Evolution is not the only biological concept Spencer applied to sociological theory. He made a detailed comparison between animal organisms and human society. He found that there are three systems of regulation, maintenance and circulation distribution, which are central nervous system, nutrition and venous artery in animals, and government, industry and roads, telegraph and commerce in society. On this basis, he divided social members into three categories: first, workers and farmers engaged in production functions; Second, businessmen, entrepreneurs and bankers are engaged in the function of "distribution and circulation"; Third, government managers and officials engaged in "supervision" functions. He asserted that the coexistence of these three kinds of people is determined by the nature of social organisms. They cooperate with each other and perform their duties to maintain social balance and order. At the same time, there are great differences between animals and social organisms: the former has only one consciousness related to the whole, and each organ exists for the survival of the whole; In the latter, every member is conscious, and the whole exists for the existence of its various parts. Society exists for the benefit of its members, not its members for the benefit of society.
This individualism is the key to all Spencer's works. The opposition between military society and industrial society is actually the opposition between absolutism and individualism. The former is primitive and bad, while the latter is civilized and kind. He believes that order can be produced in industrial society, and it can subtly adjust the needs of various groups, although it is not intentionally designed. He wrote in Man to Country (1884) that the British Conservative Party generally likes military social order, while the Liberal Party is keen on industrial social order. However, liberals in the second half of the19th century developed a kind of "neo-conservatism" after passing legislation on working days, liquor license, health facilities and education, and are preparing for the coming road of slavery. In his view, the role of liberalism in the past was to limit kingship. The function of real liberalism in the future should be to limit the power of parliament.
In Spencer's emphasis on change and differentiation, he inadvertently repeated the liberal metaphysics outlined by Spinoza and Leibniz in the19th century. Spinoza believes that "God or nature" has infinite attributes, and any possibility is realized in it; Leibniz believes that the perfection of God is presented in the infinite diversity of the universe. However, neither of them thinks that time is the fundamental feature of reality, and Spencer combines his belief in the reality of time with his belief in the ultimate reality of any possible diversity. In this way, he gave metaphysical support to the liberal principle of diversity, and accordingly thought that a divided and developed society was preferable to a single and static society.
Spencer's ambition of trying to synthesize various sciences cannot be repeated, because the division of disciplines he welcomed and foresaw has developed to an unimaginable extent. Although his sociology promoted the study of society, it has actually been replaced by social anthropology developed from his time. When T.H. Huxley said that Spencer's view of tragedy was "an inference hit by facts", he wanted to remind people that the basic characteristics of the structural system in Spencer's works made him look for something that could prove his theory, but ignored or reinterpreted those things that conflicted with his theory. Nietzsche once quoted Spencer's two words: "The inevitability of thought is the inevitability of morality". "The final touchstone to test the truth of a sentence is to deny the incomprehensibility of truth." And denounced it as "a plaque hanging on the door of a modern madhouse", which is too sharp but profound.
Discrimination of Spencer's social evolution thought
Most domestic academic circles regard Herbert? Herbert Spencer, as the founder of "social Darwinism", summed up this evaluation. His theory can be roughly summarized as: advocating war and power, applying biological evolution indiscriminately to human society is the theoretical basis of capitalist exploitation and imperialist aggression and expansion, and so on. However, by reading and understanding Spencer's works, we can't come to such a conclusion, and even, in some aspects, we should evaluate it reversely. Not only at home, but also abroad, there are different or even diametrically opposite understandings and evaluations: "For Spencer, there are at least two opposing historical images. One is the Peace School. He is regarded as the enemy of militarism and imperialism, a theorist in the development stage, and believes that human history is developing towards the ideal destination of freedom, individual and international peace. On the other hand, socialist critics believe that Spencer is a cruel social Darwinist, a "scientific" supporter of cruel capitalism, advocates violent struggle and shows no mercy to the weak in society. How far is Spencer's thought of social evolution from the brutal and bloodthirsty "social Darwinism" in general? This paper will briefly discuss this. The ethical core of competition for survival of the fittest is to advocate self-reliance.
As far as economic and social policies are concerned, Spencer really advocates that the incompetent are poor, the reckless are frustrated, and the lazy are hungry. But the essence of "survival of the fittest" is "rewarding diligence and punishing laziness", not depriving the poor and the weak of their right to exist. Spencer did not deny the necessity of social assistance, but he opposed the poor law in Britain at that time, thinking that blind and short-sighted property distribution would only introduce the author: Pan Dezhong, a doctoral student in the history department of East China Normal University. It encourages people's lazy and indulgent habits; He stressed that it is necessary to take more reasonable social policy measures from the perspective of more fundamental and long-term quality improvement. Spencer regards free competition as the stimulation and exercise of people's independent quality. What his concept of "survival of the fittest" really wants to express is that people should develop and improve their diligent, self-controlled, rational and non-infringing behavior and moral quality!
The Victorian era is the "golden age" in British history, and Spencer's theory also reflects the characteristics of this era, providing a more profound and comprehensive theoretical explanation for the development of this era. Spencer's thought recognizes the role of personal integrity and personal struggle to the greatest extent, which is not only manifested in the material progress of individuals and society, but also in the moral ethics of diligence and self-improvement and the corresponding free economic system. However, there is always another opinion that people's poverty in society should be solved through state relief, rather than resorting to personal struggle to change their living conditions-this seems to be full of goodwill and warmth to the poor. By the end of19th century, Britain had passed the "golden age". The economic recession has increased the number of unemployed workers, social problems and class contradictions have intensified, and the workers' movement and socialism are surging. The voice for state intervention and relief, criticism and subversion of the free market economy is getting louder and louder. Naturally, Spencer's social values of personal self-help and free competition have become more indifferent. This aroused Spencer's great disgust and deep concern, and also stimulated him to repeatedly point out the direct policies and measures of the country such as the Poverty Alleviation Law, and emphasized the importance of demonstrating free competition and personal self-improvement.
From the perspective of social policy and human behavior, Spencer's ethical thoughts of "competitive survival" and "survival of the fittest" are "pay according to work" and "reward diligence and punish laziness". This is a reasonable social productive labor and distribution mechanism. It is necessary for people to help each other in social life, but it is more important to help others stand on their own feet. If the simple rescue measures for people hinder others' self-reliance, and the two evils are the lesser, we would rather adopt the "laissez-faire" social stance of free competition than expect that many social problems can be solved only through relief (this coincides with "giving people fish to save a temporary emergency and giving people fish to solve a lifetime's needs"). Therefore, the orientation of good and evil in Spencer's theory cannot be confused, and the ethical core of his theory cannot be distorted.
From the specific forms of social development, Spencer discussed military society and industrial society. In his view, the most basic feature of industrial society is the market economy based on free competition. In a freely competitive society, everyone can do their best to achieve fairness and progress. From the perspective of macro-social evolution, Spencer wants to tell people that nature is a mechanism to ensure progress by rewarding the competent and punishing the losers. The pressure of competition urges people to have the quality of self-reliance, so as to adapt to the environment, individuals and society develop synchronously, and people realize "equal freedom". This is the realization of true goodness and the greatest happiness. When human society enters such a civilized development stage dominated by market economy, the value of "improvement" and "improvement" of social evolution can become increasingly apparent. The free competition that market economy necessarily contains, like the "survival of the fittest" in biology, is the fundamental mechanism for the all-round evolution and progress of human society. Therefore, in order to achieve social progress, we must make the mechanism of free competition work, realize free division of labor and commodity exchange, and also ensure people's economic and political freedom. From this perspective, competition not only has the utilitarian function of promoting social progress, but also has positive ethical value.
Secondly, Spencer opposes unrestricted and unscrupulous unrestricted competition.
As a utilitarian ideological tendency, Spencer has always attached importance to the differences between people's interests and happiness in terms of distance and size. He is opposed to gaining any immediate benefits through unscrupulous competition. Competition is for personal interests, and in the long run, it is also for everyone's interests; This is completely different from blind competition at the expense of others and without any restrictions.
In the history of western philosophy, Russell thinks that the "free competition" mentioned by orthodox economists is limited, while Darwin's survival competition does not exclude any means and is infinite. Dahl himself is not an advocate of infinite competition, he just points out the situation of "survival competition" in nature. Its theory has been abused, especially when used in human society. As a close relative of Darwin's theory of evolution, Spencer, who first put forward the concepts of "survival competition" and "survival of the fittest", has also been misinterpreted. Spencer never advocated this kind of infinite competition. He also "doesn't want to see competition based on power and cunning", which has been ignored because of the notoriety of social Darwinism. Taking microeconomic life as an example, Spencer said, "Small businessmen seem to firmly believe that all the extra profits obtained through adulteration of goods are pure profits; Maybe in a short time. But soon his competitors will do as he did, and the profit rate will drop to the same level as before. At the same time, the common practice of adulteration is encouraged to enter other departments, thus reducing the quality of our shopkeepers' purchases; In this way, as a consumer, he has suffered from helping to strengthen this bad practice. " "In my opinion, there must be strict restrictions on the survival competition and survival of the fittest in society!" He believes that Huxley misunderstood his theory as "all the interests of individuals who advocate fighting for survival." On the contrary, Spencer also thinks that complete and complete laissez-faire is harmful, tragic, cruel, sinful, morally corrupt, depraved and even crazy. Similarly, Spencer also put forward moral requirements for the "ruthless" competition such as retail competition, and thought that the competition without sympathy and moral constraints was a kind of commercial cannibalism! Fourth, completely selfish, regardless of other people's business competition, the winner committed a "commercial murder" against the loser, which Spencer could not accept. "This kind of competition can almost be called competitive murder, and its cruelty can be considered through the pain it causes, even worse than murder. In the end, the pain of these victims and their families is greater than that of a murderer who directly killed the victims. @ Spencer emphasized that people should pay attention to the ways and effects of social assistance, and from the ethical value, Spencer clearly realized that it is valuable to help the poor and the weak. In Spencer's works, more than one place spent a lot of ink to demonstrate the necessity of sympathy and care for the weak. Spencer specifically discussed the social responsibility and moral requirements of helping the weak. For the disabled, Spencer believes that society has a moral responsibility to help them. In addition, Spencer also believes that the government has the responsibility to help the poor not to go hungry. In addition to laissez-faire and personal welfare, he also emphasized the moral and social value of charity, including the feasibility of specific forms of government assistance. He believes that society has a moral responsibility to alleviate the pain caused by the principle of survival of the fittest. He never regards the infinite competition that deprives the poor and the weak of their right to subsistence as the ethical proposition of his theory. It can be seen that although Spencer firmly advocates free competition, he also advocates weakening the cruelty of ruthless competition and alleviating the suffering of victims.
Spencer also pointed out that the capitalist systems at that time, such as Britain and the United States, were full of social trends of material supremacy. "Today's Britain is showing what we call inappropriate worship of business quality or wealth. Accompanied by this, in the United States, people have a more obvious worship of "universal banknotes". Spencer opposes this money worship and the infinite competition related to it, thinking that it "encourages degeneration" and "is an accomplice to all fake and shoddy behaviors in business". In the long run, Spencer expects society to pursue not only the happiness brought by the increase of material wealth, but also the happiness brought by higher-level behaviors, such as intellectual and aesthetic pleasure. Of course, Spencer is not the kind of money-oriented theory provider distorted by the tycoons of the gilded age.
Spencer is also particularly opposed to aggression and racial oppression. "There is not an aggressor who does not raise the flag and convince himself that his cause is just." "For the benefit of most people, eliminate the lower races.
Replaced by a good race. In my opinion, it is not respectable to sacrifice the weak shamelessly abroad and take care of the weak generously at home. It is even less commendable to care about one's own race and not care about other races. "
For Spencer's ethical orientation, there has always been a great difference between his original intention and other people's explanations. He has repeatedly said that his ideas are not only cruel individualism or bullying, but also the opposite. In his later years, Spencer said in the preface of 1892, the second edition of Social Statics (the book was first published in 1850), "It is already obvious that my advance statement did not prevent others from misunderstanding my later beliefs." Faced with the criticism of many contemporary scholars, Spencer repeatedly denied it. @ He insists that he does not "support superiors to replace subordinates with violence"; "I hate any kind of aggression"; Oppose the cruel individualism imposed on me by some people. ∞ This is what this article wants to appeal for Spencer again.
Third, Spencer believes that human society has evolved from brutal and violent autocracy to civilization, peace and democracy.
Closely related to the above two points, Spencer believes that the evolution of human beings is from brutal and violent autocracy to civilized, peaceful and democratic evolution. Violence and war are the reflection of human barbarism. Spencer put forward from a very macro perspective that the evolution of human society is a transformation from a barbaric pre-social state to a civilized social state. This transformation is not only the differentiation of structure and function, but also the improvement of ethics and morality, and it is an ethical evolution that adapts to the socialized living environment of human beings. This is a long process of reducing selfishness, increasing altruistic cooperation and reducing the cruelty of survival competition. Spencer's social evolution thought holds that: through the acquired inheritance of Lamarconism, the savage and aggressive ability of human beings is preserved; The evolution of history requires human beings to adapt to the new social environment, and the ability of civilized cooperation will prevail in the form of acquired inheritance, while selfishness and barbarism will decline due to the reduction of use. Of course, this is a long historical process.
Even when talking about the dynamic mechanism of evolution that he attaches great importance to-survival competition leads to the survival of the fittest, Spencer expressed his optimism about ethical evolution. "When the injustices of conquest and slavery are not perceived, they are usually beneficial; However, once people feel that they have violated the moral law, their continued existence will hinder adaptation in one aspect rather than promote adaptation in another: this fact can be considered by the new preachers of our old theory that "might is right." Paul. Paul Crook commented: "At some times, Spencer wrote as if competition is a long-term need of human history, but at other times, it seems to fade out with the rise of an increasingly moral industrial society, as if social evolution has produced social harmony and altruism. Competition leads to death, and violent elimination of unsuitable strains is the primary stage of evolution, not the advanced stage of evolution. Spencer's view is accepted by many peace-loving biologists. The natural process itself produces a self-restraint mechanism in human beings, which actually ensures the liberation of human beings from the savage Darwinian struggle for existence. With the development of people's thoughts and consciousness, mankind will enter a more advanced' cosmic' stage, marked by peace rather than confrontation. War will be out of date. " Therefore, while acknowledging the rationality of the survival of the fittest, Spencer clearly pointed out its historical stage. He did not stay at the stage of "the law of the jungle", but clearly pointed out the inevitability of change and thought that human morality would evolve and improve.
It is worth pointing out that when we generally talk about social Darwinism represented by Spencer, it always means encouraging struggle and plunder, from a peaceful society to adapting to a cruel social environment. When a country (nation) is a competitive unit, it is advocating militarism. From the perspective of social evolution, this is just the opposite of Spencer's social evolution, but from civilization to barbarism. The social evolution in his works is from barbarism to civilization, and the evolution of human beings is from infinite violent struggle to more and more voluntary cooperation, that is, from "immoral people" described by Huxley to "moral people". This is not the social Darwinian theory that is usually simply considered: from civilization to barbarism-the unrestricted "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest" that are qualified in the wilderness and unqualified in civilized life. Spencer always thought that the world of his time was a mixture of military and industry, and the development trend was to evolve into an industrial ideal society. He took his Victorian England as the embryonic form of industrial society, and established his social evolution picture from war to peace, from autocracy to democracy, from compulsory cooperation to voluntary cooperation, which also included the evolution of human ethics. Therefore, in connection with Spencer's analysis and assumption that industrial society will replace military society, Spencer is optimistic that human society will be more civilized and happy, and social evolution will eventually reach the perfect realm of ideal peace. Therefore, the so-called Spencer advocates bullying the weak by the strong and advocates the world order of "bullying the weak by the strong", which is another huge misinformation.
To sum up, as far as the core point of Spencer's social evolution thought is concerned, it is seriously misunderstood: first, it is because of omission-Spencer expressed some views, but it was not known or turned a blind eye. Many of Spencer's well-intentioned remarks quoted above were almost missed. What's more, the phenomenon of missing reading was so common that most people never read Spencer's works at all, and spread them around with the label of "survival of the fittest", drowning Spencer in "cruel" and "heartless" saliva. What remains in people's minds is the highly labeled image of extreme speech, and the original intention of his theory of deep ultimate concern for human beings has at least long been forgotten. Second, misreading means that Spencer's meaning is misunderstood or even reversed; Many of the defenses in this paper are by no means that Spencer's theory has nothing to criticize, but that Spencer should not be blamed for those remarks; Of course, there are contradictions and mistakes in his theory, but it is just not in those aspects that people used to think. In this respect, Malthus is as unfortunate as Spencer. Bastiat once said that Malthus was like a physiologist who studied a certain disease. Perhaps his research is not so correct, but he must not be regarded as the initiator of the disease. However, many Malthus critics labeled Malthus and his theory as "evil" without reading through his works and starting from a scientific standpoint at all. Bastiat criticized this unscientific, emotional and ideological method: "It should be admitted that science cannot study problems with the determination to draw gratifying conclusions". This situation is not uncommon in the history of thought. So is Spencer.
Spencer is very concerned about human beings. The more he cares about mankind, the more he devotes himself to the study of human destiny, so as to seek the right solution for human society and point out the right development direction. In the path and way of love, this is strict father's deep concern, not the gentle doting form of loving mother. Truth is credible, but fallacies full of warmth and kindness are often more lovely and amiable. Just as Russell once commented on utilitarian thinkers, he thought that although their thoughts seemed mean and cruel, these thinkers themselves were noble because they really cared about the well-being of their compatriots. Spencer's ultimate concern for mankind is no less than that of any visionary, but he did not stop and indulge in the beautiful desire for human vision, and even did not replace reality with fantasy. He devoted himself to scientific and practical research and exploration for human society, which should have been a great, reasonable and respectable part of his theory. Sadly, it is just misunderstood as advocating that people in human society should struggle by hook or by crook. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify Spencer's theory from this angle!
The outstanding feature of Spencer's sociological theory is the analogy between society and biological organism, and his social evolution theory and social organism theory are based on this analogy. Seven years before the publication of C.R. Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), he put forward the idea of social evolution, holding that evolution is a universal law, but still influenced by Darwin's biological evolution theory, and transplanted the principles of survival competition and natural selection into social theory. It is considered that the social evolution process is the same as the biological evolution process, and it is also the survival of the fittest. Furthermore, it is considered that evolution is a natural process, which should follow its own laws, and should not be interfered by human beings, and oppose social welfare and national plans, as well as social improvement and social revolution. Spencer's theory of social organism is reflected in the first volume of his Principles of Sociology. He made six analogies between society and biological organisms, and drew three conclusions: ① Society is a system and a close whole composed of interrelated parts. ② This system can only be understood in the sense of its structural operation. (3) If the system is to survive, its needs must be met. These viewpoints initiated the theory of structural function. Spencer's thought had a profound influence on the development of sociology, anthropology and philosophy. He is the author of Principles of Psychology, First Principles, Principles of Biology, Sociological Research, Principles of Sociology and Principles of Ethics.