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BY: Ian Altuna Pamela Carbonell Joy Iglesia Chase Castano Sae Cipriaso Leo Villar
Biography
Born in Derby, England on April 27, 1820 at the height of British Industrialism Son of William George Spencer A sickly child
Among his illnesses are chronic insomnia and nervous breakdown He could only work a few hours a day, and used fairly substantial amounts of opium
British Industrialism
He experienced a strange sensation in his head which he called "the mischief", and was known for eccentricities like the wearing of ear-plugs to avoid over-excitement, especially when he could not hold his ground in an argument.
Educated at home in mathematics, natural science, history and English, among some other languages like Latin
Worked as a Civil Engineer at age 16 during the railway boom of the late 1830s
This vocation of his took up ten years of his life, and imbued him with a healthy optimism for life and society
Served as a sub-editor on the free trade journal The Economist
Interacted with famous people like Thomas Huxley and John Tyndall
Spencer published numerous articles in the radical press of his time, like The Leader, The Fortnightly and The Westminster Review, largely concerning the government, pushing for limiting its role as a mediator in society
He advocated the abolishment of Poor Laws, national education and a central church He wanted the lifting of all restrictions on commerce and factory legislation.
Met his assistant Marian Evans across the street from where he worked They developed a very close friendship, and talked of marriage but never actually married. Even so, they remained intimate companions up till her death.
Marian Evans
His theory of evolution actually preceded Charles Darwin's, when he wrote The Developmental Hypothesis in 1852
His theory was not taken into serious consideration largely because of a lack of an effective theoretical system for natural selection He is the first to popularize the term Evolution
His evolutionary stance led to his most famous idea, Social Darwinism.
He saw evolution as the change from a homogeneous condition that was innately unstable, to a heterogenous and stable one. He highlighted four main concepts: Growth, Differentiation, Integration and Adaptation,
Spencer's last years were characterized by a collapse of his initial optimism, replaced instead by a pessimism regarding the future of mankind.
He died in 1903, and is buried at High Gate Cemetery near George Eliot and Karl Marx.
He thinks that sociology should not influence social reform. He thinks that the evolution of society should be left to improve on its own. He called this principle "the survival of the fittest." He believes that when the less capable people die out, society improves over time.
Spencer's work had a political as well as a scientific dimension. Unfortunately, he regarded the "survival of the fittest" as a sort of guide for governmental policy, which often led him to oppose programs to assist the poor. His skepticism about the ability of government to do more good than harm--not only concerning poverty but quite generally--has made him an important inspiration of what today is called libertarianism.
Spencer's greatest contribution perhaps was to encourage people to try thinking of society and culture, no less than stones and pinecones, as belonging to the natural world. "Civilisation," he declared, "is a part of nature; all of a piece with the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower.
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die.
The theory was chiefly expounded by Herbert Spencer, whose ethical philosophies always held an elitist view and received a boost from the application of Darwinian ideas such as adaptation and natural selection.
Implications
The concept of adaptation allowed him to claim that the rich and powerful were better adapted to the social and economic climate of the time, and the concept of natural selection allowed him to argue that it was natural, normal, and proper for the strong to thrive at the expense of the weak. After all, he claimed, that is exactly what goes on in nature every day.
However, Spencer did not just present his theories as placing humans on a parallel with nature. Not only was survival of the fittest natural, but it was also morally correct. Indeed, some extreme Social Darwinists argued that it was morally incorrect to assist those weaker than oneself, since that would be promoting the survival and possible reproduction of someone who was fundamentally unfit.
In its most extreme forms, Social Darwinism has been used to justify eugenics programs aimed at weeding "undesirable" genes from the population; such programs were sometimes accompanied by sterilization laws directed against "unfit" individuals. The American eugenics movement was relatively popular between about 1910-1930, during which 24 states passed sterilization laws and Congress passed a law restricting immigration from certain areas deemed to be unfit. Social Darwinist ideas, though in different forms, were also applied by the Nazi party in Germany to justify their eugenics programs.
This problem in Social Darwinist thinking stems from the fact that the theory falls into the "naturalistic fallacy", which consists of trying to derive an ought statement from an is statement. For example, the fact that you stubbed your toe this morning does not logically imply that you ought to have stubbed your toe!!
The same argument applies to the Social Darwinists' attempt to extend natural processes into human social structures. This is a common problem in philosophy, and it is commonly stated that it is absolutely impossible to derive ought from is (though this is still sometimes disputed); at the very least, it is impossible to do it so simply and directly as the Social Darwinists did.
Sources
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 18601945: Nature As Model and Nature As Threat by Mike Hawkins Social Darwinism: Linking Evolutionary Thought to Social Theory by Peter Dickens Social Darwinism in American Thought by Richard Hofstadter