Coming from earlier species by way of an immanent process of natural selection, they cease to be the crown of creation and to enjoy some kind of special, God-given status among (and above) other creatures. And having no God-given destiny, they have no transcendent ethical standards, either laws or virtues, to which they need to conform themselves. What Nietzsche did through his iconoclastic approach to the Enlightenment, and Marx did by turning Hegel upside down, Darwin did through observation and scientific theorizing.
