The Origin of Blushing
Expression of Emotions, Race and Anti-slavery in Darwinian works.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35588/cc.v3i1.5493Keywords:
Charles Darwin, The Expression of Emotions, The Descent of Man, Blushing, AntislaveryAbstract
Some aspects of Charles Darwin's The Expression of Emotions may be puzzling. In explaining how such expressions originate, Darwin rarely appeals to natural selection. Instead, he appeals mainly to the idea that voluntary movements are associated with emotions, becoming innate and involuntary by habit, as they are inherited to offspring. Although Darwin gives several reasons to defend this explanation, in this paper I will try to show that if the book on expressions is understood concerning the explicit and implicit aims of The Descent of Man (the book of which it was originally meant to be a chapter), the matter is better understood. In particular, the thesis that Desmond and Moore put forward regarding the importance of Darwin's anti-slavery ideals in the treatment of race is interesting. In this paper I will argue that Desmond and Moore's approach can be extended to the book about expressions. Specifically, I will establish links between the explanation of the origin of races and the explanation of the origin of blushing.
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