Abstract
Theoretical discussions of the relationship between science and values usually lead to the conclusion that, in a strict sense, science is value-free. If one confines one’s attention to the intellectual content of scientific theory, and thereby excludes both the impact of technology on values and the influence of scientists as a political and social group, a persuasive case can be made that science is, indeed, neutral. There is no logical bridge between “is” and “ought.”
I would like to express my appreciation to the Rockefeller Foundation for a Humanities Fellowship for 1976–1977, during which time I did research on the relationship of science and sociopolitical values, including this article. I would also like to thank Harvard University for providing research facilities during the year, particularly the Program on Science and International Affairs, the History of Science Department, and the Russian Research Center. A longer and somewhat different version of this chapter appeared in December, 1977, in the American Historical Review.
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Notes
There is a very large literature on Darwinism and social Darwinism in Germany. See, particularly, Hans-Günter Zmarzlik, “Der Sozialdarwinismus in Deutschland als Geschichtliches Problem,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte no. 11 (1963), 246–73; and the same author’s “Der Sozialdarwinismus in Deutschland—Ein Beispiel für den gesellschaftspolitischen Missbrauch naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse,” in Günter Altner, ed., Kreatur Mensch: Moderne Wissenschaft auf der Suche nach dem Humanum (Munich: Moos, 1973), pp. 289–311.
Also, see William M. Montgomery, “Germany,” in Thomas Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1974), pp. 81–116;
Gerhard Heberer and Franz Schwanitz, eds., Hundert Jahre Evolutionsforschung: Das wissenschaftliche Vermächtnis Charles Darwins (Stuttgart, 1960);
Hedwig Con-rad-Martius, Utopien der Menschenzüchtung: Der Sozialdarwinismus und seine Fölgen (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1955).
An interesting but somewhat simplified account is Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League (New York: American Elsevier, Inc., 1971).
Also, Niles R. Holt, “Monists & Nazis: a Question of Scientific Responsibility,” The Hastings Center Report, 5, no. 2 (April, 1975): 37–43.
Alfred Ploetz, Die Tüchtigkeit unserer Rasse und der Schutz der Schwachen: Ein Versuch über Rassenhygiene und ihr Verhältnis zu den humanen Idealen, besonders zum Socialismus, (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1895).
Ibid., pp. 224–25.
Sozialistische Monatshefte, 10 (1923): 638.
5a. In addition to the articles and reviews specifically discussed in the text, see the following reviews in Die Gesellschaft: R.F. Fuchs, review of A. Basler, Einführung in die Rassen- und Gesellschafts-Physiologie, 3, no. 3 (March, 1926): 283–86;
Karl Kautsky, review of Alfred Grotjähn, Die Hygiene der menschlichen Fortpflanzung: Versuch einer praktischen Eugenik, 4, no. 4 (April, 1927): 381–82;
M. Kantorowicz-Kroll, review of Robert Sommer, Familienforschung, Vererbungs- und Rassenlehre, 5, no. 7 (July, 1928): 92–4;
Miron Kantorowicz, review of Ernst Neumann, Individual-Rassen- und Volkshygiene, 8, no. 9 (September, 1931): 288.
Hugo Iltis, “Rassenwissenschaft und Rassenwahn,” Die Gesellschaft, 4, no. 2 (February, 1927): 97–114.
Ibid., pp. 108, 114.
Ibid., p. 113.
For examples of Lenz’s attacks on Lamarckism see: review of Hermann Pauli, Wir und das kommende Geschlecht, Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie, 15, no. 3 (1924): 330–32;
review of Wilhelm Schmidt, Rasse und Volk, Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie, 21, no. 1 (1928), 111–15;
review of Friedrich Hertz, Rasse und Kultur, Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie, 18, no. 1 (1926): 109–14. An example of Lenz’s praise of Hitler before national socialism came to power is the following 1931 statement: “Hitler ist der erste Politiker von wirklich grossem Einfluss, der die Rassenhygiene als eine zentrale Aufgabe aller Politik erkannt hat und der sich tatkräftig dafür einsetzen will.”
Fritz Lenz, “Die Stellung des Nationalsozialismus zur Rassenhygiene,” Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie, 25, no. 3 (1931): 300–308.
F. Lenz, “Der Fall Kammerer und seine Umfilmung durch Luna-tscharsky,” Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie, 21, no. 3 (1929): 311–18.
Lenz many times made the argument that science was value-free. For example, in 1921 he said, “Die Natur verlangt überhaupt nichts; die Naturwissenschaft kann nur zeigen, was geschieht, nicht was geschehen soll.” Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie, 13, no. 1 (1921): 112.
Max Levien, “Stimmen aus dem teutschen Urwalde (Zwei neue Apostel des Rassenhasses), “Unter dem Banner des Marxismus, 2, no. 1/2 [4/5] (1928): pp. 150–95. The article is a criticism of the views of H.F.K. Günther and A. Basier.
Ibid., p. 155.
Ibid., p. 163.
For background on the reception of Darwinism in Russia, see James Allen Rogers, “Charles Darwin and Russian Scientists,” The Russian Review, 19 (1960): 382.
There was even an early advocate in Russia of improvement of humans through selection: V.M. Flo-rinskii, Usovershenstvovanie i vyrozhdenie chelovecheskogo roda (St. Petersburg, 1866).
For a discussion of this book by an early Soviet eugenist, see M.V. Volotskoi, “K istorii evgenicheskogo dvizheniia,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 2, no. 1 (1924): 50–55.
Also see George Kline, “Darwinism and the Russian Orthodox Church,” in Ernest J. Simmons, ed., Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1955), pp. 307–28;
N. Danilevskii, Darvinizm, kriticheskoe issledovanie (St. Petersburg, 1889);
K.A. Timiriazev, Charlz Darvin i ego uchenie 3rd ed. (Moscow, 1894);
Alexander Vucinich, “Russia: Biological Sciences,” and James Allen Rogers, “Russia: Social Sciences,” in Thomas F. Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), pp. 227–68.
See Mark B. Adams, “The Founding of Population Genetics: Contributions of the Chetverikov School, 1924–1934,” Journal of the History of Biology, 1, no. 1 (1968): 23–39; “Towards a Synthesis: Population Concepts in Russian Biological Thought, 1925–1935,” Journal of the History of Biology, 3, no. 1 (1970): pp. 107–29.
N.K. Kol’tsov was president of the Russian Eugenics Society. Iu. A. Filipchenko was the director of the Bureau of Eugenics of the Academy of Sciences. A.S. Serebrovskii was a member of the permanent bureau of the Russian Eugenic Society, and a contributor to its journal. For his great hopes for the eugenic movement, see A.S. Serebrovskii, “O zadachakh i putiakh antropogenetiki,” Rus-skii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 1, no. 2 (1923): 107–16, especially p. 112. Ironically, N.I. Vavilov, who ultimately suffered the most at the hands of Soviet authorities, apparently steered clear of eugenics. Vavilov became a foe of Lysenko in the late thirties and died in 1940 in Siberian exile.
A good bibliography of Russian eugenic literature is K. Gurvich, “Ukazatel’ literatury po voprosam evgeniki, nasledstvennosti i se-lektsii i sopredel’nykh oblastei, opublikovannoi na russkom iazike do 1/I 1928 g.,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 6, nos. 2–3 (1928): 121–143.
For accounts of the founding and early activities of the Russian Eugenics Society, see “O deiatel’nosti Russkogo Evgenicheskogo Obshchestva za 1921 god,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 1, no. 1 (1922): 99–101 and similar descriptions in succeeding volumes of the same publication. For an interesting but somewhat one-sided recent Soviet interpretation of these early eugenic interests, see N.P. Dubinin, Vechnoe dvizhenie (Moscow: 1973).
“Obsuzhdenie Norvezhskoi evgenicheskoi programmy na zasedaniiakh Leningradskoi Otdeleniia R.E.O.,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 3, no. 2 (1925): 139–43. The particular eugenic program that was at the basis of this discussion was that of the Norwegian J.A. Mjöen. This discussion of the Russian Eugenics Society is very interesting, with separate consideration of “positive and negative race hygiene proposals,” and identification by speakers of wide disagreements on issues such as racially mixed marriages and mandatory sterilization.
For approval by the commissariats of health and education, as well as for announcement of the subsidy, see “Iz otcheta o deiatel’nosti Russkogo Evgenicheskogo Obshchestva za 1923 g.,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 2, no. 1 (1924): 4. For approval of the society’s charter by the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, see “Evgenicheskie zametki,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 2, no. 1 (1924): 58.
V. Slepkov, “Nasledstvennost’ i otbor u cheloveka (Po povod teoreticheskikh predposylok evgeniki),” Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 10–11 (October-November, 1925), pp. 79–114.
Ibid., p. 113.
B.M. Zavadovskii, “Darvinizm i lamarkizm i problema nasledo-vaniia priobretennykh priznakov,” Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 10–11 (October-November, 1925), pp. 79–114.
Ibid., p. 101.
See the discussion of the impact of Filipchenko’s argument in “Spornye voprosy evgeniki,” Vestnik kommunisticheskoi akademii 20 (1927): especially 224–25.
“Spornye voprosy evgeniki,” Vestnik kommunisticheskoi akademii 20 (1927): 225.
Kol’tsov observed in a 1924 article, “If we calculate the average number of children in the family of each member of the Russian Communist Party that number will no doubt be far from what Gruber cites as necessary for a population group to preserve itself in the overall population. What would we say about a stock-breeder who every year castrated his most valuable producers, not permitting them to multiply? But in cultured society approximately the same thing is occurring before our eyes!” N.K. Kol’tsov, “Vliianie kul’tury na otbor v chelovechestve,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 2, no. 1 (1924): 15.
The reference is to Max Gruber, Ursache und Bekämpfung des Geburtenrückgange im deutschen Reiche (Munich, 1914).
N.K. Kol’tsov, “Rodoslovnye nashikh vydvizhentsev,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 4, nos. 3–4 (1926): 103–43;
for other examples of this kind of article, see N.P. Chulkov, “Genealogiia de-kabristov Murav’evykh,” Russkii evgenicheskii zhurnal, 5, no. 1 (1927): 3–20.
The difficulty of the position of the academic eugenists was illustrated by Serebrovskii when he called for a socialist eugenics and then observed: “Every class must create its own eugenics. However, this slogan… must in no way be understood in the manner of several of our comrades, especially in Moscow, who maintain that the whole base of Morganist-Mendelian theory is an invention of the Western bourgeoisie, and that the proletariat, creating its own eugenics, must base itself on Lamarckism.” A.S. Serebrovskii, “Teoriia nasledstvennosti Morgana i Mendelia i marksisty,” Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 3 (March, 1926), p. 113.
“Evgenika,” Bol’shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 23 (Moscow: 1931), cols. 812–9.
Noam Chomsky, Reflections On Language (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), p. 132.
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Graham, L.R. (1981). Attitudes toward Eugenics in Germany and Soviet Russia in the 1920s: An Examination of Science and Values. In: Callahan, D., Engelhardt, H.T. (eds) The Roots of Ethics. The Hastings Center Series in Ethics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3303-6_16
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