The question is not whether evolution is connected with ethics, but how.

—Michael Ruse, Evolutionary Ethics: A Phoenix Arisen

Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) may well be the most influential and controversial book ever written. It contains an idea so revolutionary that it has been compared to Copernicus’s discovery that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not (as previously thought) the other way around. What is that idea? That individuals everywhere are engaged in a “struggle for existence”—a struggle whose outcome is determined not by God but by Nature herself. Those individuals possessing features that are conducive to survival and reproduction (an opposable thumb, say, or perhaps webbed feet) have an adaptive advantage; they are more likely to beat out their competitors in the game of life. Nature looks on them (or rather on their traits) favorably and passes them down the family tree to the next generation of offspring. And thus organisms change and evolve—in our case, as the first X-Men reminds us, “from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet.”

It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of Darwin’s thought. “If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had,” said philosopher Daniel Dennett (b. 1942), “I’d give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else.”¹ Hefty praise indeed. The idea is also deemed “dangerous,” in that it has expansionist tendencies; it tends to creep into other areas, sometimes stepping on the toes of disciplines outside the realm of biology. There are, for example, evolutionary explanations of art, love, mathematics, and even religion.² If Dennett is right, Darwin’s dangerous idea “unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law.”³ In other words, it explains the meaning and the purpose of our lives in a purely naturalistic way.

The story of the X-Men is the story of genetic mutation and the incredible powers and advantages it confers. With PhDs in genetics, biophysics, psychology, anthropology, and psychiatry, Charles Xavier, mutant mentor, is no intellectual slouch. One of the world’s most powerful telepaths, he can project his thoughts into the minds of others. With Cerebro—a device that magnifies telepathic ability—at his disposal, it is within his power to annihilate the entire human race. Yet he doesn’t. Indeed, in the face of compulsory mutant registration, Xavier is hopeful. He pleads with his friend Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto), “Don’t give up on them, Erik.” But Magneto merely replies, “I’ve heard these arguments before,” referring, of course, to the forced registration of Jews in Nazi Germany, a seemingly innocuous request that ultimately led to the death camps (where in the first X-Men movie we are introduced to Magneto as a boy).

How can we be sure the nonmutants aren’t proceeding down a similar slippery slope? Professor Xavier assures us, “That was a long time ago. Mankind has evolved since then.” Magneto retorts, “Yes, into us.” But that’s not what Xavier has in mind. What he says suggests that human morality is evolving along with human biology: that evolution and ethics are intimately connected. This raises all sorts of fascinating philosophical questions. If mutation and morality are linked, then wouldn’t morality simply be a biological adaptation: “a feature helping us in the struggle for existence and reproduction—no less than hands and eyes, teeth and feet”?⁴ Evolutionary ethicists think so. But then wouldn’t those most capable of surviving and reproducing in effect be the most moral? In a Darwinian world, if I can eliminate my rivals—say, by manipulating magnetic fields or creating hurricane-force winds—then what would be wrong with that, if that’s what I wanted to do? You might reply that I should respect other human beings. Well, perhaps I should. As Professor Xavier points out to Wolverine, however, “There are mutants out there with incredible powers, Logan, and many who do not share my respect for mankind.” What do you say to them? Magneto tells the young Pyro: you are “a god among insects.” Well, from a mutant point of view, if that’s what humans beings are—mere insects—then why isn’t Magneto’s attempt to kill off all of the nonmutants (by way of Cerebro) morally justifiable? After all, he is merely ensuring his survival by eliminating those he perceives as threats to his fitness. What could be more laudable than that?

“Nonsense on Stilts”

Most of us, I dare say, see little difference between Magneto’s plan to exterminate all nonmutants and the Fuehrer’s “Final Solution.” In words that echo those of Hitler, Magneto declares, “We are the future, Charles, not them. They no longer matter.” Perceived threat or not, what’s in view is mass genocide of billions of innocent human beings. We can quibble about the morality of stem cell research or abortion if we like, but clearly a holocaust of this sort is morally unconscionable, an absolute wrong—no ifs, ands, or buts. Still, the question arises: Why are we inclined to think so? What accounts for that?

Darwin has a handy explanation. Human beings once lived in a very primitive state—a state famously described by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Basically, we were at one another’s throats. Survival was a beastly struggle. Somewhere along the way, however, bands of humans realized that by overcoming their differences, life lasted longer and everyone produced more offspring. Those individuals with altruistic impulses, who showed concern for others—today we call them “emotionally intelligent”—were subject to less aggression on the part of others, attracted better mates, and so on. Accordingly, “Those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best and rear the greatest number of offspring.”⁵ What we consider moral behavior is therefore the result of genetic mutation and instincts hardwired into us by socio-biological evolution. The fact is, says Richard Dawkins,

Natural selection favours genes that predispose individuals . . . to remember obligations, bear grudges, police exchange relationships and punish cheats who take, but don’t give when their turn comes.⁶

You and I are therefore the happy recipients of certain moral impulses or urges; we possess a “moral sense,” if you will. As a result, we tend to engage in what Dennett calls “rule worship”; we are strongly inclined to embrace, and at times enforce, such prescriptions as You ought to respect human life or You shouldn’t have more than one spouse at a time. But why so? Because, Dennett says,

“rule worship” of a certain kind is a good thing, at least for agents designed like us. It is good not because there is a certain rule, or set of rules, which is probably the best, or which always yields the right answer, but because having rules works—somewhat—and not having rules doesn’t work at all.⁷

In short, following “rules” produces social order and cohesion; it sets the stage for human flourishing. We kid ourselves, though, if we think there is a foundation for morality apart from human evolution.⁸ These “moral rules,” to borrow Jeremy Bentham’s phrase, are “nonsense on stilts.” And yet they’re “good nonsense,” Dennett tell us, precisely because they are on “stilts”; that is, they’ve got enough clout to rise above those who decide to impose their selfish agendas on the rest of us. They’re “conversation-stoppers” that can be used to silence the opposition. And that’s all they are—end of story.

Something like this view of “moral rules” seems to be lurking behind Magneto’s ongoing battle of wills with Charles Xavier over the nonmutant problem. As we all know, Xavier meets his match in William Stryker, the former military man bent on wiping out every mutant on the face of the planet. After kidnapping Xavier, Stryker uses his telepathic son, Jason, to take over the professor’s mind, hook him up to Cerebro, and then carry out a final solution of his own. Behind the scenes, of course, Magneto is redirecting events for his own purposes: to modify Cerebro and wipe out humankind.

With Stryker out of the picture, Magneto triumphantly strides to the end of the ramp where the professor is perched, still under the effects of brainwashing. Listen to what Magneto says to his old friend:

How does it look from there, Charles? Still fighting the good fight? From here it doesn’t look like they’re playing by your rules. Maybe it’s time to play by theirs.

Something has gone seriously wrong. How in the world did Xavier get into this mess? It’s perfectly obvious. He bought into the wrong set of rules: human rules that guarantee human superiority. He is one of Darwin’s “sympathetic” individuals, desperately trying to produce a new consensus, a new set of cooperative standards by which humans and mutants can live in harmony. Magneto’s point, however, is pure Dennett. “Charles, it’s not working.” Xavier thinks the rules he follows are good (fighting the good fight by following good rules). But “good” here just means “what enhances fitness.” If your “respect for humanity” rule were really working, Charles, why are you on the verge of telepathically annihilating every member of your own kind?⁹ Your rule is an absolute dud.

Yes, I know. Professor Xavier is ultimately rescued, heads off the forced registration of mutants, and helps usher in a new era of cooperation with humanity. But things could easily have gone the other way. Indeed, if a “good” rule is one that confers an evolutionary advantage, then it’s difficult to see why Magneto’s rule “You ought to eliminate any group that poses a potential threat to your existence” isn’t the better of the two rules as far as natural selection goes. After all, wouldn’t a homogeneous community consisting only of mutants be far more cohesive, far more conducive to mutant survival and reproduction, than a mixed community of humans and mutants, with its radically unequal (and therefore divisive) distribution of powers and opportunities?

**You Can’t Get an Ought from an Is**

The Harvard professor E. O. Wilson once announced that “the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized.”¹⁰ Admittedly, we all feel more confident about the claims of a discipline when we’re told they have a scientific basis. If scientists can study it, we’re on solid ground. But what do scientists study? Simply the way the world is. By way of the scientific method and using their five senses, they tell us what is the case: chemically, biologically, and so forth. Do they also study ethics? There is a very good reason to think not. For, as most of us recognize, “Ethics has to do with what is good or right—in other words, with what ought to be the case.”¹¹ Do you see the difference between what is and what ought to be? The claim that we can ground ethics in evolutionary biology assumes that we can deduce how the world ought to be from the way it is in fact.

Unfortunately, this assumption commits what the distinguished Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore (1873-1958) called “The Naturalistic Fallacy.”¹² What precisely is that? It’s a mistake in reasoning that occurs every time we try to identify what is good or right with some scientifically measurable, natural property. Let’s suppose, for example, that “good” means “whatever contributes to your personal pleasure.” Then consider one of Wolverine’s many sexual advances toward Jean Grey, who is already in a committed relationship with Scott Summers (Cyclops). Does that activity increase his personal pleasure? You bet. Now ask yourself this question:

Q1: Making sexual advances to Jean Grey has the property of increasing Wolverine’s pleasure, but is it good?

That’s an open question, isn’t it? For even if Wolverine finds this sort of thing pleasurable, we can still ask whether it’s right or good for him to do so. She’s someone else’s girl, for goodness sake! Now here’s the kicker. If “good” simply means “whatever contributes to your personal pleasure,” then Q1 asks the very same question as:

Q2: Making sexual advances to Jean Grey has the property of increasing Wolverine’s pleasure, but does it have the property of increasing Wolverine’s pleasure?

But that’s clearly ridiculous. Unlike Q1, Q2 isn’t an open question at all. You don’t have to ask whether something is pleasurable if you know that it’s pleasurable. What you do have to ask is whether it’s good, whether it ought to be so.

What this shows, in general, is that the attempt to equate right and wrong with purely natural properties is an abject failure. “Come back in a hundred years,” Sam Harris said, “and if we haven’t returned to living in caves and killing one another with clubs, we will have some scientifically astute things to say about ethics.”¹³ Don’t hold your breath. What science might help with is explaining how our moral beliefs arose; it cannot hope to provide a natural ground or basis for them. This is actually a welcome conclusion, because the list of things that nature has selected for includes some of the most sickening behaviors any of us could ever imagine: rape, infanticide, siblingcide, and even sexual cannibalism (killing and eating one’s mate after impregnation).¹⁴ Even Harris, a diehard naturalist, concedes that these are things “we would have done well to leave behind us in the jungles of Africa.”¹⁵ And he’s right. But then where does that leave Xavier, Magneto, and those who see a link between evolution and ethics?

Are Ethics an Illusion?

Frankly, it’s a bit of a pickle. If, like Professor Xavier, you want to denounce Magneto’s behavior, your judgments need some sort of moral bite (you would think). They have to prohibit and condemn certain actions as ones that ought not to have been done, morally speaking. Surely, we need something on which to hang our deepest moral convictions. If that something isn’t natural, then what is it? Here, philosopher of biology Michael Ruse (b. 1940) bites the bullet:

The evolutionist argues that, thanks to our science, we see that claims like “You ought to maximize personal liberty” are no more than subjective expressions, impressed upon our thinking because of their adaptive value. In other words, we see that morality has no philosophically objective foundation. It is just an illusion, fobbed off on us to promote biological “altruism.”¹⁶

What’s he saying? Evolution has basically tricked us into thinking that morality is objective and real when it isn’t; evolution does this so that we obey the illusion, rather than ignore it. Things work better for all of us that way. The fact of the matter, however, is that “morality has no more (and no less) status than that of the terror we feel at the unknown—another emotion.”¹⁷ So what is morality? It’s a sentiment or a feeling. A moral statement such as “It is wrong to force mutants to register with the authorities” doesn’t make a factual claim at all. In her showdown with Senator Kelly, Jean Grey might just as well have blurted out, “Mutant registration!!” in disgust. That’s all she’s doing: announcing her feelings. Believe it or not, she’s not saying anything true or false. It’s a little bit like “booing” an athlete at a sports event.

Ruse and Magneto have a lot in common. Did you ever notice how Magneto never engages anyone in moral debate? He listens to Senator Kelly crush Jean Grey in debate and then tells his friend Charles, “I’ve heard these arguments before.” Okay, then, why not join the discussion? Put a counterargument on the table. Feed the good Dr. Grey some better material. Get with it! All you’ll ever see Magneto do is act on feeling and impulse. At one point, he actually kidnaps Senator Kelly. Then we get the following exchange:

Magneto: “I think what you are really afraid of is me—me and my kind, the brotherhood of mutants. . . . Mankind has always feared what it doesn’t understand.”

Senator Kelly: “What do you intend to do to me?”

Magneto: “Let’s just say that God works too slowly.”

You’ve got the senator alone; it’s a perfect time to reason with him. And what does Magneto do? Instead of persuading Kelly to change his position, he jumps in his gyroscope machine and blasts the senator with waves of radiation, transforming him into jellyfish man. Like Ruse, Magneto knows that moral reasoning is impossible; there are no facts in the moral realm. Morality is all about feelings, desires, urges, and impulses. The senator is in the grip of fear, a very powerful emotion that drives his anti-mutant behavior. The point of changing him into a mutant is to replace fear with sympathy, a much more mutant-friendly emotion. Reason is not involved.

Now, it’s certainly true that we find ourselves with powerful impulses to act. The thing to see, however, is that if Ruse and Magneto are right, these are not moral impulses. For morality is sheer illusion. This has a number of rather devastating implications. For one thing, it implies that there is no such thing as real moral disagreement.¹⁸ If you’re cheering on Michael Phelps to his eighth Olympic gold medal, and I’m viciously booing him, we’re not disagreeing about anything, are we? Well, that’s the way things go in moral disputes—at least, if Ruse is right. Jean Grey says, “Boo!” to mutant registration; Senator Kelly responds, “Hurrah!” They aren’t disagreeing. For neither is making a factual claim; they’re just venting their emotions. And yet this seems absurd. Anyone who watches the Grey-Kelly showdown can see genuine disagreement taking place. Sure, their emotions are engaged, but their claims aren’t simply emotive eruptions. They’re taking opposite positions on the question, “Is forced mutant registration right?” Senator Kelly says, “Yes”; Jean Grey disagrees.

Let’s say that Senator Kelly decides to switch his position on mutant registration. He’s now against it. Would you say that was an improvement or not? In the Ruse-Magneto view, it’s neither better nor worse. It’s just a change. In order to improve your views on any moral issue, you have to exchange the false beliefs you hold about something (e.g., “Slavery is good”) for true ones (e.g., “Slavery is bad”). But if morality is all an illusion, then there is no right or wrong, good or bad. There’s only cheers and boos. And this means that if Magneto were to switch his position on wiping out humanity, we couldn’t say that it was a change for the better (only that it was a change). Nor would it be a moral failure if Charles Xavier decided to join forces with Magneto. It’s no worse than deciding to hurl abuse at Phelps in the home stretch when you had started out applauding him.¹⁹

Some evolutionary ethicists have simply swallowed these difficulties wholesale without flinching.²⁰ What can we say to them? Well, let’s temporarily concede that objective morality is an illusion, and that all we have are these “moral” instincts ingrained through natural selection. We obey our instincts because “there is more in it for us than if we do not.”²¹ Seriously? That sounds more like selfish (immoral) behavior to me. As Ruse admitted (thereby contradicting himself), “Morality means going out on a limb, because it is right to do so. Morality vanishes if you hope for payment.”²² Exactly.

Just think for a moment about Jean Grey’s sacrifice for her comrades in X-Men United. Knowing that their ship isn’t going to manage liftoff before the dam breaks and they are all crushed under its massive waters, Jean slips out the back. She then uses her considerable telepathic prowess to seal the hatch, block the water flow, and levitate the ship to safety. Unfortunately, she can’t save herself and perishes in the process. Everyone is heartbroken. I’d say that’s worthy of our praise and admiration. But all that the ethical illusionist can say here is that she followed her instincts. How praiseworthy is that? We do it all the time; it’s actually pretty easy. If you’re like me, when you wake up in the morning, you have a powerful urge to drink coffee. I almost always follow that urge—unless my coffeemaker is on the fritz and my local Starbucks has burned down! Do you admire me for that? I’ll bet not. I’m simply acting on my desires. The same thing goes for Jean Grey. If dying for others is genetically hardwired into her, it’s neither surprising nor praiseworthy if we find her doing just that.

Indeed, if you think about it long and hard enough, you might wonder (as I sometimes do) whether nature would even bother to select for this sort of behavior. As Darwin recognized long ago, “He who was ready to sacrifice his life . . . rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature.”²³ So I’m rather inclined to think that natural selection, if it did anything, would eliminate such self-negating tendencies. But that’s beside the point. Our question is, Why should we praise Jean Grey? As the ship clears the water, Logan cries out, “There had to be another way. Why did she leave the plane?” And Professor Xavier quietly replies, “Because she made a choice.” It was a choice between two impulses; one propelling her to self-preservation, the other to save her friends. We praise her because she refused to follow the stronger impulse (which was no doubt self-preservation) and instead did what was right.²⁴ In this situation, I think we could make the case that Jean Grey actually had a moral obligation to give up her life. Only she had it within her power to save the team, and unless she were prepared to do that, they would all most certainly have died.²⁵ That’s what morality’s about. At its heart, it involves doing what is right, doing what we ought to do, even (and especially) when it runs at cross-purposes with our most selfish instincts.

What Einstein Can Learn from Xavier

If you’re trying to figure out the moral life, Magneto’s not your man. “If ‘ought’ cannot be derived from ‘is,’” Dennett asks, “just what can ‘ought’ be derived from?”²⁶ Is there anything on which “to hang our deepest convictions” about right and wrong? In one of his lectures on ethics, Professor Xavier tells his class that since mutants have great power, they must ask themselves when the exercise of that power is permissible and when they have crossed the line “that turns us into tyrants over our fellow man.” So there’s one thing: you can cross the line in ethics; morality isn’t an illusion fobbed off on us. A sharp student in the front row then sets a challenge: “But Einstein said that ethics are an exclusive human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.” Xavier’s reply, delivered with a knowing smile, addresses only half the concern: “Einstein wasn’t a mutant . . . so far as we know.”

Students ask great questions. Sometimes they even stump their professors, who then try to answer different (much easier) questions instead. In this case, the professor dispels the myth that moral rules are merely evolutionary inventions applicable only to human beings. If Einstein were a mutant, Xavier is saying, he would have realized that morality is universal; it applies to all of us—mutants and humans alike. He would also have seen that right and wrong aren’t subject to the changing tides of evolution, which might have gone in an entirely different direction, making hate our duty and Magneto our supreme moral example.²⁷ Good heavens! But what about that other concern? Is there a superhuman authority behind morality? Well, if there is, it cannot be anything in the natural world—not gobs of pleasure, evolutionary fitness, or even the character of a mutant as selfless and wise as Charles Xavier!

Anxious about the status of mathematical truths if grounded in either the physical world or human psychology, the German mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) placed them in what he called the “Third Realm”: an absolute and unchanging realm of existence where nothing physical exists and natural selection has no foothold.²⁸ Would that mean that mathematics was outside the reach of science? It would. And yet Frege wasn’t exactly worried about positing a supranatural foundation for mathematics. After all, numbers aren’t the sorts of things you can study under a microscope anyway. Of course, neither are moral oughts and duties; they completely defy scientific explanation. So perhaps the basis for morality is also beyond the natural. This view is open to the obvious objection that since duties and obligations can be owed only to persons, the ground for morality would have to be personal. No doubt some will see the attempt to invoke a supranatural person as the foundation for morality as obscure—maybe even wicked. (I can hear Darwin, Dennett, and Ruse howling!)

But one man’s cost is another man’s benefit. If you are already inclined to accept some form of supernatural theism, this suggestion may strike you as not only tolerable, but compelling. Of course, many questions remain. I only wish we could put Professor Xavier back together again for one more lecture!²⁹

NOTES

1 Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (London: Penguin Books, 1995), p. 21.

2 See, e.g., Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006). See also Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).

3 Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, p. 21.

4 Michael Ruse, “Evolutionary Ethics: A Phoenix Arisen,” Zygon 21 (1986): 99.

5 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man: And Selection in Relation to Sex (London: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 130.

6 Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 217.

7 Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, p. 507.

8 Compare Ruse: “our morality is a function of our actual human nature and . . . it cannot be divorced from the contingencies of our evolution” (“Evolutionary Ethics,” p. 110).

9 Actually, nearly every member. Magneto, of course, is immune to telepathic attack because of that stylish helmet of his. Well, maybe not stylish, but certainly more pleasing than Xavier’s Cerebro headset!

10 Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 127, emphasis mine.

11 James Rachels, Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 67.

12 See G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), Sec. 24.

13 Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 146.

14 Compare Harris: “The practice of rape may have once conferred an adaptive advantage on our species—and rapists of all shapes and sizes can indeed be found in the natural world (dolphins, orangutans, chimpanzees, etc.) . . . From my genome’s point of view, nothing could be more gratifying than the knowledge that I have fathered thousands of children for whom I now bear no financial responsibility” (The End of Faith, pp. 185-186).

15 Ibid., p. 185.

16 Ruse, “Evolutionary Ethics,” p. 102, emphasis mine. By “objective,” Ruse simply means “has a basis independent of what we think, feel, or believe.”

17 Ibid., p. 102, emphasis mine.

18 The Oxford philosopher A. J. Ayer (1910-1989) made this point in his highly influential Language, Truth, and Logic, 2nd ed. (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1952), chap. 6.

19 It’s difficult to avoid making value judgments about what’s better or worse. For example, Sam Harris laments the fact that “we must now confront whole societies whose moral and political development—in their treatment of women and children, in their prosecution of war, in their approach to criminal justice, and in their very intuitions about what constitutes cruelty—lags behind our own” (The End of Faith, p. 145). Harris quite clearly considers our society better than others—a value judgment that is ruled out in the Ruse-Magneto view.

20 Ayer is a perfect example here.

21 Ruse, “Evolutionary Ethics,” p. 101.

22 Ibid., p. 105.

23 Darwin, The Descent of Man, p. 155.

24 Compare Darwin: “In a timid man . . . the instinct of self-preservation might be so strong that he would be unable to force himself to run any risk, perhaps not even for his own child” (The Descent of Man, p. 134).

25 You can read more about when self-sacrifice is and isn’t our moral duty in Richard Davis, “Beyond the Call of Duty,” in 24 and Philosophy: The World According to Jack, edited by Jennifer Hart Weed, Richard Davis, and Ronald Weed (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 31-42.

26 Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, p. 467.

27 Compare Ruse: “We might have developed so that we think we should hate our neighbors, when really we should love them. Worse than this even, perhaps we really should be hating our neighbors, even though we think we should love them!” (“Evolutionary Ethics,” p. 108.)

28 See his essay “Thought,” in The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 325-345.

29 Special thanks to Caroline and Wesley Davis for their astute comments on an earlier draft.