Many (such as Frances P. Cobbe) regard Darwin's Origin of Species as the final nail in the coffin of theism, and his Descent of Man as sounding the ‘[death] knell of the virtue of mankind’. Yet Darwin insisted that an evolutionary explanation of our moral sense in no way harms ethics; but, rather, gives it a surer foundation. The question of whether Darwin's insights can provide this foundation, or whether they are in fact harmful to ethics, is still discussed today. In what follows, I will look at a particular aspect of this debate, namely, the importance of Darwinism for a Kantian style of dignity ethics.

By ‘Darwinism’ I mean an evolutionary theory where natural selection is the central explanatory concept for the development of natural phenomena (including human beings and their behaviour). I will look at this as a scientific theory, not at evolutionary theory as an overall worldview. Some authors, such as Daniel Dennett, have tried to push evolutionary theory in this direction (as a worldview), and argued on its basis for a naturalistic metaphysics which would obviously not be compatible with dignity ethics (Dennett 1996). I will concentrate on the implications of the scientific theory alone.