forms of morality, a dis-tinction that clearly anticipates his more famous differentiation of masterand slave moralities in Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy ofMorals.Nietzsche contra SpencerWhen, in a note written in 1885, Nietzsche dismissed Spencer s workas a mixture of bêtise and Darwinism (VII 3, 35[34]), he was certainlyflying in the face of contemporary public opinion.Spencer may be littleread today many modern critics share Nietzsche s estimation of hisachievements but in his own time he enjoyed an unequalled reputa-tion, in Europe and especially in the United States, as the pre-eminent philosopher of the doctrine of Development.11 It was he, not Darwin,who popularised the term evolution and he who coined the phrase sur-vival of the fittest.Yet these are today his only legacies; by the time of hisdeath in 1903 the vast edifice of his Synthetic Philosophy an ambitious,somehow typically Victorian attempt to unify the sciences of biology, psy-chology, sociology and morality through the theory of evolution had11Alexander Bain, in a letter to Spencer, quoted in Richards, Darwin and the Emergence,p.244.Even Darwin himself hailed Spencer as our great philosopher (Descent of Man,vol.I, p.123).For recent appraisals of Spencer s thought, see: J.D.Y.Peel, HerbertSpencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (London: Heinemann, 1971); James G.Kennedy,Herbert Spencer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); Richards, Darwinand the Emergence, chapters 6 and 7; Peter J.Bowler, Herbert Spencers Idee der Evolu-tion und ihre Rezeption , in Eve-Marie Engels (ed.), Die Rezeption von Evolutionstheorienim 19.Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), pp.309 23. The physiology of morality 63already begun to crumble, not least because it rested on rather shaky,Lamarckian foundations.Nietzsche may have described Spencer s thought as a brand of Darwinism , but the latter s conception of Evolution (note the capital E !) which was adumbrated in his first major work, Social Statics, asearly as 1851, and elaborated further in his essays The DevelopmentHypothesis (1852) and Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857) has intruth very little in common with that of the author of The Origin of Species.Spencer believed that biological evolution was just one instance of a de-velopmental process unfolding on a cosmic scale, which he derived fromthe principle of the conservation of energy.Throughout the universe,matter and motion were being constantly redistributed [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]