Levy, David M., and Sandra J. Peart.
“Charles Kingsley and the Theological Interpretation of Natural Selection.”
Journal of Bioeconomics 8 (2006): 197-218.
Authors’ Synopsis: “This paper questions the common view that Darwinian biology
is a straightforward extension of classical political economy. Our analysis
contrasts the economists’ classification scheme—whereby all humans were presumed
natural kinds, to be equally competent for economic and political decision
making—with the post-Darwinian classification scheme that developed. When
the tools of political economy were imported into biology, the presumption
of homogeneity of competence was denied. Charles Kingsley played a significant
role in the transition from one sort of classificatory scheme to another,
in the overthrow of the economists’ notion that humans are the same in their
capacity for trade and moral judgment. Darwin sent Kingsley a presentation
copy of Origin of Species and quoted him in the second edition as
the ‘celebrated author and divine’ who had sketched a theology in which Providence
used natural selection in the creation process. The economists’ doctrine
that all people form a natural kind had many opponents. Biologists agreed
with economists that, whatever differences existed between races of people,
none put a person outside the protection of law. Other opponents, e.g., Thomas
Carlyle, criticized both the economists’ premise and their conclusion
regarding protection under the law. Kingsley moved from a Carlylean to a
Darwinian opposition to natural kinds.”
Economics;
Natural
Selection; Darwin.
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