Jack Griffiths: The Innate and Essential Self in Politics and Genetics: An Introduction to Neo-Darwinian Politics
PGR seminar
This paper attempts to identify some relationships between political ideology and the public interpretation of contemporary biology.
| A Department of Politics seminar | |
|---|---|
| Date | 12 February 2015 |
| Time | 16:00 to 17:00 |
| Place | Amory |
Event details
The idea that each individual has a character, moral worth, and proper place in the world 'designed' in advance of their development in interaction with society was an important component of certain arguments for the 'natural' ordering of society through market competition that emerged in the context of social Darwinism in the late 19th Century, and which continue in similar forms in the ideological narratives of modern neo-liberalism.
The popular understanding of genetics that rests on the notion of a ‘genetic blueprint’, and the conception of individual development that follows from this, shape an ideological environment in which this idea of an innate/essential self (nature’s personalised design) stands without need of justification.
Location:
Amory
