This talk will explore two related topics: 1) The moral justification for eugenics amongst Christians in interwar England; 2) What Francis Galton and other supporters of eugenics meant when they expressed hope that eugenics could become like a “religion.” These explorations can together help explain the pervasiveness of support for eugenics across metaphysical and ideological divides and provide cause for reconsidering categories like “religious” and “nonreligious” when speaking of the moral reasoning of historical actors.

Andrew Moeller is an associate member of the History Faculty, Oxford, and is a researcher in ethics and the humanities and co-director of religious outreach for the Boundaries of Humanity Project, based at Stanford.