The Moral Meaning of Nature : The University of Chicago Press : 9780226539898 : 022653989X : 23 Mar 2018 : What, if anything, does biological evolution tell us about the nature of religion, ethical values, or even the meaning and purpose of life? The Moral Meaning of Nature sheds new light on these enduring questions by examining the significance of an earlier&;and unjustly neglected&;discussion of Darwin in late nineteenth-century Germany.   We start with Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings staged one of the first confrontations with the Christian tradition using the resources of Darwinian thought. The lebensphilosophie, or &;life-philosophy,&; that arose from his engagement with evolutionary ideas drew responses from other influential thinkers, including Franz Overbeck, Georg Simmel, and Heinrich Rickert. These critics all offered cogent challenges to Nietzsche&;s appropriation of the newly transforming biological sciences, his negotiation between science and religion, and his interp