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Godless Savages and Superstitious Dogs: Charles Darwin, Imperial Ethnography, and the Problem of Human Uniqueness
- Journal of the History of Ideas
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 69, Number 1, January 2008
- pp. 49-70
- 10.1353/jhi.2008.0006
- Article
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This essay provides a comprehensive overview of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theorizing about the natural origins of religion. More specifically, it argues that Darwin's commitment to locating elementary forms of the religious life in non-human animals was informed by his desire to sever the connection between the moral status of being human and the anthropological status of having a religion. The essay concludes that when we carefully examine the Darwinian solution to the evolutionary puzzle of religion, we discover how his naturalist project was structured in quite fundamental ways by his normative commitments.