Did Abraham Lincoln and Darwin Have 'Wrong' Morals

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Now, that's a profoundly difficult question.

[00:00:02]Uh we clearly don't get them from religion.

[00:00:06]Uh and yet we get them from somewhere and you can demonstrate that by the fact that uh the moral values of any particular century are markedly different from those of other centuries uh even decades. In the 21st century, we here now have moral values which are really significantly different from 100 years ago or 200 years ago 300 years ago.

[00:00:31]And um within any one of those centuries, you could take people who are in the vanguard of moral progress.

[00:00:40]For example, in the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, T. H.

[00:00:45]Huxley would have been on the liberal uh progressive end of the spectrum and other people would have been on the opposite end.

[00:00:56]But even Abraham Lincoln, for example made a speech which I quoted in Outgrowing God in which he said, "Of course, no nobody would seriously think that black people are the equal of white people. Nobody would seriously say that black people should be allowed to vote or should be allowed to marry white people."

[00:01:15]Um this is Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves. Right. And was as [clears throat] I say, in the forefront of progressive thought.

[00:01:22]Charles Darwin again was in favor of freeing the slaves. He was passionately anti-slavery. But he too uh thought that there was no question about black people being equal of white people. They obviously weren't and and and and Huxley, Thomas Huxley, again, Darwin's bulldog thought the same way. Now, those people were at the at the forefront, as I say.

[00:01:46]Today, they would still be in the forefront and they would be horrified to look back on what they said >> Mhm. in the 19th century.