Michael Ruse. The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 280 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-086757-7.
Reviewed by William Kimler (North Carolina State University)
Published on H-War (August, 2019)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)
Historians will find Michael Ruse’s The Problem of War both provocative and perhaps provoking. The former is clearly intended. This prolific philosopher and historian of science had no intention, as he tells us, of writing without passion and moral purpose. In Ruse’s usual refreshing style, he does not shy from strong opinion. At times he is severe, just as often witty to the point of glibness, only to bring us back to horror with a scathing presentation of justifications or motives of the supporters of war. He is always clear that the philosophical positions have hard costs in actual lives. Ruse provides rich descriptions of a long century’s worth of theories about whether or how to explain and justify warfare, compelling our reflection on the intersection of multiple strains of thought.
The provoking is not just that he treats ideas as a philosopher rather than as a historian. Focusing on shared arguments does allow him to make connections sufficient for his purposes, but the skating across surfaces can slide into distortion. Ruse makes leaps from early evolution theories to modern sociobiology, from Victorian social theory to the Vietnam War, from Saint Augustine to William Jennings Bryan. In so doing, he occasionally ignores the nuance of ideas in their context. He collapses distinctions or influences that a historian of biology or of religion would think crucial. The profitable way to read him is to set aside worries about the fine detail and attend to the intent of his comparisons.
To be fair, Ruse indicates at the outset that finding the broader parallels and resonances will be his method. This is not a narrative history of the development of theories on war. This is a philosopher’s “case study” of an idea: out of the abundant writing about war by “Darwinians and Christians,” Ruse means to show that the apparent conflict between these worldviews stems from their shared enterprise. Both perspectives speak to essentially religious issues, including origin myths, human nature, and sin and morality. The result is thus a level of inevitable, mutual hostility. It is akin to disciplines clashing over who has expertise in a single domain. Those familiar with Ruse’s long career of defending evolutionary biology and scientific integrity will find his usual optimism that accommodating ground can be found. Turning to the problem of war, the moral philosopher’s hope is that by understanding the shared views of Darwinians and Christians, perhaps a way to a future with less horror is possible.
Ruse also graciously acknowledges that he has benefited greatly from Paul Crook’s Darwinism, War and History: The Debate over the Biology of War from “Origin of Species” to the First World War (1994). For a developmental account, rich in both historical context and explication of theories, Crook is still the standard source. Ruse draws on that scholarship, while also covering another hundred years of thought. His sources include a wide range of biologists, writers, theologians, politicians, and philosophers, along with ample notice of scholarly commentary. The result is a solid introduction to the ideas of major figures from both evolutionary biology and (mostly) Christian theology. Even if not a historical treatment, the text could be a fine reading for an intellectual history seminar. It certainly succeeds in establishing an instructive, broad interpretive framing for Western ideas about war ever since Darwin.
This book is a continuation of Ruse’s work over the last dozen years, building on his treatment of Darwinism and Christianity as religions. To argue that Darwinism is a religion requires one careful distinction. Ruse does not mean evolutionary biology, even though it has oddly persisted in using its founder’s name for a science that has moved beyond Charles Darwin. Really what most “Darwinian” biologists mean is that they are “selectionists,” seeing Darwin’s process of natural selection as the prime mover of evolutionary trajectories. By “Darwinism” or “Darwinian” in this book, Ruse separates it from the technical models and restricts it to the “ism” of a kind of secular religion. “Religion” is defined as a coherent set of concerns with the sources of morality, human nature, something that gives meaning to being human, and a worldview embracing natural progress: in short, a value-laden rival eschatology.
Treating all scientific discussion of such issues as religious does raise a question. Shouldn’t any serious philosophy of human nature consider the biological facts of evolution? Surely there is some way for engaging what genetics and neurobiology might add to possible understanding of our behavior, without having it be so value-laden that we must view it as religious? That said, Ruse is quite convincing in finding any number of “Darwinian” biologists who make his case. He is not quite consistent in his distinguishing “evolutionary biologists” from (religious) “Darwinians,” which can cause some backing up to pause and work out which he means. That perhaps is not entirely his fault; as he astutely comments, the religious Darwinism requires an “intimate connection” with the professional science, to be securely “rooted in the science” for its power (p. 186). In the sum total of abundant examples, he makes it clear that there has been no lack of Darwinians who promoted a rival worldview to Christianity, well aware that they were doing so.
His method is to alternate between Christian and Darwinian writers on an issue, such as pacifism or just war theory. The overlaps are easily shown. The striking feature of these competing accounts of innate propensities to conflict or violence is indeed shared heritage and intent among Christians and Darwinians. Ruse confirms what Crook had shown, that there are no simple categories and alliances of views. Any version of the justification or rejection of war can be found in either camp. There lies the value in Ruse’s blunt knife. Beneath the complexity of so much literature lies the great shared issue of progress and providence: whether the world is on a path to improvement and if so, how it is being guided there. Then the question is whether war is a necessary, even productive, part of the process. The other great lesson Ruse sees is the persistent influence of Augustine and the notion of original sin, not so distinct from Darwinian theorizing about innate propensities. The Augustinian framework is also that of just war theory, with its political realism for the sometime moral necessity of war. It arises out of conflict or aggression connected to our sinful nature, making hope of progress in vain. Darwinians for Ruse are, in an interpretation familiar from his earlier work, deeply committed to the idea of progress. They too need to work out whether our evolutionary heritage makes it hopeless to transcend innate tendencies. One way out is to assert the value of war only in our early developmental history, as a driver of society and innovation. It becomes no longer necessary in complex societies. Again progress, now cultural, sneaks in as a worldview.
This leads to Ruse’s conclusion as a broad picture. Christianity at heart is a view of fallen sinners, who without God’s providence cannot achieve true improvement. War will inevitably happen. The Darwinian accepts a problematic innate human nature, but we have reached an evolutionary stage where hope remains for cultural advance, to limit or end war. The overlap of views also includes the contradictory voices that argue for a non-Augustinian nature or from biological theories of more sociable behavior. Ruse’s own hope is a ground for discussion of possibilities for insights and understanding, to at least strive for social progress. He has given us a thought-provoking essay on the range of available ideas.
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Citation:
William Kimler. Review of Ruse, Michael, The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict.
H-War, H-Net Reviews.
August, 2019.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53803
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