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This article deals with the literary contributions of the overlooked writer Dolorosa (a pseudonym for Maria Eichhorn), examining her work in conjunction with the eugenic and abortion debates prevalent in early twentieth‐century Germany. I analyse two of Dolorosa's novels, Unfruchtbarkeit (1905) and Die Starken (1907), and contextualise them within a broader artistic, cultural, and scientific milieu characterised by a pervasive emphasis on Social Darwinist principles of survival struggle. I also explore how the glorification of strength and competition was gendered during this period: men were often associated with attributes of power and conflict, while women were characterised by selfless and benevolent traits due to their maternal roles. In contrast to many feminists of her time who utilised eugenic ideals of motherhood to advocate for emancipation, Dolorosa diverges from the male‐dominated narrative surrounding survival struggle. Rather than reinforcing the legitimacy of the new ethics of the 'right of the strong', Dolorosa's portrayal of mothers grappling for survival prompts critical questioning of these emerging ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization (WHO) identified +65 individuals as one of the most vulnerable populations in the current pandemic. Previous research has shown a robust association between ageism and derogatory attitudes and behaviors targeting older people. We proposed that reluctance of people under age 65 to endorse the policies that benefit older adults can be further explained by their adherence to social Darwinism. We tested a mediation model to examine whether social Darwinism would predict support for policies directly and indirectly through the endorsement of ageist attitudes. We conducted two correlational studies in Turkey (Study 1; N = 1261) and the United States (Study 2; N = 210). In Study 1, we collected data through social media and messaging platforms in April 2020. In Study 2, participants were recruited via Prolific Academic in May 2020. In both studies, we found that adherence to social Darwinist beliefs negatively predicted support for policies. We also found that this association was positively mediated by ageist attitudes. Overall, our research contributes to the scholarly effort to identify the social‐psychological barriers to public support for legal initiatives aimed to secure a healthy and productive future for older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on three focuses on American culture during the latter half of the 19th century, specifically Social Darwinism, pragmatism, and the industrialization of the American Dream. The author discusses national value systems, explores how these shape public policies, and explores the relationship to American expansion.

Old age has been central to public health rationalities and contestations of the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic. This article thinks through what age is and does in pandemic times by juxtaposing four domains of ethical publicity in which age comes to matter: (1) mass fatality of old persons under conditions of variable unpreparedness; (2) circulation of social‐Darwinist argument for herd immunity through culling of the weak; (3) everyday challenges of late life care as these are amplified under quarantine; and (4) long‐term conditions of economic and political impasse and environmental collapse, experienced as failure of older generations and abandonment of younger ones, a situation here termed generational affect. It asks to what extent the figure of the cullable old renders racialized disparities natural and makes sense through a generational affect in which the world feels as if the survival of the young is in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archdeacon Charles F. Mackenzie ministered in the diocese of Natal in South Africa from 1855 to 1859. The early days of the diocese and the colony of Natal were characterized by conflict both inside and outside the church. The church conflict of Bishop John Colenso is perhaps most infamous. Mackenzie attempted to navigate this space and minister to settlers, soldiers, and Africans alike. This article draws on primary sources to explore the life and times of Mackenzie and argues that despite Mackenzie's remarkable story, the inseparability of coloniality from the missionary endeavour, racism, and the civilizing narrative was inescapable. Racism has evolved and is still a challenge for many churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military, commercial, and industrial application of artificial intelligence (AI) presents distinct historical challenges for theological reasoning. To date, interdisciplinary theological responses have been limited. Contextual and ecological theologies provide an understanding of the human that is helpful in theological responses to AI. These theologies emphasize a relational, embodied view of the human that responds to and resolves many of the shortcomings found in AI research and related theological responses. Sallie McFague's emphasis on embodiment and the world as God's body is an especially useful contribution to these efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyberspace communication is a key driving force of the neoliberal globalization that has led to worldwide crisis. Despite some positive perspectives, cyberspace communication has played a crucial role in the dominance of global markets by transnational corporations. The ethical foundations of the problematics of cyberspace communication lie in a social Darwinism that leads to ruthless competition based on egoistic morality. This article posits the notion of love as an alternative ethics, drawing on perspectives of Christian love (especially those of US ethicist Paul Ramsey) as unselfish love for others, as well as on East Asian traditions of love (such as Buddhist compassion, Confucian jen, and Korean jung). The article argues that unselfish love offers a perspective to overcome an anthropocentric perspective of communication. In this way, human beings can build a community with all living beings and develop harmonious relationships with them to live together on the earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the use of a revised conception of social evolutionary theory towards an understanding of nationalism. First, I review the debate between ethno‐symbolism and modernism, through the lens of the Warwick Debate between Gellner and Smith, arguing that both are partly right. Secondly, I outline what the revised conception of social evolution is looking first at its traditional conception before outlining a Darwinian view of social evolutionary theory. Finally, I examine how Darwinian social evolutionary theory can help fruitfully bring the ethno‐symbolic and modernist perspectives together. This is done by a sustained engagement primarily with the theories of Anthony Smith and Ernest Gellner pointing to how Darwinian social evolutionary theory can provide a link between the two theories that makes them mutually supportive rather than opposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the rhetorical deployment of Darwinian natural selection by the Jewish social philosopher Horace M. Kallen (1882-1974), in what is now widely regarded as the first articulation of cultural pluralism, 'Democracy versus the Melting-Pot' (1915). My analysis proceeds in two steps. First, I identify specific strategies by means of which Kallen endeavored to insert his ideas more deeply into national discourse. I also trace reactions to his essay in the Jewish press, and argue that these indicate ongoing conversations concerning Kallen's ideas, and they also reveal how he was reinterpreted for different reading audiences. Second, I argue that Kallen's strategy was to stress the survival value of cooperation rather than competition in natural selection, and he believed that this view supported both the natural biological inclinations of social groups and reflected American democratic values. Kallen's intervention serves as a striking example of how Darwinian natural selection was deployed to support Jewish participation in American life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses recent claims about the compatibility of the sociobiological theory of reciprocal altruism with standard Western formulations of the Golden Rule. Derek Parfit claims that the theory of reciprocal altruism teaches us to be 'reciprocal altruists,' who benefit only those people from whom we can reasonably expect benefits in the future. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, teaches us to benefit anyone regardless of their intention or ability to return the favor, or as Parfit puts it, the Golden Rule teaches us to be 'suckers.' I argue that this distinction is founded on a misconception of the nature of the theory of reciprocal altruism, which is sociobiological as opposed to moral, and that this distinction accordingly confuses is with ought. Sociobiological theories may explain underlying psychological motivations in individuals (and perhaps even in populations), but these theories do not prescribe any sort of moral behavior. Furthermore, the theory of reciprocal altruism does not imply mental states of which agents are aware. The unconscious motivations assumed by this theory are in fact compatible with certain formulations of the Golden Rule; I will accordingly argue for the view that certain words with moral content related to the Golden Rule-such as 'altruism' and 'selfishness'-exist only insofar as they are social tools, which can further the self-interests of an individual in any group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers patriotism and manliness in a long chronology from the Victorian period to the 1930s. It begins with a discussion of Victorian manliness, built upon Christian gentility and Social Darwinism. It argues that the Great War activated traditional notions of patriotism but then tested them to the utmost. Nothing could prepare men adequately for the Western Front, where they learnt about fear and in a good many cases shell shock. Many displayed endurance, going through a process of psychic development. For those at home the ideology of heroism sufficed. It was in the aftermath of the war that the Victorian ideology of manliness was gradually transformed, as veterans wrote their memoirs and reflected upon how their masculinity had been created. If the Great War was the apotheosis of Victorian manhood, in its aftermath, during the 1920s and 1930s, survivors began to reconstruct their identity in the light of their experience as young men going to war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of climate change, focusing on ecoethical individualism regarding climatic ethics. It talks about ecologization of ethics, climate responsibility, and the science of human cooperation. Topics include principle of historical responsibility, negative moral emotions felt by people in relation to climate change, and the need for citizens to participate in politics. It mentions the interpretation of evolutionary theory and Darwinism as social Darwinism.

An introduction is presented in which the editors discusses topics addressed within the issue, including scarcity, sustainable design, and architecture in relation to scarcity.

The once world-famed philosophy of Herbert Spencer is the most thoroughly developed version of what is commonly but misleadingly termed 'Social Darwinism'. It will be argued that Spencer confers upon time a super-objectivity within which his own political preferences appear to lie beyond historical time, hence as not subject to politics but as a frame within which only a restricted range of political choices appear to be available. Using the example of Spencer, it is then asked how an ideology may be identified not only as effect and as process but also as to its 'mechanism'. In everyday life, how is ideology done? It is suggested that the mechanism lies not on the plane of the signified but on that of the signifier, in what will be termed a 'dark performative' use of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the use of the term ‘race’ as a corpus of racial theories sustained by scientific knowledge of biological human evolution in late nineteenth-century Mexico. It also explores how scientific and political discourses have constructed equivalent notions of race and national subjects, and how racial thought is imbedded in nation-building processes within the context of knowledge and social differentials in Mexico's national history. This is carried out through an examination of the second chapter of the second volume of Mexico a través de los siglos (Mexico Throughout the Centuries), by Mexican historian Vicente Riva Palacio (1832–1896), seen through the perspective of cultural history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our understanding of broad taxonomic patterns of plant naturalizations is based entirely on observations of successful naturalizations. Omission of the failures, however, can introduce bias by conflating the probabilities of introduction and naturalization. Here, we use two comprehensive datasets of successful and failed plant naturalizations in New Zealand and Australia for a unique, flora-wide comparative test of several major invasion hypotheses. First, we show that some taxa are consistently more successful at naturalizing in these two countries, despite their environmental differences. Broad climatic origins helped to explain some of the differences in success rates in the two countries. We further show that species with native relatives were generally more successful in both countries, contrary to Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis, but this effect was inconsistent among families across the two countries. Finally, we show that contrary to studies based on successful naturalizations only, islands need not be inherently more invasible than continents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the neglected aspect of Charles Darwin's evolutionary explanation as it is applied beyond science. It first describes Social Darwinism as a philosophical position, then lists arguments for and against it. It also analyzes whether evolutionary explanation can be used to explain some issues related to ethics and society. Drawing from the analysis, the author concludes that using Darwinism as an explanation of ethics or society with regard to intentional state is impotent.

The Nazi's cornerstone precept of "racial hygiene" gave birth to their policy of "racial cleansing" that led to the murders of millions. It was developed by German physicians and scientists in the late 19th century and is rooted in the period's Social Darwinism that placed blacks at the bottom of the racial ladder. This program was first manifested in the near-extermination of the African Herero people during the German colonial period. After WWI, the fear among the German populace that occupying African troops and their Afro-German children would lead to "bastardization" of the German people formed a unifying racial principle that the Nazis exploited. They extended this mind-set to a variety of "unworthy" groups, leading to the physician-administered racial Nuremberg laws, the Sterilization laws, the secret sterilization of Afro-Germans, and the German euthanasia program. This culminated in the extermination camps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Richardson (2002, 2004) argues that Nietzsche’s use of teleological notions, such as the “will to power” and psychological “drives,” can be naturalized within the Darwinian framework of natural selection. Although this ambitious project has merit, the Darwinian framework does not provide the strong teleology necessary to interpret Nietzsche’s explanatory project. Examining the logic of selection, the conceptual limitations on biological functions, and the evidential demands that must be met to deploy evolutionary theory show that Nietzsche’s explanatory project does not cohere with the Darwinian framework. Thus, coherence with currently accepted evolutionary theory should not constrain the philosophical project of interpretation in this case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of the concept of the outgroup as a biological threat, and the relationship of this concept to the practice of genocide. The biopolitical discourse which emerged in the modern period made the practice of genocide conceivable, and constructed genocide as justifiable and as necessary. Two developments in the modern period are highlighted: firstly, the conception of the boundaried and ethnically homogenous nation-state, and secondly, new biological theories about race, and about the spread of disease. Discourse emerging from the biological sciences dehumanised outgroups both literally and metaphorically. This dehumanisation, in combination with the ideal of the homogenous nation-state and the new technologies of population, provided a justification and a motivation for genocide, and a model of implementation. Conceptions of the nature of dehumanisation as a process are examined, with specific reference to the role of language and metaphor, and to concepts of hygiene, purity and contamination. Particular attention is paid to eugenics and Social Darwinism, to the role of physicians in genocide, and to the relationship between medical and military vocabularies. The features of this discourse, its persistence, and its commonality in otherwise widely different genocidal episodes, are exposed through an examination of four twentieth-century genocides (Armenia, Nazi genocide, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslavia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avataric evolutionism is the idea that ancient Hindu myths of Vishnu's ten incarnations foreshadowed Darwinian evolution. In a previous essay I examined the late nineteenth-century origins of the theory in the works of Keshub Chunder Sen and Madame Blavatsky. Here I consider two major figures in the history of avataric evolutionism in the early twentieth century, N. B. Pavgee, a Marathi Brahmin deeply involved in the question of Aryan origins, and Aurobindo Ghose, political activist turned mystic. Pavgee, unlike Keshub, used avataric evolutionism in expounding his nationalistic goals for an independent India. His rationale was bolstered by the idea that India was the fountainhead of all science and civilization. Aurobindo saw in avataric evolutionism a possible key to understanding the involution and evolution of the supreme spirit in the realm of matter as taught in traditional Vedanta. This material-spiritual evolution represented for Aurobindo the necessary knowledge for the true liberation of India, transcending purely political independence. Such knowledge he also saw as the means for the spiritual liberation of the whole of humankind. The processes of involution and evolution he claimed were not in conflict with modern science, and Western evolutionary thinking seems to have inspired many of his own evolutionary reflections, even though in the end he rejected the Darwinian transmutation of species. I conclude with an overview and assessment of recent, post-colonial Hindu assimilations of avataric evolutionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is morality biologically altruistic? Does it imply a disadvantage in the struggle for existence? A positive answer puts morality at odds with natural selection, unless natural selection operates at the level of groups. In this case, a trait that is good for groups though bad (reproductively) for individuals can evolve. Sociobiologists reject group selection and have adopted one of two horns of a dilemma. Either morality is based on an egoistic calculus, compatible with natural selection; or morality continues tied to psychological and biological altruism but not as a product of natural selection. The dilemma denies a third possibility—that psychological altruism evolves as a biologically selfish trait. I discuss the classical treatments of the paradox by Charles Darwin ([1871] 1989) and Robert Trivers (1971), focusing on the role they attribute to social emotions. The upshot is that both Darwin and Trivers sketch a natural-selection process relying on innate emotional mechanisms that render morality adaptive for individuals as well as for groups. I give additional reasons for viewing it as a form of natural, instead of only cultural, selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the family ancestries for the cultural geographical studies. Topics such as Relational dynamics between place and culture, Berkeley School's review of cultural geography, environmental determinism, cultural landscape, inter-disciplinary nature of these studies, and others are also discussed. The author emphasizes the development of a concept of 'Social Determinism' that can help analyze the cross-cultural geographical studies more effectively.

This essay pushes the discussion of biology and altruism in radical directions by highlighting the moral ambiguity of biology itself. The extent to which we draw positive moral implications from animal behavior, and even the extent to which we see positive traits in animals, is shaped by the preconceptions and the purposes one brings to the study. These preconceptions, when examined, involve worldview issues that are all related in one way or another to either a theological position or some nontheistic substitute for an account of ultimate reality. It is arguable that Darwin's own perceptions of nature were colored by the theological and social-ethical context in which he worked. William Paley's natural theology, together with Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, led many theologians of Darwin's day to conclude that struggle, inequality, suffering, and death are basic features of the natural world and are the result of divine providence. No wonder, then, that Darwin was able to see competition as the major key to natural selection. The moral ambiguity of biology can be pressed further by contrasting contemporary attempts to find altruism in animal behavior with the conclusions reached by Friedrich Nietzsche, partly in response to his reading of Darwin. Nietzsche concluded that the standard, more or less Christian, morality of his day is best labeled “slave morality. ” It is created by the weak in order to coerce the strong to provide for them. In this essay I contend that competing views of morality can be adjudicated only by turning to an account of ultimate reality. Whether Nietzsche is right in arguing against the morality of altruism depends on whether God is indeed dead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-Darwinian theories of cultural evolution are apt to be criticized on the grounds that they merely borrow from the theory of natural selection concepts that are then metaphorically applied to conventional historical narratives to which they add no more, if anything, than an implicit presupposition of progress from one predetermined stage to the next. Such criticisms, of which a particularly forceful example is a recent article in this journal by Fracchia and Lewontin, can however be shown to be seriously misconceived. The fundamental process of heritable variation and competitive selection of information affecting phenotype underlies both biological and cultural evolution despite the obvious differences between the mechanisms of information transfer by genetic inheritance and by exosomatic imitation and learning. Information transfer is in neither case a metaphor standing for any other thing, and in neither case does change over time proceed in accordance with developmental laws from which the future evolution of either species or cultures could be predicted in advance. For all the unresolved questions that remain, neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has demonstrated the mutual compatibility of idiographic and nomothetic explanation in the study of species and of cultures alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a partial history of the term “Social Darwinism”. Using large electronic databases, it is shown that the use of the term in leading Anglophone academic journals was rare up to the 1940s. Citations of the term were generally disapproving of the racist or imperialist ideologies with which it was associated. Neither Herbert Spencer nor William Graham Sumner were described as Social Darwinists in this early literature. Talcott Parsons (1932, 1934, 1937) extended the meaning of the term to describe any extensive use of ideas from biology in the social sciences. Subsequently, Richard Hofstadter (1944) gave the use of the term a huge boost, in the context of a global anti-fascist war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the book "Pop. 1280," by Jim Thompson. In the book, the narrator and principal character, Nick Corey, is a sociopathic small-town sheriff whose actions are born from social Darwinism, messianic delusion and an inclination to spectacular violence. Corey is not a renegade resistant to social contamination and bureaucratic limitations, but a confused genius interested in destruction and his ethics are his own, as they were for the hardboiled characters. The novel is very much about individual agency and the moments when the narrator pretends to be but another cog in an unfortunate machine inevitably give way to spectacular declarations of his singular accountability.

Discusses the role of the reality television program "Survivor" in executive producer Mark Burnett's goal to show people the validity of social Darwinism theory in society. Impact of the TV program on popular culture; Contents of Burnett's book "Official Companion"; Representation of the real society by the TV program.

Focuses on the Darwinian sociobiological account of morality. Evolution of social behavior and morality; Supreme moral principles of substantive ethics; Arguments over the love commandment; Factor that affects the religious intent and the scientific and philosophical implications of Darwinian moral inquiry.

Discusses accounts on the myth of man and the evolution of human morality. Assumptions made on early humans as hunters; Relationship between human hunting to human morality; Importance of hunting in the formulation of human nature; Arguments on human aggression; Theory of R. Wrangham and D. Peterson on the traits shared by human ancestors and chimpanzees.

Examines the derivation of ethics from evolutionary biology. Comparison of theories by Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin; Herbert Spencer's argument on the universality of evolution; Approaches of Thomas Huxley and Julian Huxley on human evolution; George Simpson's belief on the evolutionary process.

This article presents information related to methodological and policy implications. Contemporary neoconservative debate has rejuvenated a broad-based interest in the analysis of the nature, causes and consequences of poverty in capitalist society. This dialogue's development has also provided fertile ground for a renewed exchange between economists and social theorists regarding the continued presence of the long-term poor. Both orthodox economists and neoconservatives advance visions of modern social life that characterize poverty as the consequence of the poor's moral and cultural failings. Accordingly, they vociferously argue that endemic cultural traits are a primary cause of the racial and ethnic distribution of economic well-being, including the racial composition of the so-called `underclass'. Although nineteenth century hereditary Social Darwinism has lost much of its intellectual credibility, the void created by its demise has been partially filled by the emergence of a "New Darwinism", according to which possession of the right cultural attributes is sufficient to guarantee material success.

The article focuses on the organized solidarity between social Darwinism and the overprotective state. The conservative assertion that the economic crisis has essentially been due to excessive welfare expenditure has led directly to severe cuts in the welfare budget, wherever governments with this ideology took over. Although in welfare states such as Sweden or West Germany social welfare budgets have risen dramatically over the last 30 or so years, there is no indication that the pressure of social problems or rather the demand for social welfare measures has decreased. The crisis affects the social welfare system in various ways. A growing number of unemployed are forced to rely on unemployment benefits or other forms of public income transfer. The connection between economic recession or stagnation and the financial problems of the welfare system is so obvious that it may seem quite plausible to concentrate all efforts on the recovery of the economy as an overall solution of the problems in question. There is one aspect of the structural financial problems that cannot be eliminated.

The article focuses on the university students' misunderstanding of natural selection in the U.S. Misunderstanding of the idea of natural selection was assumed to occur because students were basing their explanations on the two assumptions: first, variations in a population have little importance in its change process and second, when nature changes, it is not at random. From these assumptions, hypotheses were developed and tested by analyzing the responses of university sophomores on an evolution problem.

Presents an application of Darwinian analysis to the study of humans as inputs to the production process. Evolution of intelligence; Intragroup competition; Fixed environment model; Variable environment model; Opportunism; Process of group selection; Affiliations; Scope of the firm.

This article discusses the principles of natural selection and social selection based on the results of several studies. It is but a short step from the concept of natural selection to that of social selection which involves the approval or rejection of certain types by social groups that always and everywhere insist on fairly close conformity to socially approved standards. J. Arthur Thompson states that natural selection diminishes as man gains mastery over his environment. At the same time, it safe to assume that social selection will increase with the developing complexity of society. The transference from natural selection to social selection is made even less difficult than it might otherwise be by the application of many of the principles of natural selection to factors of society.

Administrative theory can no longer legitimize the functional rationality of the organization as it largely has done. The basic problem of an earlier time was to overcome the scarcity of material goods and elementary services. In that period a great amount of toil in work settings was technically and socially necessary and even inevitable, which is not true at present. What brings about the crises in today's organizations is the fact that by design and operation they still assume that old scarcities continue to be basic, while in fact contemporary man is aware of critical scarcities belonging to another order, i.e., related to needs beyond the level of simple survival. Thus, the Social Darwinism that has traditionally validated management theory and practice has become outdated by the force of circumstances. This article is an attempt to reassess the evolution of administrative theory. It takes models of man as its point of reference (namely, the operational man, the reactive man, and the parenthetical man). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the application of neo-Darwinian theory to sociocultural evolution of man. Views of anthropologists on the use of biological metaphor in organic analogy; Application of `gene pool' model to sociocultural systems.

Ernst Haeckel is well known for originating the science of ecology to describe the study of the relationships among organisms and their environment. This short article reflects on some of Ernst Haeckel’s ideas on the role of humans in nature and the relation between art and nature to point out affinities of Haeckel’s ideas to tighten the connection between today’s science and practice of ecological restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]