| Special Workshop Title: | East Asian Jurisprudence |
| Author: | Tetsu Sakurai, Kobe University, Japan |
| Paper Title: | The Impact of a Japanese Theory of Evolution on Legal Philosophy: Darwin versus Kinji Imanishi |
| Abstract: | Since Darwin’s Origin of Species presupposes the Malthusian high population growth
and the struggle for existence of individual organisms, his biotic
society is replete with severe, individualistic competitions for life
even if the appearance is stable and peaceful. His evolutionary theory
was accepted much more widely by the contemporary intellectuals than,
say, Spencer’s ambiguous, physical theory of evolution, largely
because, it seems, Darwin read the contemporary social values such as
competition and market economy into the biotic society, whether
unconsciously or not. Moreover, the evolutionary theory based on the
competition for existence and the survival of the fittest could again
help to justify the structure of the nineteenth-century competitive
society. Thus many contemporaries including Darwin himself applied his
evolutionary theory to human society and approved the social progress
promoted by competition and market.
Kinji Imanishi (1902-92), a Japanese ecologist, begins with doubting the alleged contribution the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest made to the evolutionary history. If the mutations of some individual organisms and the competition among them were the driving force of the evolution of the species, how was the very beginning of the life on earth possible? When many molecules made a chemical reaction to give a birth to the first life, these molecules couldn’t possibly have any superiors or inferiors and compete for life against each other. Imanishi, in contrast with Darwin and his successors, thinks of the evolution of each species, not as a product of the natural selection of individual lives, but as a consequence of the autonomous change of the species itself. According to Imanishi, the general frequency of mutation is surprisingly low, and most of the mutations tend to be inimical to the species. These mutations and the competition among them are quite unlikely to cause the evolution of the species. The species as a society (specia) autonomously evolves into a new species when the circumstances demand it. What sort of implication does Imanishi’s theory of evolution have to human society and social science? Since Darwin believes the human race is incessantly progressing toward the higher order, the competition for life among individuals is essential to the human progress. However, if the present biotic order were never a product of the struggle of individual beings for existence as Imanishi insists, the idea that the competition must necessarily bring forth the superior value would be seriously damaged. |
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