Darwinists, Moral Relativism, and Hitler

Hi everyone,

I was interested in looking at the arguments against evolution today, so I decided to pay a visit to the Discovery Institute ( www.discovery.org ). One of the first articles I found there was titled "Darwinists, Moral Relativism, and Hitler." The author recently had attended a Darwin convention in southern California, and was "appalled" by the claims of a few of the speakers that our morals are shaped by evolution rather than an objective moral standard. One philosophy major he sat next to told him that Hitler was not really right nor wrong, since it is all in the eye of the beholder. The author took this further, saying that any Darwinist could not really blame Hitler since he was just trying to help evolution along by cleaning up the gene pool. He also suggested reading both of his books on Darwin and Hitler: "Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress," and "From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany."

While I disagree strongly on the connection between Darwinism and eugenics, I thought the author did bring up some interesting points on morality that many people struggle with. Do we have morals only to more effectively populate the earth? Or have we as an advanced society developed an objective moral code that is more interested in protecting the quality of life of our species? And, does it matter?

Link: http://www.discovery.org/a/13611

Ian