© 2000 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
BOOK REVIEWS
1 University of Washington Seattle, Washington
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INTRODUCTION |
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 INTRODUCTION |
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Recently, there has been much attention to biology and ethics. In part, this is due to the influence of E. O. Wilson's work in sociobiology (1975), which offers a novel biological explanation for ethical behavior. In part, this is also due to the concern about the appropriate use of animals in biological research, a concern made particularly acute by the animal rights community. The following three books address the combination of these two forces. Biology and the Foundation of Ethics addresses the biological foundations of ethical behavior, including several works that address the distinction between humans and animals vis-à-vis ethics. Darwinian Dominion touches on the same subject, but extends it to apply our contemporary understanding of evolution and ethics to issues associated with animal welfare. Responsible Conduct with Animals in Research is the third volume under review, a volume directed much more to the academic researcher involved in the use of animals. Taken together, the three books cover a wide-sweep of territory, representing the extensive treatment biology and its ethical dimensions are now receiving from scholars.
Biology and the Foundation of Ethics. JANE MAIENSCHEIN AND MICHAEL RUSE, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. viii + 336 pgs. $64.95 (cloth), $19.95 (paper).
Biology and the Foundation of Ethics, an edited volume of twelve commissioned papers, purports to address "important issues in biology and society." The editors are Jane Maienschein, who directs a biology and society program at Arizona State University, and Michael Ruse, who is well-known for pronouncements on social issues from his position as an historian and philosopher of biology at the University of Guelph, so the overall orientation of the volume may not be surprising. Closer inspection of the articles reveals the book to be much more directed toward examining how biology, in its evolutionary garb, has been used to support (or not to support) the moral behavior of humans. Thus, the title is much more specifically focused to the biological arguments for ethics than merely focused upon "important issues in biology and society."
Once the reader plunges into the varied submissions, ambiguity about the nature of the volume's theme re-emerges, since some articles are not directly related to the title, although they may bear a relationship to the more generic theme of biology and society. Admittedly, this represents a common hazard of an edited volume, as some authors stick more closely to the invited topic and others stray broadly from it. For example, Jean Gayon contributed a wonderful article about Nietzche and Darwin, but what we learn is that Nietzsche may have read some parts of Darwin and we learn his major responses were to the general idea of evolution (whether Darwinian or not), to natural selection, and to "struggle for life." Given Nietzche's philosophical position, he was predisposed to reject Darwin's contributions but we do not know exactly why or exactly to what he responded in Darwin, since the historical record does not yield any information. In short, we learn a lot about Nietzsche, but little about his debt to biology or evolution theory. Similarly, Diane Paul and Raphael Falk have written a fascinating article about two German geneticists, Nachtsheim and von Verschuer, but their submission deals primarily with the ethical behavior of Nachtsheim and von Verschuer within the context of Nazi Germany. Again, biology and the foundation of ethics do not seem to be the issue here; instead, Paul and Falk illustrate how biologists are able to argue for the purity of their research regardless of the political setting in which they operate.
Two other articles approach the theme more closely, but they still remain tangential. James Lennox's study of Aristotle and the basis of virtue details how Aristotle claimed that virtue was a result of "reasoned choice," therefore a characteristic of human behavior only (humans are equipped to reason). While informative, this contribution could have been sculpted to fit the overall theme much better if Lennox had been directed to focus more on the "biology" (natural history) of ethics, which might have illustrated why these types of arguments continue to emerge within the western tradition. Similarly, Michael Bradie investigates the moral status of animals in the eighteenth century, but once again we are left to forge the connections to the general theme of the volume. The work is solid, informative, and interesting, but many readers will be left puzzled by its inclusion in the volume.
The other submissions are much more related to each other and much more consistent with a general theme. Phillip Sloan provides a framework for how ethics became reduced to the natural law arguments of the Enlightenment, under the influence of French ideas of transformism at the end of the eighteenth century. Paul Farber extends this theme by examining the role of Lanessan during the nineteenth century and his attempts to extend these same arguments. Myles Jackson details how two German philosophers, Goethe and Oken, could read divergent messages about ethics from nature. In a parallel fashion, Ruse compares the ethical writings of George Gaylord Simpson and Julian Huxley, collaborators in the modern synthesis but oppositional thinkers in terms of the natural placement of ethics. Marga Vicedo further develops the rich diversity that evolution offers the ethical biologist by examining the various positions of the American geneticists Conklin, Jennings, East, and Davenport. Robert Richards produced a much more controversial chapter, arguing that Darwin considered ethical behavior to have a biological origin, a position to which he was led by his tie to German romanticism. While there may be adequate historical arguments for the first part of Richards' thesis, the latter claim is supported only by the thinnest of evidence.
These six chapters are supported by two philosophical chapters, one written by Peter Woodcock and the other written by Robert J. McShea and Daniel W. McShea. Woodcock's chapter is a commendable attack against the argument that ethical behavior is rooted in biology, but his philosophical arguments are pitched to an audience with more than just a passing knowledge of philosophy. It may be, in fact, too philosophical to be appreciated by non-philosophers. On the other hand, the McShea article offers many biological examples to support the philosophical justifications for ethical behavior. It is certainly much more understandable than Woodcock and points in pretty much the same direction.
Having provided the above as an overview, I still am not convinced that Biology and the Foundation of Ethics will find a ready audience among biologists and other scientists. Certainly many of the articles are well-written, clearly presented, and accessible. But many non-historians and non-philosophers may complete the book and ask, "So what?" The editors may have helped the reader more by keeping all the authors more closely tied to a clearly defined theme and/or by providing commentary to situate the articles. Certainly the present interest in the biological explanation of ethical behavior will draw readers to the volume. I am afraid, however, that most will come away without the illumination they had hoped to receive.
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