Prosthetic Conscience

Darwin and Epicurus

Wrote this last weekend on paper, didn’t get around to posting it until now.

It’s often said, especially in popular science books, that “Darwinism gives no moral guidelines about how we should live.” (This example comes from Why We Get Sick by Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams) The statement is usually made in an effort to distinguish the modern Darwinian perspective from the “Social Darwinism” of the century before last (which the aforementioned authors correctly note used only the metaphors of Darwinism and not any of the actual theory as scientists would recognize it). The intention is good, but the statement isn’t actually correct. Darwinian theory can do several things to inform moral judgment. The fairly obvious example is that Darwinian theory can tell us whether a particular moral theory is compatible with our nature (as it is; there’s nothing to say that human nature can’t be changed through any of several means). But the more significant factor is the insight that Darwinian theory can give into Epicurean philosophy. In particular, Darwinism can help with the Epicurean analysis of desire. It can explain why we have desires to begin with, and why those desire can lead to suffering. It can explain why there are unnecessary desires, and why there are unsatisfiable (vain) desires. It also helps explain why a desire can be satisfiable but unnecessary, but not necessary and unsatisfiable. Because Epicureanism can tell us how we should live prudently, happily, and justly, Darwinism has something to contribute to telling us how we should live.

Brief note: when I wrote this, I used the adjective “satisfiable” to describe certain desires which in most translations of and discussions of Epicureanism are described as “natural.” I used this not because I think it’s a better translation of the Greek originals (which I haven’t read, and couldn’t read), but because it seems to better express what seems to be implied by Epicurus’ analysis of desire, and does not imply the judgments that “natural” does to a society with the deep Platonic/Aristotelian bias that ours has. If I understand correctly, Epicurus calls those desires “natural” the satisfaction of which are abundantly available in nature. These would include, for example, the desire for food (which has a natural limit), but not the desire for wealth (which has none). Some desires are satisfiable but unnecessary (e.g., the desire to eat meat), but there are no desires that are necessary but unsatisfiable. Calling these desires natural or unnatural is a little confusing.

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