[From English social: relating to human interaction or community, and from the name of biologist Charles Darwin.]
(ethics) A movement in the 19th and 20th centuries that purported to apply the biological insights of scientific Darwinism to human affairs by asserting that the principle of "the survival of the fittest" is true in ethics, politics, and social relations. This view was sometimes seen as an accurate description - or an inexcusable attempt at justification - of modern capitalism.