Publisher's Synopsis
The relevance or otherwise of Evolutionary Biology to Ethics was as controversial in the 1880s as in the 1980s. The crux of Leslie Stephen's book lies in his attempt to explain the moral sentiments or "instincts" of people by reference to their evolutionary origin. He argues that the instincts beneficial to the race will be favoured by the mechanism of natural selection. The distinguishing feature of the work is its thoroughgoing "naturalism" in opposition to theological-based ethical systems (in which conscience is the voice of God, backed by a supernatural "sanction") and Kantian ethics (the moral law self-imposed and binding on all rational beings as such). Stephen insists, with Hume, that Ethics ultimately rests on sentiment, and draws on Darwin to explain the origin of the sentiments in question.
