It is often felt that Darwin’s views on ethics betray his great contributions to science. When he makes comments about women and the Irish and others, he reveals all of the prejudices of his Victorian class. Even worse, he is committed to a form of Spencerian evolutionary ethics, somewhat misnamed “social Darwinism.” However, properly understood, Darwin on morality is much richer and more rewarding than in this general perception. To see this, we must go back well beyond the Descent of Man, published in 1871, and usually the only source to which people refer. While recognizing that Darwin’s genius is more than just the sum of its parts, for full understanding we must look at his family background and education as well as other sources.

The Early Years (1809–1836)

On his father’s side, Charles Darwin came from a medical family. His grandfather Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) was a well-known physician. He was also a poet and inventor, a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group of businessmen and industrialists that included Joseph Priestley (the chemist) and James Watt (the inventor). On his mother’s side, Darwin came from a family of industrialists, for his grandfather was Josiah Wedgwood (1730–95), another member of the Lunar Society, who founded the great pottery factory famous for its ceramics and porcelain. Both sides of Darwin’s heritage were socially concerned and liberal, and members of the family (the Wedgwoods particularly) were in close contact with British intellectual life. Darwin’s mother, Susannah, knew the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for instance. Particularly distinctive of both the Darwins’ and the Wedgwoods’ social concerns was a strong commitment to the abolition of slavery. Indeed, Erasmus Darwin wrote poetry condemning slavery, and Josiah Wedgewood financed the Sierra Leone Company, which was established to create a homeland in West Africa for liberated slaves.