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Charles Darwin

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

Sherrie Lyons revisits Evolution and Ethics by Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin’s most energetic defender and the coiner of the word ‘agnostic’.

Calling himself ‘Darwin’s bulldog’, Thomas Huxley claimed he was prepared to go to the stake if necessary to defend Darwin’s theory of evolution. Nevertheless, he did not think the doctrine of evolution could give us an ethics to live by. Huxley maintained that even if one accepted that evolution has produced creatures with a moral sense such as ourselves, it does not follow that we can look to evolution to define the content of morality. I will argue that Huxley’s thoughts on evolution and ethics must be understood in their historical context. Examining Huxley’s full body of work demonstrates that understanding nature is key to living a just and moral life.

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