What do you think?
Rate this book
Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (Oxford Paperbacks) by James Rachels
From Bishop Wilberforce in the 1860s to the advocates of "creation science" today, defenders of traditional mores have condemned Darwin's theory of evolution as a threat to society's values. Darwin's defenders, like Stephen Jay Gould, have usually replied that there is no conflict between science and religion--that values and biological facts occupy separate realms. But as James Rachels points out in this thought-provoking study, Darwin himself would disagree with Gould. Darwin, who had once planned on being a clergyman, was convinced that natural selection overthrew our age-old religious beliefs. Created from Animals offers a provocative look at how Darwinian evolution undermines many tenets of traditional philosophy and religion. James Rachels begins by examining Darwin's own life and work, presenting an astonishingly vivid and compressed biography. We see Darwin's studies of the psychological links in evolution (such as emotions in dogs, and the "mental powers" of worms), and how he addressed the moral implications of his work, especially in his concern for the welfare of animals. Rachels goes on to present a lively and accessible survey of the controversies that followed in Darwin's wake, ranging from Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism to Edward O. Wilson's sociobiology, and discusses how the work of such influential intellects as Descartes, Hume, Kant, T.H. Huxley, Henri Bergson, B.F. Skinner, and Stephen Jay Gould has contributed to--or been overthrown by--evolutionary science. Western philosophy and religion, Rachels argues, have been shaken by the implications of Darwin's work, most notably the controversial idea that humans are simply a more complex kind of animal. Rachels assesses a number of studies that suggest how closely humans are linked to other primates in behavior, and then goes on to show how this idea undercuts the work of many prominent philosophers. Kant's famous argument that suicide reduces one to the level of an animal, for instance, is meaningless if humans are, in fact, animals. Indeed, humanity's membership in the animal kingdom calls into question the classic notions of human dignity and the sacredness of human life. What we need now, Rachels contends, is a philosophy that does not discriminate between different species, one that addresses each being on an individual basis. With this sweeping survey of the arguments, the philosophers, and the deep implications surrounding Darwinism, Rachels lays the foundations for a new view of morality. Vibrantly written and provocatively argued, Created from Animals offers a new perspective on issues ranging from suicide to euthanasia to animal rights.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
3 people are currently reading
287 people want to read
About the author
James Rachels
60 books34 followersJames Rachels, the distinguished American moral philosopher, was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from nearby Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studying under Professors W. D. Falk and E. M. Adams. He taught at the University of Richmond, New York University, the University of Miami, Duke University, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he spent the last twenty-six years of his career. 1971 saw the publication of his groundbreaking anthology Moral Problems, which helped ignite the movement from teaching metaethics in American colleges to teaching concrete practical issues. Moral Problems sold 100,000 copies over three editions. In 1975, Rachels wrote "Active and Passive Euthanasia," arguing that the distinction so important in the law between killing and letting die has no rational basis. Originally appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, this essay has been reprinted 300 times and is a staple of undergraduate education. The End of Life (1986) broadened and deepened these ideas. Created from Animals (1990) argued that a Darwinian world-view has widespread philosophical implications, including drastic implications for our treatment of nonhuman animals. Can Ethics Provide Answers? (1997) was Rachels' first collection of papers; The Legacy of Socrates (2007) was his second. Rachels' textbook, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, is currently the best-selling book in philosophy. Shortly before being diagnosed with cancer, Rachels finished Problems from Philosophy, an introduction to his subject, published posthumously.
Over his career, Rachels wrote 6 books and 86 essays, edited 7 books and gave about 275 professional lectures. His work has been translated into Dutch, Korean, Norwegian, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Serbo-Croatian. He is widely admired as a stylist; his essays and books are remarkably free of jargon and clutter. A major theme in his work is that reason can resolve difficult moral issues. He has argued for moral vegetarianism and animal rights, for affirmative action (including quotas), for the humanitarian use of euthanasia, and for the idea that parents owe as much moral consideration to other people's children as to their own.
Over his career, Rachels wrote 6 books and 86 essays, edited 7 books and gave about 275 professional lectures. His work has been translated into Dutch, Korean, Norwegian, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Serbo-Croatian. He is widely admired as a stylist; his essays and books are remarkably free of jargon and clutter. A major theme in his work is that reason can resolve difficult moral issues. He has argued for moral vegetarianism and animal rights, for affirmative action (including quotas), for the humanitarian use of euthanasia, and for the idea that parents owe as much moral consideration to other people's children as to their own.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 4, 2019
I was interested in the whole evolution/Christianity entanglement. It turns out it’s very entangled indeed.
First : some Christians say evolution is completely incompatible with Christianity. But others say no, evolution, “like other scientific discoveries, only reveals in greater detail how God has chosen to order his creation”. So it’s no surprise to find some evolutionists are firm atheists and some are devout Christians.
However....!
I myself do not see how Darwinists CAN be Christians, because then they will have to say that God was pleased (allowed, guided, made possible) that evolution pursued its vastly complicated path and ended up evolving all the NASTY DISEASES caused by such parasites as mosquitos, roundworms, pubic lice, the bugs that cause river blindness and scabies, and not to mention the thing that was in the fleas that were on the rats that were on the ship that brought the Black Death to Europe and killed one THIRD of its human beings over a period of three years in the 14th century. How can any Christian be cool with all of that nasty horror? Darwinians be cool with it because these species evolved and that's the way it was because that's the way it was, it's only from our human perspective that it all looks cruel. But Darwinism moves out from the human perspective. But when you bring the idea of a Loving God back in, then I think you may have a problem.
Second : What did Darwin think? He started in life planning to become a clergyman, but was distracted by barnacles and nematode worms or whatever those things were. At 67 he wrote
Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow I felt no distress, and have never doubted for a single second that my conclusion was correct.
However, wild horses couldn’t get him to speak against Christian beliefs in public, as his dear wife was horrified by his views. And also because he knew he’d be sticking his woolly head into a snake pit and what rational person does that?
Third : in his private writing about Christianity he discussed the problem of evil at some length – I have debated this one repeatedly in other reviews. What is worth mentioning here is Darwin’s own spin on the argument.
Evil’s existence is justified by Christians with reference to Man’s free will, which is essential to the whole project of the Creation. Evil tests or tempts human beings and their response gets them a ticket to ride on the up escalator or the down escalator. But Darwin opens out a whole new perspective which you don't get in the Bible.
The first thing that occurs to Darwin is that human life and history are only a small part of nature and its history.
In Darwin’s words :
what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?
Fourth : James Rachels says firmly that there is nothing in Darwinism that proves Christianity to be false, but it does provide “powerful reasons for doubting its truth”. After Darwin, “we are deprived of the idea that man has a special place in the divine order”. After Darwin, he says, “God looks more and more like an unnecessary hypothesis”.
Well, that’s his conclusion, but I still don’t see why Christian Darwinists can’t claim the glorious complexity of evolution as God’s brilliant idea all along. I do agree, though, that they might have a problem explaining all the non-human suffering which goes to make up the whole story. Why, just to take one example, would God bother to include the evolution and subsequent destruction of all the species of the Jurassic period? It beats me. And one thing they can’t say any more is that the Bible is literally true.
And that’s about all I can conclude here. The more I investigate, the murkier it gets.
First : some Christians say evolution is completely incompatible with Christianity. But others say no, evolution, “like other scientific discoveries, only reveals in greater detail how God has chosen to order his creation”. So it’s no surprise to find some evolutionists are firm atheists and some are devout Christians.
However....!
I myself do not see how Darwinists CAN be Christians, because then they will have to say that God was pleased (allowed, guided, made possible) that evolution pursued its vastly complicated path and ended up evolving all the NASTY DISEASES caused by such parasites as mosquitos, roundworms, pubic lice, the bugs that cause river blindness and scabies, and not to mention the thing that was in the fleas that were on the rats that were on the ship that brought the Black Death to Europe and killed one THIRD of its human beings over a period of three years in the 14th century. How can any Christian be cool with all of that nasty horror? Darwinians be cool with it because these species evolved and that's the way it was because that's the way it was, it's only from our human perspective that it all looks cruel. But Darwinism moves out from the human perspective. But when you bring the idea of a Loving God back in, then I think you may have a problem.
Second : What did Darwin think? He started in life planning to become a clergyman, but was distracted by barnacles and nematode worms or whatever those things were. At 67 he wrote
Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow I felt no distress, and have never doubted for a single second that my conclusion was correct.
However, wild horses couldn’t get him to speak against Christian beliefs in public, as his dear wife was horrified by his views. And also because he knew he’d be sticking his woolly head into a snake pit and what rational person does that?
Third : in his private writing about Christianity he discussed the problem of evil at some length – I have debated this one repeatedly in other reviews. What is worth mentioning here is Darwin’s own spin on the argument.
Evil’s existence is justified by Christians with reference to Man’s free will, which is essential to the whole project of the Creation. Evil tests or tempts human beings and their response gets them a ticket to ride on the up escalator or the down escalator. But Darwin opens out a whole new perspective which you don't get in the Bible.
The first thing that occurs to Darwin is that human life and history are only a small part of nature and its history.
In Darwin’s words :
what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?
Fourth : James Rachels says firmly that there is nothing in Darwinism that proves Christianity to be false, but it does provide “powerful reasons for doubting its truth”. After Darwin, “we are deprived of the idea that man has a special place in the divine order”. After Darwin, he says, “God looks more and more like an unnecessary hypothesis”.
Well, that’s his conclusion, but I still don’t see why Christian Darwinists can’t claim the glorious complexity of evolution as God’s brilliant idea all along. I do agree, though, that they might have a problem explaining all the non-human suffering which goes to make up the whole story. Why, just to take one example, would God bother to include the evolution and subsequent destruction of all the species of the Jurassic period? It beats me. And one thing they can’t say any more is that the Bible is literally true.
And that’s about all I can conclude here. The more I investigate, the murkier it gets.
May 10, 2012
Well, here is one man who understands the implications of Darwinism, without fear. (So also Peter Singer) Rachels rightly understands that Darwinism leads to the rejection of theism as a basis for moral values. In the same way, it leads to a rejection of human dignity and a "rights" basis for morality.
So, now that we have dispensed with God, we definitely suffer a de-valuing of human significance. Since Darwin, we now see that man is just a more sophisticated development of the animal kingdom, albeit different by degree, not by kind. So, animal rights are elevated, humans somewhat - uh, not so much.
Rachels advocates a new moral basis he called "moral individualism" whereby moral choices are based on the situation of the individual being in question (be it human or non-human).
Although I do not agree with his conclusions, I commend him for not being afraid to state the obvious implications for Darwinism - as others have been afraid to do. I fear, however, that this thinking will find currency in elite academic circles and will make its way into public policy. We will all stand to lose if this comes true.
So, now that we have dispensed with God, we definitely suffer a de-valuing of human significance. Since Darwin, we now see that man is just a more sophisticated development of the animal kingdom, albeit different by degree, not by kind. So, animal rights are elevated, humans somewhat - uh, not so much.
Rachels advocates a new moral basis he called "moral individualism" whereby moral choices are based on the situation of the individual being in question (be it human or non-human).
Although I do not agree with his conclusions, I commend him for not being afraid to state the obvious implications for Darwinism - as others have been afraid to do. I fear, however, that this thinking will find currency in elite academic circles and will make its way into public policy. We will all stand to lose if this comes true.
July 17, 2009
Collection of essays I picked up in college during an environmental ethics course. I have generally found essays somewhat dry but this book is fascinating in it's arguments. For example, the section on the differences between humans and animals yields this:"How could anyone seriously believe that animals do not feel pain? After all, we have virtually the same evidence for animal pain that we have for human pain......So, on what grounds could anyone possible say animals are insensitive to pain?" Some areas are graphic but author makes very persuasive arguments on several topics.
June 15, 2024
“Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy the interposition of a deity. More humble and I think truer to consider him created from animals.”
Despite the fact that Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 and its basic arguments have been widely accepted ever since, many of the most fundamental implications of Darwinian evolution have been largely ignored, both by the public and in academia.
One of the major religious concepts called into question by Darwinian evolution was the idea that humans are special and separate from the rest of the animal kingdom. Not only has our species descended from the same tree of life as every other animal on the planet, almost all of our behaviours and cognitive capacities can be found elsewhere in the animal kingdom. None of this is particularly controversial, but our society remains solidly built upon pre-Darwinian religious ideals of human exceptionalism and supremacy.
Few doubt that animals have the capacity to suffer in the same way that humans do, yet we allow them to be subjected to brutal testing for the benefit of corporations developing commercial products. We choose to use animals as a source of food when other nutritious food is available, despite the fact that animals must live lives of filthy confinement and often, physical and mental agony, before being slaughtered in order for us to consume animal products. The list of humanity’s crimes against non-human animals is endless.
In Created from Animals, James Rachels argues that we need to take the moral implications of Darwinian evolution seriously, primarily by rethinking our relationship with the other animals we share this planet with and by rethinking the doctrine of human dignity.
“Darwin had his own view of the direction that moral progress might take. As we have seen, he believed that our moral sentiments must eventually expand to include all mankind, regardless of nation, race, social status, or handicap, 'and finally the lower animals'.”
Despite the fact that Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 and its basic arguments have been widely accepted ever since, many of the most fundamental implications of Darwinian evolution have been largely ignored, both by the public and in academia.
One of the major religious concepts called into question by Darwinian evolution was the idea that humans are special and separate from the rest of the animal kingdom. Not only has our species descended from the same tree of life as every other animal on the planet, almost all of our behaviours and cognitive capacities can be found elsewhere in the animal kingdom. None of this is particularly controversial, but our society remains solidly built upon pre-Darwinian religious ideals of human exceptionalism and supremacy.
Few doubt that animals have the capacity to suffer in the same way that humans do, yet we allow them to be subjected to brutal testing for the benefit of corporations developing commercial products. We choose to use animals as a source of food when other nutritious food is available, despite the fact that animals must live lives of filthy confinement and often, physical and mental agony, before being slaughtered in order for us to consume animal products. The list of humanity’s crimes against non-human animals is endless.
In Created from Animals, James Rachels argues that we need to take the moral implications of Darwinian evolution seriously, primarily by rethinking our relationship with the other animals we share this planet with and by rethinking the doctrine of human dignity.
“Darwin had his own view of the direction that moral progress might take. As we have seen, he believed that our moral sentiments must eventually expand to include all mankind, regardless of nation, race, social status, or handicap, 'and finally the lower animals'.”
January 27, 2011
What can I say? Nearly sums up my world view and the natural conclusions one draws when recognizing our progenitors are in fact close at hand and all around us. Reminds us also of the great humaneness of Darwin and just how strikingly beautiful his temperament was to those he knew and even the non-humans he encountered [his trigger-happy youth notwithstanding]. Whether Rachels' thoughts on moral individualism were articulated perfectly or likely to be adopted any time in my lifetime will remain a mystery for some time, or worse, just another rhetorical flourish of philosophical truth few will bother to really consider.
March 28, 2024
Phenomenally thought-provoking and it's a real shame this book hasn't been read by more people. Rachels not only gives a concise biography of Darwin, but has thoroughly researched and presented the evolution of related views throughout the centuries. It's funny because Rachels himself mentions certain authors from the past whose works never gained traction, despite some of them being quite brilliant. It seems that this work has suffered from the same fate. That is a real shame because the argument he presents advances concepts of morality and speciesism quite a lot.
December 27, 2014
One of the best books I've read in a while, Created From Animals goes where few philosophers dare to go: the intersection of science and ethics.
December 18, 2017
If you have a regular lifestyle and feel good about yourself, I bet that if you read this book, something will change: either your lifestyle, or the good feeling about yourself.
September 18, 2018
Metaphysical presuppositions need to be addressed.
August 20, 2021
La version longue de "Darwin, espèce et éthique" https://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org...
August 30, 2015
I'll just note that although it may raise problems for some, if you're not willing to accept the doctrine of special human dignity, whether it be based on the Image of God or some of its secular versions, you're left with no other solution but to grant absolute rights to all sentient beings, as Wright noted in his NYT review of the book. Rachels recongnized this, but proposed us no third solution. What I liked was his clarity of presentation.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews