From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781403965028)

From Darwin to Hitler elucidates the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Weikart demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This thinking had its biggest impact on Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism as popularly believed.

Author: R. Weikart
ISBN-10: 1403965021
ISBN-13: 9781403965028
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Language: English
Published: 06/30/2004
Pages: 312
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.70w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2005 pg. 1089
Books & Culture 11/01/2006 pg. 35