Evolutionary ethics attempts to use the biological theory of evolution as a foundation for ethics. As such, its history is closely linked with the development and popularization of evolutionary theories starting in the nineteenth century. To a large extent, the history of evolutionary ethics is associated with efforts to find alternatives to religion as a foundation for moral law. The growth of industrialism, the establishment of German biblical criticism, and the rise of science all contributed to growing secularism during the middle of the nineteenth century. Like other attempts to extend an understanding of biological evolution to the human situation, evolutionary ethics has been highly controversial. Although various evolutionary ethics were proposed throughout Western countries, its greatest popularity was in the Anglo-American world. The history of evolutionary ethics is divided into three phases, the initial Darwin and Spencer period, an early-twentieth-century period, and a contemporary period...