The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Alexander - Natural Selection in Morals
Natural selection operates in morals and politics as well as in the vegetable and animal worlds, but with differences that have caused it to be misunderstood. In the former it is a struggle, not of lives, but of ideals. The reformer represents a plan of conduct that is a variation from the typical plan. A struggle ensues, the old unmodified plans of life succumb under the influence of persuasion or education. A new demarcation between good and evil results; indeed, this is the name given to the victory of one plan over its competitors. The success of a moral ideal, however, is not the cause, but only the proof of its goodness. Society as a whole may be compared to a genus of which the individual members are specimens. Because each one's plan of life is social, it appeals in some degree to the rest. The gradual transition from the struggle between individuals to the struggle between plans, is clearly traceable in the history of toleration. In more modern times it appears in conflicts over the theory of punishment. In reality, natural selection is on the side of those who pity rather than hate crime. Punishment is a weapon in the conflict of plans, a means of persuasion rather than of extermination. So, too, the ideas of the French Revolution were spread by armies; at present democratic ideas are spread by persuasion. Natural selection offers no reason why every member of society should not be preserved and helped to live as effectively as he can. At the present time it is at work not so much in the fierce competition of business as in the struggle between the two rival systems of competition and collectivism.