From Darwin to Hitler : evolutionary ethics, eugenics, and racism in Germany / Richard Weikart.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weikart, Richard, 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Eugenics--Germany--History.

Eugenics.

Germany.

History.

Ethics, Evolutionary.

Racism--Germany.

Racism.

Germany--Race relations.

Race relations.

Physical Description:

xi, 312 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Summary:

In this compelling and painstakingly researched work of intellectual history, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism had overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially those pertaining to the sacredness of human life. Many of these thinkers, like Ernst Haeckel and Ludwig Buchner, supported a moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially in terms of intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Weikart concludes that Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis. He convincingly makes the disturbing argument that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles rather than nihilistic ones. From Darwin to Hitler is a provocative yet balanced work that should encourage a rethinking of the historical impact that Darwinism had on the course of events in the twentieth century.

Contents:

1. Laying New Foundations for Ethics 19

1. The Origin of Ethics and the Rise of Moral Relativism 21

2. Evolutionary Progress as the Highest Good 43

3. Organizing Evolutionary Ethics 59

2. Devaluing Human Life 71

4. The Value of Life and the Value of Death 73

5. The Specter of Inferiority: Devaluing the Disabled and "Unproductive" 89

6. The Science of Racial Inequality 103

3. Eliminating the "Inferior Ones" 127

7. Controlling Reproduction: Overturning Traditional Sexual Morality 129

8. Killing the "Unfit" 145

9. War and Peace 163

10. Racial Struggle and Extermination 183

4. Impacts 207

11. Hitler's Ethic 209.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [235]-303) and index.

ISBN:

1403965021

OCLC:

53485256