Editing Social Darwinism (section)

==Proponents==
[[File:Herbert Spencer.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Herbert Spencer]]]]
Herbert Spencer's ideas, like those of evolutionary progressivism, stemmed from his reading of Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were influenced by those of Darwin. However, Spencer's major work, ''Progress: Its Law and Cause'' (1857), was released two years before the publication of Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species'', and ''First Principles'' was printed in 1860.

In ''The Social Organism'' (1860), Spencer compares [[Organicism|society to a living organism]] and argues that, just as biological organisms evolve through natural selection, society evolves and increases in complexity through analogous processes.<ref>Spencer, Herbert. 1860. 'The Social Organism', originally published in ''The Westminster Review''. Reprinted in Spencer's (1892) ''Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative''. London and New York.</ref>

In many ways, Spencer's theory of cosmic evolution has much more in common with the works of [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck|Lamarck]] and [[Auguste Comte]]'s [[positivism]] than with Darwin's.

Jeff Riggenbach argues that Spencer's view was that culture and education made a sort of [[Lamarckism]] possible<ref name=Riggenbach/> and notes that Herbert Spencer was a proponent of private charity.<ref name=Riggenbach/> However, the legacy of his social Darwinism was less than charitable.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to Darwin|last=Paul|first=Diane B.|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0521771979|location=Cambridge|pages=227}}</ref>

[[File:Thomas Robert Malthus Wellcome L0069037 -crop.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Thomas Malthus]]]]
Spencer's work also served to renew interest in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work does not itself qualify as social Darwinism, his 1798 work ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', was incredibly popular and widely read by social Darwinists. In that book, for example, the author argued that as an increasing population would normally outgrow its food supply, this would result in the starvation of the weakest and a [[Malthusian catastrophe]].

According to [[Michael Ruse]], Darwin read Malthus' famous ''Essay on a Principle of Population'' in 1838, four years after Malthus' death. Malthus himself anticipated the social Darwinists in suggesting that charity could exacerbate social problems.

Another of these social interpretations of Darwin's biological views, later known as eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, the same could be said for mental qualities (genius and talent). Galton argued that social morals needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision, to avoid both the over-breeding by less fit members of society and the under-breeding of the more fit ones.

[[File:Francis Galton 1850s.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Francis Galton]]]]
In Galton's view, social institutions such as [[Social welfare provision|welfare]] and [[psychiatric hospital|insane asylums]] were allowing inferior humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors". Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of ''Descent of Man'' to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies restricting reproduction, due to their Whiggish distrust of government.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Hodge|editor-first1=Jonathan|editor-last2=Radick|editor-first2=Gregory|last1=Paul|first1=Diane|chapter-url=http://www.dianebpaul.com/uploads/2/3/2/9/23295024/darwin_social_darwinism_and_eugenics.pdf|chapter= Darwin, social Darwinism and eugenics |title=The Cambridge companion to Darwin|date=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0511998690|page=230}}</ref>

[[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s philosophy addressed the question of artificial selection, yet Nietzsche's principles did not concur with Darwinian theories of natural selection. Nietzsche's point of view on sickness and health, in particular, opposed him to the concept of biological adaptation as forged by Spencer's "fitness". Nietzsche criticized Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, sometimes under the same banner by maintaining that in specific cases, sickness was necessary and even helpful.<ref>Barbara Stiegler, ''Nietzsche et la biologie'', [[PUF]], 2001, p. 90. {{ISBN|2130507425}}. See, for ex., ''[[Genealogy of Morals]]'', III, 13 here [http://malaspina.edu/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogy3.htm#13] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090105194205/http://malaspina.edu/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogy3.htm#13|date=5 January 2009}}</ref> Thus, he wrote:

<blockquote>Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.<ref>[[Friedrich Nietzsche]], ''[[Human, All Too Human]]'', §224</ref> </blockquote>

[[Ernst Haeckel]]'s [[recapitulation theory]] was not Darwinism, but rather attempted to combine the ideas of [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], Lamarck and Darwin. It was adopted by emerging social sciences to support the concept that non-European societies were "primitive", in an early stage of development towards the European ideal, but since then it has been heavily refuted on many fronts.<ref name=Gilbert>{{cite web |url=http://8e.devbio.com/article.php?id=219 |title=Ernst Haeckel and the Biogenetic Law |access-date=3 May 2008 |author=Scott F. Gilbert |year=2006 |work=Developmental Biology, 8th edition |publisher=Sinauer Associates |quote=Eventually, the Biogenetic Law had become scientifically untenable. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080203072312/http://8e.devbio.com/article.php?id=219 |archive-date=3 February 2008 }}</ref> Haeckel's works led to the formation of the Monist League in 1904 with many prominent citizens among its members, including the Nobel Prize winner [[Wilhelm Ostwald]].

The simpler aspects of social Darwinism followed the earlier Malthusian ideas that humans, especially males, require competition in their lives to survive. Further, the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid. However, amidst this climate, most social Darwinists of the early 20th century actually supported better working conditions and salaries. Such measures would grant the poor a better chance to provide for themselves yet still distinguish those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bowler |first1=Peter |title=Malthus, Darwin, and Social Darwinism |journal=Encyclopedia of Life Sciences |date=15 September 2006 |doi=10.1002/9780470015902.a0005882 |isbn=978-0-470-01617-6 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9780470015902.a0005882 |access-date=19 March 2025}}</ref>