Darwinism as a Comprehensive Doctrine

Creationists claim that Darwinian evolution stands for a specific picture about the nature of humankind and the overall implausibility of purposeful design in the structure of the universe, which is at odds not only with literalist interpretations of sacred texts, but even with the more general providential, teleological and interventionist approach that many theistic traditions treasure. This way, while creationism is deliberately excluded, the compulsory teaching of evolutionary theory would entail that the liberal state is enlisting its educational resources to endorse a controversial comprehensive doctrine. This is a troubling charge for political liberalism. In turn, some liberal philosophers argue that religious neutrality is not affected by excluding creationism since evolutionary theory is ecumenical enough. Accordingly, it should be read as a strict scientific postulate with no philosophical spill-over. This is the crux of the issue: whether Darwinian evolution can be confined to the realm of value-free factual description, or otherwise it has in-built properties that subvert other fields of knowledge and philosophical reflection. Either contradicting the idea that life on Earth was teleologically-driven, smashing human specialness, providing an alternative explanation of suffering, doubting free will, or accounting for knowledge in purely evolutionary terms, this paper contends that Darwinism provides suitable ground for a non-theistic comprehensive belief. Although it does not supply a substantive ethics, the sociobiological approach allows for an understanding of morality as an evolutionary adaptation. All in all, Darwinism appears as 'ockhamistically' naturalistic: it does not positively assert materialism, but it is offered as a self-contained narrative with no need of active supernatural elements. This does not entail that creationist accounts should be included in the science curriculum, but it should lead political liberals to rethink the assumption that there is discontinuity between what Rawls called the 'plain truths' of science and controversial worldviews.