White Fang is a novel by American author Jack London (1876–1916) about a wild wolfdog 's journey to domestication in Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush . First serialized in Outing magazine between May and October 1906, it was published in book form in October 1906. It is a companion novel (and a thematic mirror) to London's best-known work, The Call of the Wild (1903), which is about a kidnapped, domesticated dog embracing his wild ancestry to survive and thrive in the wild.
167-458: Much of White Fang is written from the viewpoint of the titular canine character, enabling London to explore how animals view their world and how they view humans. White Fang examines the violent world of wild animals and the equally violent world of humans. The book also explores complex themes including morality and redemption . As early as 1925, the story was adapted to film, and it has since seen several more cinematic adaptations, including
334-558: A 1991 film starring Ethan Hawke and a 2018 original film for Netflix. The story begins before the wolf-dog hybrid is born, with two men and their sled dog team on a journey to deliver the coffin of Lord Alfred to a remote town named Fort McGurry in the higher area of the Yukon Territory . The men, Bill and Henry, are stalked by a large pack of starving wolves over the course of several days. Finally, after all of their dogs and Bill have been eaten, more teams find Henry escaping from
501-482: A litter of five pups by the Mackenzie River , and all but one die from hunger. One Eye is killed by a lynx while trying to rob her den for food for the she-wolf and her pup; his mate later discovers his remains near the lynx's den. The surviving pup and the she-wolf are left to fend for themselves. Shortly afterward, the she-wolf kills all the lynx's kittens to feed her pup, prompting the lynx to track her down, and
668-497: A superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere." Religious value-systems can be used to justify acts that are contrary to general contemporary morality, such as massacres , misogyny and slavery . For example, Simon Blackburn states that "apologists for Hinduism defend or explain away its involvement with
835-483: A ' social organism ' evolved from the simpler state to the more complex according to the universal law of evolution. Moreover, industrial society is the direct descendant of the ideal society developed in Social Statics , although Spencer now equivocated over whether the evolution of society would result in anarchism (as he had first believed) or whether it points to a continued role for the state, albeit one reduced to
1002-502: A Creator or the substratum which underlies our experience of phenomena, we can frame no conception of it. Therefore, Spencer concluded, that religion and science agree in the supreme truth that human understanding is only capable of 'relative' knowledge. This is the case since, owing to the inherent limitations of the human mind, it is only possible to obtain knowledge of phenomena, not of the reality ('the absolute') underlying phenomena. Hence both science and religion must come to recognise as
1169-404: A bad hybrid" regarding the issue of Chinese and (ethnically European) Americans. Spencer ends his letter with the following blanket statement against all immigration: "In either case, supposing the immigration to be large, immense social mischief must arise, and eventually social disorganization. The same thing will happen if there should be any considerable mixture of European or American races with
1336-471: A certain degree others such as Sikhism and Zoroastrianism , define right and wrong by the laws and rules as set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted by religious leaders within each respective faith. Other religions spanning pantheistic to nontheistic tend to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism , the intention of the individual and the circumstances should be accounted for in
1503-431: A code of 'Relative Ethics' which takes into account the distorting factors of our present imperfections. Spencer's distinctive view of musicology was also related to his ethics. Spencer thought that the origin of music is to be found in impassioned oratory. Speakers have persuasive effect not only by the reasoning of their words, but by their cadence and tone – the musical qualities of their voice serve as "the commentary of
1670-404: A dead level, diminishing (not increasing) heterogeneity'. Spencer's attempt to explain the evolution of complexity was radically different from that of Darwin's Origin of Species which was published two years later. Spencer is often, quite erroneously, believed to have merely appropriated and generalised Darwin's work on natural selection . But although after reading Darwin's work he coined
1837-428: A donation of £1,000 to establish a lectureship at Oxford University in tribute to Spencer and his work. The basis for Spencer's appeal to many of his generation was that he appeared to offer a ready-made system of belief which could substitute for conventional religious faith at a time when orthodox creeds were crumbling under the advances of modern science. Spencer's philosophical system seemed to demonstrate that it
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#17328519668962004-518: A group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community (a positive example would be the function of Cistercian reform in reviving monasticism; a negative example would be the role of the Dowager Empress in the subjugation of China to European interests). Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that
2171-417: A latent claim to participate in the use of the earth (views that influenced Georgism ), calling himself "a radical feminist " and advocating the organisation of trade unions as a bulwark against "exploitation by bosses", and favoured an economy organised primarily in free worker co-operatives as a replacement for wage-labor. Although he retained support for unions, his views on the other issues had changed by
2338-526: A lynx, until a bulldog called Cherokee is brought in to fight him. Cherokee has the upper hand in the fight when he grips the skin and fur of White Fang's neck and begins to throttle him. White Fang nearly suffocates, but is rescued when a rich mining expert, Weedon Scott, stops the fight, and forcibly buys White Fang from Beauty Smith. Scott attempts to tame White Fang, and after a long, patient effort, he succeeds. When Scott attempts to return to California alone, White Fang pursues him, and Scott decides to take
2505-544: A moral judgment. According to such investigations, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and non-harms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to
2672-414: A moral judgment. Moral reasoning is controlled and less affective than moral intuition. When making moral judgments, humans perform moral reasoning to support their initial intuitive feeling. However, there are three ways humans can override their immediate intuitive response. The first way is conscious verbal reasoning (for example, examining costs and benefits). The second way is reframing a situation to see
2839-400: A more fundamental concern which was to establish the universality of natural law. In common with others of his generation, including the members of Chapman's salon, he was possessed with the idea of demonstrating that it is possible to show that everything in the universe – including human culture, language, and morality – could be explained by laws of universal validity. This was in contrast to
3006-470: A nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of its content. Political morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. The Sentience Institute , co-founded by Jacy Reese Anthis , analyzes the trajectory of moral progress in society via the framework of an expanding moral circle. Noam Chomsky states that ... if we adopt
3173-474: A new litter of cubs and has forgotten him. He also encounters Lip-Lip, whom he fights and kills before returning to the camp. When White Fang is five years old, he is taken to Fort Yukon , so that Grey Beaver can trade with the gold-hunters. There, a malicious dog-fighter named "Beauty" Smith connives to get Grey Beaver addicted to whiskey, and then when drunk sell White Fang to him. White Fang defeats all opponents pitted against him, including several wolves and
3340-424: A new perspective or consequence, which triggers a different intuition. Finally, one can talk to other people which illuminates new arguments. In fact, interacting with other people is the cause of most moral change. The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by multiple quantitative large-scale meta-analyses of the brain activity changes reported in
3507-531: A particular philosophy , religion or culture , or it can derive from a standard that is understood to be universal . Morality may also be specifically synonymous with " goodness ", "appropriateness" or "rightness". Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics , which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology , and normative ethics , which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism . An example of normative ethical philosophy
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#17328519668963674-446: A perfect society in which no one would cause another person pain. However, Spencer held, for evolution to produce the perfect individual it is necessary for present and future generations to experience the 'natural' consequences of their conduct. Only in this way will individuals have the incentives required to work on self-improvement and thus to hand an improved moral constitution to their descendants. Hence anything that interferes with
3841-410: A physiological basis for psychology, and was the fruit of his friendship with Evans and Lewes. The book was founded on his fundamental assumption that the human mind is subject to natural laws and that these can be discovered within the framework of general biology. This permitted the adoption of a developmental perspective not merely in terms of the individual (as in traditional psychology), but also of
4008-417: A religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides." Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious value-systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks such as consequentialism , freethought , humanism , utilitarianism , and others. There are many types of religious value-systems. Modern monotheistic religions, such as Islam , Judaism , Christianity , and to
4175-657: A school founded on the progressive teaching methods of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and also served as Secretary of the Derby Philosophical Society , a scientific society which had been founded in 1783 by Erasmus Darwin , the grandfather of Charles Darwin . Spencer was educated in empirical science by his father, while the members of the Derby Philosophical Society introduced him to pre-Darwinian concepts of biological evolution, particularly those of Erasmus Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck . His uncle,
4342-447: A sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social politics prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management . Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution
4509-407: A shared neural network for both tasks. The results of this meta-analysis, however, also demonstrated that the processing of moral input is affected by task demands. Regarding the issues of morality in video games, some scholars believe that because players appear in video games as actors, they maintain a distance between their sense of self and the role of the game in terms of imagination. Therefore,
4676-403: A shocking moral violation may involve quick, affect-laden processes. Nonetheless, certain cognitive skills such as being able to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions to oneself, and others is a common feature of a broad range of prototypical situations. In line with this, a meta-analysis found overlapping activity between moral emotion and moral reasoning tasks, suggesting
4843-405: A significant number of individuals (not necessarily all) in a society. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to claims of right and wrong that are seen to be made and to conflicts between different claims made. Descriptive ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. In its normative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything)
5010-454: A simple, undifferentiated, homogeneity to a complex, differentiated, heterogeneity while undergoing increasing integration of the differentiated parts. This evolutionary process can be observed, Spencer believed, throughout the cosmos. It is a universal law, applying to the stars and galaxies and to biological organisms, and to human social organisation and to the human mind. It differed from other scientific laws only in its greater generality, and
5177-598: A specific interpretation of his support for competition. Whereas in biology the competition of various organisms can result in the death of a species or organism, the kind of competition Spencer advocated is closer to the one used by economists, where competing individuals or firms improve the well-being of the rest of society. Spencer viewed private charity positively, encouraging both voluntary association and informal care to aid those in need, rather than relying on government bureaucracy or force. He further recommended that private charitable efforts would be wise to avoid encouraging
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5344-510: A striking poetic presentation in his 1884 micro-story , " Mold of the Earth ", and highlighting the concept in the introduction to his most universal novel, Pharaoh (1895). The early 20th century was hostile to Spencer. Soon after his death, his philosophical reputation went into a sharp decline. Half a century after his death, his work was dismissed as a "parody of philosophy", and the historian Richard Hofstadter called him "the metaphysician of
5511-445: A supernatural or universalist understanding of principles – values including integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness. These values can be resources for finding common ground between believers and nonbelievers. Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher , psychologist , biologist , sociologist , and anthropologist . Spencer originated
5678-422: A vicious fight breaks out. The she-wolf eventually kills the lynx but suffers severe injury; the lynx carcass is devoured over a period of seven days as the she-wolf recovers from her injuries. One day, the pup comes across five indigenous people, and the she-wolf comes to his rescue. One man, Grey Beaver, recognizes the she-wolf as his late brother's wolfdog, Kiche, who left during a famine. Grey Beaver's brother
5845-412: A young man, Spencer found it difficult to settle to any intellectual or professional discipline. He worked as a civil engineer during the railway boom of the late 1830s, while also devoting much of his time to writing for provincial journals that were nonconformist in their religion and radical in their politics. Spencer published his first book, Social Statics (1851), whilst working as sub-editor on
6012-438: Is actually right or wrong, which may be independent of the values or mores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense. Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics ) are broadly divided into two classes: Some forms of non-cognitivism and ethical subjectivism , while considered anti-realist in
6179-1070: Is a process closely tied to sociocultural evolution . Some evolutionary biologists , particularly sociobiologists , believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (although to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors. On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and biologically driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation . Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, although sophisticated and complex relative to
6346-410: Is a single person or society." For many, the name of Herbert Spencer is virtually synonymous with Social Darwinism , a social theory that applies the law of the survival of the fittest to society and is integrally related to the nineteenth-century rise in scientific racism . In his famed work Social Statics (1850), he argued that imperialism had served civilization by clearing the inferior races off
6513-619: Is also helpful at the individual level for the passing on of one's genes. For example, a mother who favors her own children more highly than the children of other people will give greater resources to her children than she will to strangers', thus heightening her children's chances of survival and her own gene's chances of being perpetuated. Due to this, within a population, there is substantial selection pressure exerted toward this kind of self-interest, such that eventually, all parents wind up favoring their own children (the in-group) over other children (the out-group). Peterson and Seligman approach
6680-439: Is an illusion. Lastly, the authors explain a basic psychological mechanism that uses two well-established phenomena (distorted exposure to information and distorted memory of information) to cause the illusion of moral decline. The authors present studies that validate some of the predictions about the circumstances in which the perception of moral decline is attenuated, eliminated, or reversed (e.g., when participants are asked about
6847-422: Is at this time that White Fang is separated from his mother, who is sold off to another Native camp by Three Eagles. He earns the respect of Grey Beaver when he saves his son Mit-Sah from a group of boys seeking revenge for White Fang attacking one of them for trying to beat him for no reason. When a famine occurs, he runs away into the woods and encounters his mother Kiche, only for her to chase him away, for she has
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7014-424: Is closely connected to the right to private property. Spencer termed this code of conduct 'Absolute Ethics' which provided a scientifically grounded moral system that could substitute for the supernaturally-based ethical systems of the past. However, he recognized that our inherited moral constitution does not currently permit us to behave in full compliance with the code of Absolute Ethics, and for this reason, we need
7181-427: Is dead, and so he takes Kiche and her pup and names the cub "White Fang". White Fang has a harsh life in the native camp; the current puppy pack, seeing him as a wolf, immediately attacks him. The Natives protect him, but the pups never accept him, and the pups' leader, Lip-Lip, singles him out for persecution. White Fang grows to become a savage, callous, morose, solitary, and deadly fighter, "the enemy of his kind". It
7348-445: Is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and non-harms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as to the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in
7515-459: Is exemplified, Spencer argued, by the development of society. He developed a theory of two types of society, the militant and the industrial, which corresponded to this evolutionary progression. Militant society, structured around relationships of hierarchy and obedience, is simple and undifferentiated; industrial society, based on voluntary, contractually assumed social obligations, is complex and differentiated. Society, which Spencer conceptualised as
7682-476: Is maladaptive in advanced societies. Because human instincts have a specific location in strands of brain tissue, they are subject to the Lamarckian mechanism of use-inheritance so that gradual modifications could be transmitted to future generations. Over the course of many generations, the evolutionary process will ensure that human beings will become less aggressive and increasingly altruistic, leading eventually to
7849-547: Is morally acceptable in one culture may be taboo in another. They further contend that no moral virtue can objectively be proven right or wrong Critics of moral relativism point to historical atrocities such as infanticide, slavery, or genocide as counter arguments, noting the difficulty in accepting these actions simply through cultural lenses. Fons Trompenaars , author of Did the Pedestrian Die? , tested members of different cultures with various moral dilemmas . One of these
8016-635: Is not a single cognitive faculty dedicated exclusively to moral cognition, characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes to moral behavior is a critical scientific endeavor to understand how morality works and how it can be improved. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists investigate the inputs to these cognitive processes and their interactions, as well as how these contribute to moral behavior by running controlled experiments. In these experiments putatively moral versus nonmoral stimuli are compared to each other, while controlling for other variables such as content or working memory load. Often,
8183-471: Is not always absolute, contending that moral issues often differ along cultural lines. A 2014 PEW research study among several nations illuminates significant cultural differences among issues commonly related to morality, including divorce, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, gambling, abortion, alcohol use, contraceptive use, and premarital sex. Each of the 40 countries in this study has a range of percentages according to what percentage of each country believes
8350-436: Is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathy , and this would appear to lend support to Decety's view. Recently, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory , developmental psychology , social neuroscience , and psychopathy, Jean Decety argued that empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary. An essential, shared component of moral judgment involves
8517-522: Is possible to believe in the ultimate perfection of humanity on the basis of advanced scientific conceptions such as the first law of thermodynamics and biological evolution . In essence, Spencer's philosophical vision was formed by a combination of deism and positivism. On the one hand, he had imbibed something of eighteenth-century deism from his father and other members of the Derby Philosophical Society and from books like George Combe 's immensely popular The Constitution of Man (1828). This treated
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#17328519668968684-559: Is possible to discover a single law of universal application which he identified with progressive development and was to call the principle of evolution. In 1858, Spencer produced an outline of what was to become the System of Synthetic Philosophy. This immense undertaking, which has few parallels in the English language, aimed to demonstrate that the principle of evolution applies in biology, psychology, sociology (Spencer appropriated Comte's term for
8851-557: Is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow. Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption". According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics , religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and
9018-462: Is the Golden Rule , which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e., opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards or principles. Ethics (also known as moral philosophy)
9185-553: Is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand". Religions provide different ways of dealing with moral dilemmas. For example, Hinduism lacks any absolute prohibition on killing, recognizing that it "may be inevitable and indeed necessary" in certain circumstances. Monotheistic traditions view certain acts—such as abortion or divorce —in more absolute terms. Religion is not always positively associated with morality. Philosopher David Hume stated that "the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with
9352-451: Is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics , sometimes distinguish between ethics and morality. Philosopher Simon Blackburn writes that "Although
9519-416: Is the evolutionary timescale involved. The psychological – and hence also the moral – constitution which has been bequeathed to the present generation by our ancestors, and which we in turn will hand on to future generations, is in the process of gradual adaptation to the requirements of living in society. For example, aggression is a survival instinct which was necessary in the primitive conditions of life, but
9686-432: Is the product of change from lower to higher forms, just as in the theory of biological evolution, the lowest forms of life are said to be evolving into higher forms. Spencer claimed that man's mind has evolved in the same way from the simple automatic responses of lower animals to the process of reasoning in the thinking man. Spencer believed in two kinds of knowledge: knowledge gained by the individual and knowledge gained by
9853-524: Is to a very large extent an extended debate with Spencer, from whose sociology, many commentators now agree, Durkheim borrowed extensively. In post- 1863-Uprising Poland , many of Spencer's ideas became integral to the dominant fin-de-siècle ideology, " Polish Positivism ". The leading Polish writer of the period, Bolesław Prus , hailed Spencer as "the Aristotle of the nineteenth century" and adopted Spencer's metaphor of society-as-organism , giving it
10020-498: Is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return
10187-458: The European Journal of Personality , found that moral foundations have significant genetic bases. Another study, conducted by Smith and Hatemi, similarly found significant evidence in support of moral heritability by looking at and comparing the answers of moral dilemmas between twins. Genetics play a role in influencing prosocial behaviors and moral decision-making. Genetics contribute to
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#173285196689610354-619: The Athenaeum , an exclusive Gentleman's Club in London open only to those distinguished in the arts and sciences, and the X Club , a dining club of nine founded by T.H. Huxley that met every month and included some of the most prominent thinkers of the Victorian age (three of whom would become presidents of the Royal Society ). Members included physicist-philosopher John Tyndall and Darwin's cousin,
10521-429: The caste system , and apologists for Islam defend or explain away its harsh penal code or its attitude to women and infidels". In regard to Christianity, he states that the " Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women", and notes morally-suspect themes in
10688-501: The maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect , where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding . The phenomenon of reciprocity in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function
10855-504: The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a region involved in valuation, while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area, a region that plays a key role in understanding intentions and beliefs. Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation , or neurological lesion, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming
11022-467: The "sham naturalists" in 1907, specifically named London as one of the so-called "nature fakers". Citing an example from White Fang , Roosevelt referred to the fight between the bulldog and the wolfdog "the very sublimity of absurdity." London only responded to the criticism after the controversy had ended. In a 1908 essay entitled "The Other Animals", he wrote: I have been guilty of writing two books about dogs. The writing of these two stories, on my part,
11189-698: The 'most certain of all facts that the Power which the Universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable.' He called this awareness of 'the Unknowable' and he presented worship of the Unknowable as capable of being a positive faith which could substitute for conventional religion. Indeed, he thought that the Unknowable represents the ultimate stage in the evolution of religion, the final elimination of its last anthropomorphic vestiges. Spencerian views in 21st-century circulation derive from his political theories and memorable attacks on
11356-464: The 'natural' relationship of conduct and consequence was to be resisted and this included the use of the coercive power of the state to relieve poverty, to provide public education, or to require compulsory vaccination. Although charitable giving is to be encouraged even it has to be limited by the consideration that suffering is frequently the result of individuals receiving the consequences of their actions. Hence too much individual benevolence directed to
11523-459: The 'undeserving poor' would break the link between conduct and consequence that Spencer considered fundamental to ensuring that humanity continues to evolve to a higher level of development. Spencer adopted a utilitarian standard of ultimate value – the greatest happiness of the greatest number – and the culmination of the evolutionary process will be the maximization of utility. In the perfect society, individuals would not only derive pleasure from
11690-436: The 1880s. He came to predict that social welfare programmes would eventually lead to the socialisation of the means of production, saying "all socialism is slavery." Spencer defined a slave as a person who "labours under coercion to satisfy another's desires" and believed that under socialism or communism the individual would be enslaved to the whole community rather than to a particular master, and "it means not whether his master
11857-448: The 1890s, Émile Durkheim established formal academic sociology with a firm emphasis on practical social research . By the turn of the 20th century the first generation of German sociologists, most notably Max Weber , had presented methodological antipositivism . However, Spencer's theories of laissez-faire, survival-of-the-fittest and minimal human interference in the processes of natural law had an enduring and even increasing appeal in
12024-531: The 21st century. The expression " There is no alternative " (TINA), made famous by prime minister Margaret Thatcher , may be traced to its emphatic use by Spencer. By the 1880s, he was denouncing "the new Toryism ", that is, the " social reformist wing" of the Liberal Party, the wing to some extent hostile to prime minister William Ewart Gladstone , this faction of the Liberal Party Spencer compared to
12191-673: The Bible's New Testament as well. Elizabeth Anderson likewise holds that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Christian apologists address Blackburn's viewpoints and construe that Jewish laws in the Hebrew Bible showed the evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing slavery and treating slaves as persons and not as property. Humanists like Paul Kurtz believe that we can identify moral values across cultures, even if we do not appeal to
12358-703: The Japanese." While most philosophers fail to achieve much of a following outside the academy of their professional peers, by the 1870s and 1880s Spencer had achieved an unparalleled popularity, as the sheer volume of his sales indicate. He was perhaps the only philosopher in history to sell over a million copies of his works during his own lifetime. In the United States, where pirated editions were still commonplace, his authorised publisher, Appleton, sold 368,755 copies between 1860 and 1903. This figure did not differ much from his sales in his native Britain, and once editions in
12525-552: The RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. Based on this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information
12692-586: The Reverend Thomas Spencer, vicar of Hinton Charterhouse near Bath , completed Spencer's limited formal education by teaching him some mathematics and physics, and enough Latin to enable him to translate some easy texts. Thomas Spencer also imprinted on his nephew his own firm free-trade and anti-statist political views. Otherwise, Spencer was an autodidact who acquired most of his knowledge from narrowly focused readings and conversations with his friends and acquaintances. Both as an adolescent and as
12859-588: The Victorians owed a great deal to his agnosticism . He rejected theology as representing the 'impiety of the pious.' He was to gain much notoriety from his repudiation of traditional religion, and was frequently condemned by religious thinkers for allegedly advocating atheism and materialism. Nonetheless, unlike Thomas Henry Huxley , whose agnosticism was a militant creed directed at 'the unpardonable sin of faith' (in Adrian Desmond 's phrase), Spencer insisted that he
13026-502: The administration of William Ewart Gladstone – largely against the opinions of Gladstone himself. Spencer's political views from this period were expressed in what has become his most famous work, The Man Versus the State . The exception to Spencer's growing conservatism was that he remained throughout his life an ardent opponent of imperialism and militarism . His critique of the Boer War
13193-508: The analytical standpoints of later right-libertarian theorists such as Friedrich Hayek , especially in his "law of equal liberty", his insistence on the limits to predictive knowledge, his model of spontaneous social order, and his warnings about the "unintended consequences" of collectivist social reforms. While often caricatured as ultra- conservative , Spencer had been more radical , or left-libertarian , earlier in his career, opposing private property in land and claiming that each person has
13360-460: The anthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areas and across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues have prevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues they identified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity ; justice; temperance; and transcendence . Each of these include several divisions. For instance humanity includes love , kindness , and social intelligence . Still, others theorize that morality
13527-540: The average human understanding that these dog-heroes of mine were not directed by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation and emotion, and by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavored to make my stories in line with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the mark set by scientific research, and awoke, one day, to find myself bundled neck and crop into the camp of the nature-fakers. The novel has been adapted into numerous pictures and sequels, animated specials, as well as an audiobook format. A television series, White Fang ,
13694-601: The banker and biologist Sir John Lubbock . There were also some quite significant satellites such as liberal clergyman Arthur Stanley , the Dean of Westminster; and guests such as Charles Darwin and Hermann von Helmholtz were entertained from time to time. Through such associations, Spencer had a strong presence in the heart of the scientific community and was able to secure an influential audience for his views. The last decades of Spencer's life were characterised by growing disillusionment and loneliness. He never married, and after 1855
13861-467: The basis of the First Principles of a New System of Philosophy (1862). In it he expounded a theory of evolution which combines insights from Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's essay 'The Theory of Life' – itself derivative from Friedrich von Schelling 's Naturphilosophie – with a generalisation of von Baer 's law of embryological development. Spencer posited that all structures in the universe develop from
14028-423: The belief that morality is deteriorating continuously, and this conviction has been present for the last 70 years. Subsequently, they indicate that people ascribe this decay to the declining morality of individuals as they age and the succeeding generations. Thirdly, the authors demonstrate that people's evaluations of the morality of their peers have not decreased over time, indicating that the belief in moral decline
14195-811: The biological, psychological and sociological aspects of the universe. Spencer is also generally credited as the first to use the term ' social structure .' Given the primacy which Spencer placed on evolution, his sociology might be described as social Darwinism mixed with Lamarckism . However, despite its popularity, this view of Spencer's sociology is mistaken. While his political and ethical writings have themes consistent with social Darwinism, such themes are absent in Spencer's sociological works, which focus on how processes of societal growth and differentiation lead to changing degrees of complexity in social organization The evolutionary progression from simple, undifferentiated homogeneity to complex, differentiated heterogeneity
14362-486: The capacity to detect morally salient content within a given social context. Recent research implicated the salience network in this initial detection of moral content. The salience network responds to behaviorally salient events and may be critical to modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes. The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in
14529-399: The case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own. Similarly, individuals with a lesion of the VMPC judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action. Moral intuitions may have genetic bases. A 2022 study conducted by scholars Michael Zakharin and Timothy C. Bates , and published by
14696-516: The closing decades of the nineteenth century" but his influence declined sharply after 1900: "Who now reads Spencer?" asked Talcott Parsons in 1937. Spencer was born in Derby , Derbyshire, England, on 27 April 1820, the son of William George Spencer (generally called George). Spencer's father was a religious dissenter who drifted from Methodism to Quakerism , and who seems to have transmitted to his son an opposition to all forms of authority. He ran
14863-775: The coercive aspects of the state. He also argued that the individual has a "right to ignore the state." As a result of this perspective, Spencer was harshly critical of imperialism. In response to being told that British troops were in danger during the Second Afghan War (1878–1880) he replied: "When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don't care if they are shot themselves." Politics in late Victorian Britain moved in directions that Spencer disliked, and his arguments provided so much ammunition for conservatives and individualists in Europe and America that they are still in use in
15030-586: The collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant 's ' categorical imperative ' and Geisler 's graded absolutism . Green relates the development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status. Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people depending on their membership of an " in-group " (the individual and those they believe to be of
15197-422: The common moral issues are acceptable, unacceptable, or not moral issues at all. Each percentage regarding the significance of the moral issue varies greatly on the culture in which the moral issue is presented. Advocates of a theory known as moral relativism subscribe to the notion that moral virtues are right or wrong only within the context of a certain standpoint (e.g., cultural community). In other words, what
15364-430: The common perception of a decline in morality in societies worldwide and throughout history. Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert present a series of studies indicating that the perception of moral decline is an illusion and easily produced, with implications for misallocation of resources, underuse of social support, and social influence. To begin with, the authors demonstrate that people in no less than 60 nations hold
15531-542: The consequences brought about in the situation (Consequences-component, C). This, implies that various inputs of the situation a person encounters affect moral cognition. Jonathan Haidt distinguishes between two types of moral cognition: moral intuition and moral reasoning. Moral intuition involves the fast, automatic, and affective processes that result in an evaluative feeling of good-bad or like-dislike, without awareness of going through any steps. Conversely, moral reasoning does involve conscious mental activity to reach
15698-452: The constitution of two widely divergent varieties which have severally become adapted to widely divergent modes of life, you get a constitution which is adapted to the mode of life of neither – a constitution which will not work properly." He goes on to say that America has failed to limit the immigration of Chinese and restrict their contact, especially sexual, with the presumed European stock. He states "if they mix they must form
15865-452: The cultural mix is greater, thus requiring more liberalism. Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs and is often codified to regulate behavior within a culture or community. Various defined actions come to be called moral or immoral. Individuals who choose moral action are popularly held to possess "moral fiber", whereas those who indulge in immoral behavior may be labeled as socially degenerate. The continued existence of
16032-419: The decision-making and moral behavior of players in the game are not representing player's Moral dogma. It has been recently found that moral judgment consists in concurrent evaluations of three different components that align with precepts from three dominant moral theories (virtue ethics, deontology , and consequentialism): the character of a person (Agent-component, A); their actions (Deed-component, D); and
16199-452: The development and expression of certain traits and behaviors, including those related to morality. However, it is important to note that while genetics play a role in shaping certain aspects of moral behavior, morality itself is a multifaceted concept that encompasses cultural, societal, and personal influences as well. If morality is the answer to the question 'how ought we to live' at the individual level, politics can be seen as addressing
16366-448: The development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Of historical interest in psychology are the theories of psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud , who believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance. Theories of moral development therefore tend to regard it as positive moral development:
16533-896: The development of morals, usually going through stages of different morals. Lawrence Kohlberg , Jean Piaget , and Elliot Turiel have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development ; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages or domains. In the Ethics of care approach established by Carol Gilligan , moral development occurs in the context of caring, mutually responsive relationships which are based on interdependence , particularly in parenting but also in social relationships generally. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathan Haidt emphasize social and emotional development based on biology, such as empathy . Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordechai Nisan , see moral commitment as arising from
16700-400: The differential neural response to specifically moral statements or scenes, are examined using functional neuroimaging experiments. Critically, the specific cognitive processes that are involved depend on the prototypical situation that a person encounters. For instance, while situations that require an active decision on a moral dilemma may require active reasoning, an immediate reaction to
16867-577: The distinction between the natural sciences ( Naturwissenschaften ) and human sciences ( Geisteswissenschaften ). In the United States, the sociologist Lester Frank Ward , who would be elected as the first president of the American Sociological Association , launched a relentless attack on Spencer's theories of laissez-faire and political ethics. Although Ward admired much of Spencer's work he believed that Spencer's prior political biases had distorted his thought and had led him astray. In
17034-470: The dog with him back home. In Sierra Vista, White Fang must adjust to the laws of the estate. At the end of the book, an escaped convict, Jim Hall, tries to kill Scott's father, Judge Scott, for sentencing him to prison for a crime he did not commit, not knowing that Hall was "railroaded". White Fang kills Hall and is nearly killed himself, but survives. As a result, the women of Scott's estate name him "The Blessed Wolf". The story ends with White Fang relaxing in
17201-506: The earth: "The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way. … Be he human or be he brute – the hindrance must be got rid of." Yet, in the same work, Spencer goes on to say that the incidental evolutionary benefits derived from such barbarous practices do not serve as justifications for them going forward. Spencer's association with social Darwinism might have its origin in
17368-402: The edicts of a god or the hypothetical decrees of a perfectly rational being, respectively. Practical reason is necessary for the moral agency but it is not a sufficient condition for moral agency. Real life issues that need solutions do need both rationality and emotion to be sufficiently moral. One uses rationality as a pathway to the ultimate decision, but the environment and emotions towards
17535-481: The emotions upon the propositions of the intellect," as Spencer put it. Music, conceived as the heightened development of this characteristic of speech, makes a contribution to the ethical education and progress of the species. "The strange capacity which we have for being affected by melody and harmony, may be taken to imply both that it is within the possibilities of our nature to realize those intenser delights they dimly suggest, and that they are in some way concerned in
17702-459: The entire System of Synthetic Philosophy. Spencer followed Comte in aiming for the unification of scientific truth; it was in this sense that his philosophy aimed to be 'synthetic.' Like Comte, he was committed to the universality of natural law, the idea that the laws of nature apply without exception, to the organic realm as much as to the inorganic, and to the human mind as much as to the rest of creation. The first objective of Synthetic Philosophy
17869-437: The environment at the moment must be a factor for the result to be truly moral, as morality is subject to culture. Something can only be morally acceptable if the culture as a whole has accepted this to be true. Both practical reason and relevant emotional factors are acknowledged as significant in determining the morality of a decision. Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality. She characterizes
18036-420: The exercise of altruism ('positive beneficence') but would aim to avoid inflicting pain on others ('negative beneficence'). They would also instinctively respect the rights of others, leading to the universal observance of the principle of justice – each person had the right to a maximum amount of liberty that was compatible with a like liberty in others. 'Liberty' is interpreted to mean the absence of coercion, and
18203-525: The expression " survival of the fittest ", which he coined in Principles of Biology (1864) after reading Charles Darwin 's 1859 book On the Origin of Species . The term strongly suggests natural selection , yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also supported Lamarckism . Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of
18370-514: The favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984) Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and
18537-499: The form of merit , to determine if an action is termed right or wrong. Barbara Stoler Miller points out a further disparity between the values of religious traditions, stating that in Hinduism , "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism , this relativity of values and obligations
18704-484: The formation of new dependent families by those unable to support themselves without charity. Focusing on the form as well as the content of Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy", one writer has identified it as the paradigmatic case of "social Darwinism", understood as a politically motivated metaphysic very different in both form and motivation from Darwinist science. In a letter to the Japanese government regarding intermarriage with Westerners, Spencer stated that "if you mix
18871-498: The free-trade journal The Economist from 1848 to 1853. He predicted that humanity would eventually become completely adapted to the requirements of living in society with the consequential withering away of the state. Its publisher, John Chapman , introduced Spencer to his salon which was attended by many of the leading radical and progressive thinkers of the capital, including John Stuart Mill , Harriet Martineau , George Henry Lewes and Mary Ann Evans ( George Eliot ), with whom he
19038-486: The higher stages are morally higher, though this, naturally, involves a circular argument. The higher stages are better because they are higher, but the better higher because they are better. As an alternative to viewing morality as an individual trait, some sociologists as well as social- and discursive psychologists have taken upon themselves to study the in-vivo aspects of morality by examining how persons conduct themselves in social interaction. A new study analyses
19205-399: The in-group and irrational hostility towards the out-group. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falger have argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of this in-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted that experimental observation indicating an in-group criterion provides one moral foundation substantially used by conservatives , but far less so by liberals . In-group preference
19372-692: The interventionist "Toryism" of such people as the former Conservative Party prime minister Benjamin Disraeli . In The Man Versus the State (1884), he attacked Gladstone and the Liberal Party for losing its proper mission (they should be defending personal liberty, he said) and instead promoting paternalist social legislation (what Gladstone himself called "Construction", an element in the modern Liberal party that he opposed). Spencer denounced Irish land reform, compulsory education, laws to regulate safety at work, prohibition and temperance laws, tax-funded libraries, and welfare reforms. His main objections were threefold:
19539-409: The latter as predominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines a person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of
19706-430: The laws of the special sciences can be shown to be illustrations of this principle. The principles described by Herbert Spencer received a variety of interpretations. Bertrand Russell stated in a letter to Beatrice Webb in 1923: 'I don't know whether [Spencer] was ever made to realize the implications of the second law of thermodynamics ; if so, he may well be upset. The law says that everything tends to uniformity and
19873-444: The minimal functions of the enforcement of contracts and external defence. Though Spencer made some valuable contributions to early sociology, not least in his influence on structural functionalism , his attempt to introduce Lamarckian or Darwinian ideas into the realm of sociology was unsuccessful. It was considered by many, furthermore, to be actively dangerous. Hermeneuticians of the period, such as Wilhelm Dilthey , would pioneer
20040-474: The moral neuroscience literature. The neural network underlying moral decisions overlaps with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy). This supports the notion that moral reasoning is related to both seeing things from other persons' points of view and to grasping others' feelings. These results provide evidence that
20207-407: The moralities of other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness. On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction ( inclusive fitness ). Examples:
20374-592: The morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant , based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for the more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue , and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations." In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values , codes of conduct or social mores that are observed to be accepted by
20541-402: The morality of people closest to them or people who lived before they were born). Moral cognition refers to cognitive processes implicated in moral judgment and decision making, and moral action. It consists of several domain-general cognitive processes, ranging from perception of a morally salient stimulus to reasoning when faced with a moral dilemma. While it is important to mention that there
20708-476: The neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global (i.e., there might be no such things as a "moral module" in the human brain) and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems. Cognitive neuroscientist Jean Decety thinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experience what another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in the evolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. The inability to feel empathy
20875-408: The new discipline) and morality. Spencer envisaged that this work of ten volumes would take twenty years to complete; in the end, it took him twice as long and consumed almost all the rest of his long life. Despite Spencer's early struggles to establish himself as a writer, by the 1870s he had become the most famous philosopher of the age. His works were widely read during his lifetime, and by 1869 he
21042-520: The novel is "generally regarded as artistically inferior to its companion piece [ The Call of the Wild ], but [that it] helped establish London as a popular American literary figure". Shortly after the book's publication, London became a target in what would later be called the nature fakers controversy , a literary debate highlighting the conflict between science and sentiment in popular nature writing . President Theodore Roosevelt , who first spoke out against
21209-435: The novel] society demands a conformity that undermines individualism." London himself took influence from Herbert Spencer 's words: "survival of the fittest", as well as Friedrich Nietzsche 's idea of a "superman" (or "superdog", in this instance) and of "the worship of power". The novel is partly an autobiographical allegory based on London's conversion from teenage hoodlum to married, middle-class writer. In writing it, he
21376-597: The origin of the solar system and Lamarck's theory of species transformation are both instances of 'one magnificent generalisation of progressive development' (Lewes' phrase). Chambers was associated with Chapman's salon and his work served as the unacknowledged template for the Synthetic Philosophy. Spencer first articulated his evolutionary perspective in his essay, 'Progress: Its Law and Cause', published in Chapman's Westminster Review in 1857, and which later formed
21543-441: The original positivist sociology of Auguste Comte . A philosopher of science , Comte had proposed a theory of sociocultural evolution that society progresses by a general law of three stages . Writing after various developments in biology, however, Spencer rejected what he regarded as the ideological aspects of Comte's positivism, attempting to reformulate social science in terms of his principle of evolution, which he applied to
21710-493: The phrase ' survival of the fittest ' as his own term for Darwin's concept, and is often misrepresented as a thinker who merely applied the Darwinian theory to society, he only grudgingly incorporated natural selection into his preexisting overall system. The primary mechanism of species transformation that he recognised was Lamarckian use-inheritance which posited that organs are developed or are diminished by use or disuse and that
21877-502: The physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. Spencer was "the single most famous European intellectual in
22044-434: The principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others—more stringent ones, in fact—plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil. In fact, one of them, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles
22211-463: The race. According to his thinking intuition, or knowledge learned unconsciously, is the inherited experience of the race. Spencer in his book Principles of Biology (1864), proposed a pangenesis theory that involves "physiological units" assumed to be related to specific body parts and responsible for the transmission of characteristics to offspring. These hypothetical hereditary units are similar to Darwin's gemmules . Spencer read with excitement
22378-456: The realization of them. If so the power and the meaning of music become comprehensible; but otherwise they are a mystery." Spencer's last years were characterized by a collapse of his initial optimism, replaced instead by a pessimism regarding the future of mankind. Nevertheless, he devoted much of his efforts to reinforcing his arguments and preventing the misinterpretation of his monumental theory of non-interference. Spencer's reputation among
22545-593: The reduction of all natural laws to one fundamental law, the law of evolution. In this respect, he followed the model laid down by the Edinburgh publisher Robert Chambers in his anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844). Although often dismissed as a lightweight forerunner of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species , Chambers' book was, in reality, a programme for the unification of science which aimed to show that Laplace 's nebular hypothesis for
22712-421: The reform movements of the late 19th century. He has been claimed as a precursor by right-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists . Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard called Social Statics "the greatest single work of libertarian political philosophy ever written." Spencer argued that the state is not an "essential" institution and that it will "decay" as a voluntary market organisation comes to replace
22879-411: The remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest. Haidt also hypothesizes that the origin of this division in the United States can be traced to geo-historical factors, with conservatism strongest in closely knit, ethnically homogeneous communities, in contrast to port -cities, where
23046-412: The rest of the world are added in the figure of a million copies seems like a conservative estimate. As William James remarked, Spencer "enlarged the imagination, and set free the speculative mind of countless doctors, engineers, and lawyers, of many physicists and chemists, and of thoughtful laymen generally." The aspect of his thought that emphasised individual self-improvement found a ready audience in
23213-439: The resulting changes may be transmitted to future generations. Spencer believed that this evolutionary mechanism is also necessary to explain 'higher' evolution, especially the social development of humanity. Moreover, in contrast to Darwin, he held that evolution has a direction and an end-point, the attainment of a final state of equilibrium. He tried to apply the theory of biological evolution to sociology. He proposed that society
23380-408: The robust sense used here, are considered realist in the sense synonymous with moral universalism . For example, universal prescriptivism is a universalist form of non-cognitivism which claims that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives, and divine command theory and ideal observer theory are universalist forms of ethical subjectivism which claim that morality is derived from
23547-421: The same group) or an "out-group" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules). Some biologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe this in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because it enhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simple computational models of evolution. In simulations this discrimination can result in both unexpected cooperation towards
23714-604: The same question at the social level, though the political sphere raises additional problems and challenges. It is therefore unsurprising that evidence has been found of a relationship between attitudes in morality and politics. Moral foundations theory , authored by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, has been used to study the differences between liberals and conservatives , in this regard. Haidt found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and
23881-469: The same time, however, he owed far more than he would ever acknowledge to positivism, in particular in its conception of a philosophical system as the unification of the various branches of scientific knowledge. He also followed positivism in his insistence that it is only possible to have genuine knowledge of phenomena and hence that it is idle to speculate about the nature of the ultimate reality. The tension between positivism and his residual deism ran through
24048-594: The skilled working class. Spencer's influence among leaders of thought was also immense, though it was most often expressed in terms of their reaction to, and repudiation of, his ideas. As his American follower John Fiske observed, Spencer's ideas were to be found "running like the weft through all the warp" of Victorian thought. Such varied thinkers as Henry Sidgwick , T.H. Green , G.E. Moore , William James , Henri Bergson , and Émile Durkheim defined their ideas in relation to his. Durkheim's Division of Labour in Society
24215-494: The social science fields of economics and political science, and one writer has recently made the case for Spencer's importance for a sociology that must learn to take energy in society seriously. Spencer predicted in his first book that the endpoint of the evolutionary process will be the creation of 'the perfect man in the perfect society' with human beings becoming completely adapted to social life. The chief difference between Spencer's earlier and later conceptions of this process
24382-451: The species and the race. Through this paradigm, Spencer aimed to reconcile the associationist psychology of Mill's Logic , the notion that the human mind is constructed from atomic sensations held together by the laws of the association of ideas, with the apparently more 'scientific' theory of phrenology , which locates specific mental functions in specific parts of the brain. Spencer argued that both these theories are partial accounts of
24549-399: The status of laws of nature while still having normative content, a conception which can be traced to George Combe's Constitution of Man . The second objective of the Synthetic Philosophy was to show that these same laws lead inexorably to progress. In contrast to Comte, who stressed only the unity of the scientific method, Spencer sought the unification of scientific knowledge in the form of
24716-436: The sun with the puppies he has fathered with the sheep-dog Collie. Major human characters: Critics have identified many underlying themes in the novel. Tom Feller describes the story as "an allegory of humanity's progression from nature to civilization". He also expresses that "the [story's] implication is that the metamorphosis of both the individual and society will require violence at some point." Paul Deane states that "[in
24883-554: The truth: repeated associations of ideas are embodied in the formation of specific strands of brain tissue, and these can be passed from one generation to the next by means of the Lamarckian mechanism of use-inheritance. The Psychology , he believed, would do for the human mind what Isaac Newton had done for matter. However, the book was not initially successful and the last of the 251 copies of its first edition were not sold until June 1861. Spencer's interest in psychology derived from
25050-541: The use of the coercive powers of the government, the discouragement given to voluntary self-improvement, and the disregard of the "laws of life". The reforms, he said, were tantamount to "socialism", which he said was about the same as "slavery" in terms of limiting human freedom. Spencer vehemently attacked the widespread enthusiasm for the annexation of colonies and imperial expansion, which subverted all he had predicted about evolutionary progress from 'militant' to 'industrial' societies and states. Spencer anticipated many of
25217-405: The views of many theologians of the time who insisted that some parts of creation, in particular the human soul, are beyond the realm of scientific investigation. Comte's Système de Philosophie Positive had been written with the ambition of demonstrating the universality of natural law, and Spencer was to follow Comte in the scale of his ambition. However, Spencer differed from Comte in believing it
25384-403: The wolves; the wolf pack scatters when they hear the large group of people coming. The story then follows the pack, which has been robbed of its last prey. When the pack finally brings down a moose, the famine is ended; they eventually split up, and the story now follows a she-wolf and her mate, One Eye. One Eye claimed her after defeating and killing a younger rival. The she-wolf gives birth to
25551-472: The work of a radical democrat who believed in votes for women (and even for children) and in the nationalisation of the land to break the power of the aristocracy, by the 1880s he had become a staunch opponent of female suffrage and made common cause with the landowners of the Liberty and Property Defence League against what they saw as the drift towards 'socialism' of elements (such as Sir William Harcourt ) within
25718-567: The world as a cosmos of benevolent design, and the laws of nature as the decrees of a 'Being transcendentally kind.' Natural laws are thus the statutes of a well-governed universe that have been decreed by the Creator with the intention of promoting human happiness. Although Spencer lost his Christian faith as a teenager and later rejected any 'anthropomorphic' conception of the Deity, he nonetheless held fast to this conception at an almost subconscious level. At
25885-486: Was a difference on some scientific question between them, and this might have given rise to an argument, which Spencer's nerves could not bear. By the 1890s his readership had begun to desert him while many of his closest friends died and he had come to doubt the confident faith in progress that he had made the centre-piece of his philosophical system. His later years were also ones in which his political views became increasingly conservative. Whereas Social Statics had been
26052-410: Was a life-long hypochondriac who complained endlessly of pains and maladies that no physician could diagnose at that time. His excitability and sensitivity to disagreement handicapped his social life: His nervous sensibility was extreme. A game of billiards was enough to deprive him of his night's rest. He had been looking forward with pleasure to a meeting with Huxley; but he gave it up because there
26219-409: Was able to support himself solely on the profit of book sales and on income from his regular contributions to Victorian periodicals which were collected as three volumes of Essays . His works were translated into German, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese, and into many other languages and he was offered honours and awards all over Europe and North America. He also became a member of
26386-509: Was briefly romantically linked. Spencer himself introduced the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley , who would later win fame as 'Darwin's Bulldog' and who remained Spencer's lifelong friend. However, it was the friendship of Evans and Lewes that acquainted him with John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic and with Auguste Comte 's positivism and which set him on the road to his life's work. He strongly disagreed with Comte. Spencer's second book, Principles of Psychology , published in 1855, explored
26553-445: Was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities. In modern moral psychology , morality is sometimes considered to change through personal development. Several psychologists have produced theories on
26720-698: Was especially scathing, and it contributed to his declining popularity in Britain. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1883. Spencer also invented a precursor to the modern paper clip , though it looked more like a modern cotter pin . This "binding-pin" was distributed by Ackermann & Company. Spencer shows drawings of the pin in Appendix I (following Appendix H) of his autobiography along with published descriptions of its uses. In 1902, shortly before his death, Spencer
26887-450: Was filmed in Arrowtown , New Zealand, in 1993. Morality Morality (from Latin moralitas 'manner, character , proper behavior') is the categorization of intentions , decisions and actions into those that are proper, or right , and those that are improper, or wrong . Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from
27054-417: Was in truth a protest against the "humanizing" of animals, of which it seemed to me several "animal writers" had been profoundly guilty. Time and again, and many times, in my narratives, I wrote, speaking of my dog-heroes: "He did not think these things; he merely did them," etc. And I did this repeatedly, to the clogging of my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons; and I did it in order to hammer into
27221-567: Was influenced by the ideas of Herbert Spencer , Karl Marx , and Friedrich Nietzsche . Conditions in the US also influenced the story. Since the novel has been published it has been translated into over 89 different languages and released as a three-volume Braille edition. Upon its release, White Fang was an immediate success worldwide, and became especially popular among younger readers. Robert Greenwood called White Fang "one of London's most interesting and ambitious works." Virginia Crane claims that
27388-581: Was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature , which was assigned to the German Theodor Mommsen . He continued writing all his life, in later years often by dictation, until he succumbed to poor health at the age of 83. His ashes are interred in the eastern side of London's Highgate Cemetery facing Karl Marx 's grave. At Spencer's funeral, the Indian nationalist leader Shyamji Krishna Varma announced
27555-400: Was not concerned with undermining religion in the name of science, but to bring about a reconciliation of the two. The following argument is a summary of Part 1 of his First Principles (2nd ed. 1867). Starting either from religious belief or from science, Spencer argued, we are ultimately driven to accept certain indispensable but literally inconceivable notions. Whether we are concerned with
27722-421: Was thus to demonstrate that there are no exceptions to being able to discover scientific explanations, in the form of natural laws, of all the phenomena of the universe. Spencer's volumes on biology, psychology, and sociology were all intended to demonstrate the existence of natural laws in these specific disciplines. Even in his writings on ethics, he held that it is possible to discover 'laws' of morality that have
27889-841: Was whether the driver of a car would have his friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protect the driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting a pedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quite different expectations, from none to definite. Anthropologists from Oxford's Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (part of the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography) analysed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies, comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources and discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules: help your family, help your group, return favours, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect others' property. The development of modern morality
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