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Konrad Lorenz's Ethological Theory Konrad Lorenz’s Ethological Theory:, Explanation and Ideology, 1938-1943 THEODORA J. KALIKOW Department of PhiIosophy Southeastern Massachusetts University North Dartmouth, MA 02747 In this paper 1 we shall look at the role of ideology in the writings of Konrad Lorenz, major pre-World War II theorist of ethology. This role will be examined by focusing on the place in Lorenz’s theory where it had the most obvious effect: in his pronouncements on degeneration in human’ beings and in animals. What follows is by no means intended to be a complete history of Lorenz’s achievements as chief prewar theore- tician of ethology, although it does represent an extension of my own earlier essays2 and one by Robert J. Richards.3 Ideology played a triple role in Lorenz’s speeches and writings during the years from 1938 to 1943. (1) He saw changes in the instinc- tive behavior patterns of domesticated animals as symptoms of decline. (2) He assumed a homology between domesticated animals and civilized human beings, that is, he assumed there must be similar causes for effects assumed to be similar, and he further believed that civilization was in a process of “decline and fall.” Finally, (3) he connected the preceding concerns to racial policies and other features of the Nazi program. An examination of Lorenz’s writings from before and after World War II shows that (1) and (2) have remained as features of his work, while (3) has disappeared, at least in its overt manifestations4 This 1. An earlier version of this article was published as “Die ethologische Theorie von Konrad Lorenz: Erkltiung und Ideologie, 1938 bis 1943,” in Naturwissen- schaft, Technik urtd NS-Ideologie, ed. S. Richter and H. Mehrtens, (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980), pp. 189-214. A still earlier version was delivered at the fifteenth International Congress of the History of Science, Edinburgh, August 1977. 2. Theodora J. Kahkow, “History of Konrad Lore&s Ethologicrd Theory, 1927-1939: The Role of Meta-Theory, Theory, Anomaly and New Discoveries in a Scientific ‘Evolution,‘” Stud. Hist. and Phil. Sci., 6 (1975), 331-341;and “Konrad Lorenz’s Ethological Theory, 1939-1943: ‘Explanations’ of Human Thinking, Feeling and Behaviour,” Phil. Sot. Sci., 6 (1976), 15-34. 3. Robert J. Richards, “The Innate and the Learned: The Evolution of Konrad Lorenz’s Theory of Instinct,” Phil. Sot. Sci., 4 (1974), 111-133. 4. But see Sheldon Richmond, “Man = The Rational Hunter: Some Com- ments on the Book by Tiger and Fox, ‘The Imperial Animal,“’ Phil. Sot. Sci., 4 Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 16, no. 1 (Spring 1983), pp. 39-73. 0022~5010/83/0161/0039 $03.50. Copyright 0 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, lLS.A THEODORA J. KALIKOW suggests that Lorenz’s pronouncements on degeneration in human beings and animals may best be explained by a combination of two factors: (a) a “social Darwinistic” view of biology and society, a view that was present in National Socialist ideology, that had been widely preached by Ernst Haeckel and the Monist League, and that Lorenz also shared. Lorenz’s particularly strong “obsession” with the issues of eugenics and degeneration is an important part of this factor. (b) A certain amount of adaptation to the political circumstances of the time, involving Lorenz’s belief that the National Socialists needed or wanted scientific discussion, justification, or correction of their ideas. Lorenz’s situation as an Austrian living in that country’s Clerico-Fascist regime before the Anschluss also contributed to his acceptance of elements of the Nazi view. In the first portion of this article I shall discuss each of these factors. In the second I shall describe some of the ideological themes in Lorenz’s writings from 1938 to 1943. Lorenz’s deep concern with the “struggle for existence” within human society, and with the degeneration of a civilization, must not be taken as the mark of an isolated fanatic but as an indication that he belonged to a long and respectable tradition of European thought. That tradition had its beginning even before the Origin of Species. Darwin provided a scientific framework and an acceptable terminology for its discussion. His basic meta-theoretical assumption was that mechanistic and material processes could be found to explain biological phenomena. His successful account of “the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life” was extended, post-Origin, to human beings and society. Darwin himself in Descent of Man, Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, Ernst Haeckel - all of whom were probably already concerned about social change in general and the rise of the lower classesin partic- ular - described the “danger” to the evolutionary progress of civiliza- tion, a danger caused by the mechanism of differential reproductive success of the so-called lower classes. Darwin asserted: “The reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members.“5 This was not a novel observation: but it was now legitimized and ex- plained within the framework that Darwin had provided. The social (1974), 279-291; and Thomas Molnar, “Ethology and Environmentalism: Man as Animal and Mechanism,” Zntercd. Rev., 13 (1977), 2543. Both writers recognize the continuing authoritarian political implications in Loreru’s work. 5. Darwin, Descent of&fan (New York: D. Appleton &Co., 1888), p. 138. 40 Lorenz’s Ethological Theory concerns of the time came to be discussed, explained, and prescribed for by an ever-increasing flood of Darwinistic texts. In the German-speaking world the most influential author of those texts was Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) who grafted his own concerns onto the Darwinian stock and who, even more than his English counter- parts, used science to justify already-existing Volkisch beliefs. It may be said that in no other country of Europe . did the ideas of Darwinism develop as seriously as a total explanation of the world as in Germany. But Darwinism in Germany was a system of thought that was often transformed almost beyond recognition. Dmwinismus was far from the biological ideas or underlying moral and philosophi- cal views of Darwin himself. Professing a mystical belief in the forces of nature, insisting on the literal transfer of the laws of biology to the social realm, and calling for a religious reformation in German life, Haeckel and his immediate followers held to ideas which were re- mote from the familiar naturalism of Spencer, Darwin and Huxley.6 Some major themes of Haeckel’s belief system will be indicated below. But an important one needs to be discussed here: eugenics. As we have said, degeneration of society was a concern of scientists and writers from the mid-1860s and even earlier, and eugenics programs to avoid “decline and fall” had been advocated as early as 1868, when Haeckel (in Natiirliche Schtipfingsgeschichte) had praised the Spartans for being the first nation to institute such a program. Haeckelians maintained that “nations and civilizations have declined in the past solely because they did not know how to avoid biological decay,“’ but the underlying mechanism of decay was not discussed fruitfully until the new Mendelian genetic theory of the 1900s and its synthesis with classic Darwinian ideas. This synthesis provided the necessary “explana- tion” of the already accepted idea of the degeneration of a population. It justified the importance of differential reproductive success, still of course within the Darwinian meta-theoretical framework. Germ-plasm theory gave heuristic clarity . to the notion that each individual is a genetic custodian with the responsibility of preserving 6. Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism (London: MacDonald, 1971), pp. xiii-xiv. 7. Ibid., pp. 90-91, paraphrasing W. Schallmeyer, Vererbung und Auslese, 2nd ed. (Jena: G. Fischer, 1910), p. ix. 41 THEODORA .I. KALIKOW his or her own genetic “package” for the future. If those with the “best” genetic heritages handed them on less frequently than others, the overall result for a population would be genetic degeneration8 Thus were born the connections among the new science of genetics, Social Darwinism, and the eugenics movement. Eugenics was cham- pioned in Germany by scientifically respectable geneticists (such as Bauer-Fischer-Lenz) right up to the Nazi era, and the Haeckelians too continued their active emphasis on eugenics until 1933. (They were considered the progressive element in the scientific community, as Engelbert Broda, my correspondent at the University of Vienna, has insisted.) Thus Lorenz’s concern with degeneration and its alleged cure, eu- genics, was not at all unusual. It would have been rare indeed for a German-speaking scientist of his generation (Lorenz was born in 1903) trained in medicine and zoology, to have escaped the commonly ac- cepted linkages between genetics 9 and evolution theory, and their applications to society in the form of eugenics, Social Darwinism, Haeckelian Monism, and so on. Lorenz’s distinctive concern with the problems of degeneration and eugenics went beyond the level of routine interest. He has said of him- self, “I am by inheritance obsessed with eugenics.“‘o Lorenz’s father, the famous orthopedic surgeon Adolf Lorenz, was probably one of the sources of his interest in eugenics. We can glean hints of the senior Lorenz’s attitude from his autobiography, My Life and Work1 In a passage discussing the future of orthopedic surgery he wrote: “It yet remains to be seen, however, whether congenital deformities, especially congenital club-feet, can be prevented by eugenics.” l2 8. Loren Graham, “Science and Values: The Eugenics Movement in Germany and Russia in the 1920’s,” Amer. Hist. Rev., 82 (1977), 113364; quotation on p. 1135. 9. Lorenz spent a semester at Columbia College of Columbia University (fall 1922) and saw his first chromosome in T.
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