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What, if anything, does biological evolution tell us about the nature of religion, ethical values, or even the meaning and purpose of life? The Moral Meaning of Nature sheds new light on these enduring questions by examining the significance of an earlier—and unjustly neglected—discussion of Darwin in late nineteenth-century Germany.

We start with Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings staged one of the first confrontations with the Christian tradition using the resources of Darwinian thought. The lebensphilosophie, or “life-philosophy,” that arose from his engagement with evolutionary ideas drew responses from other influential thinkers, including Franz Overbeck, Georg Simmel, and Heinrich Rickert. These critics all offered cogent challenges to Nietzsche’s appropriation of the newly transforming biological sciences, his negotiation between science and religion, and his interpretation of the implications of Darwinian thought. They also each proposed alternative ways of making sense of Nietzsche’s unique question concerning the meaning of biological evolution “for life.” At the heart of the discussion were debates about the relation of facts and values, the place of divine purpose in the understanding of nonhuman and human agency, the concept of life, and the question of whether the sciences could offer resources to satisfy the human urge to discover sources of value in biological processes. The Moral Meaning of Nature focuses on the historical background of these questions, exposing the complex ways in which they recur in contemporary philosophical debate.

 Peter J. Woodford is an Assistant Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Science at Union College in Schenectady, NY. His research covers major thinkers and periods in the history of philosophical reflection on the relationship between science and religion, and he also works on current debates surrounding evolutionary explanations of both religion and morality. Before coming to Union, he received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University and completed an innovative 3-year postdoc at the University of Cambridge, where he was placed in a lab in the Department of Zoology with scientists researching the evolution of cooperation across species. While at Cambridge, his research focused on both tensions and possible points of reconciliation between scientific, philosophical, and humanistic approaches to religion and morality. He is currently the co-PI on a research project entitled “Is a Social Mind Aware of its ‘Self?’” that will investigate the nature a