Can there be a "Darwinian left"?
In Darwinian Conservatism and elsewhere, I have argued that a "Darwinian left"--such as that proposed by Peter Singer--is incoherent, because a Darwinian understanding of human nature denies the left's utopian belief in human perfectibility.
But at a recent Liberty Fund conference on "The Evolution of Moral Sentiments," I was led to think through this issue once again. At the conference, we read Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and a book collection of papers edited by Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr--Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life (MIT Press, 2005). The authors in the Gintis et al. book criticize the conception of Homo economicus--the assumption that most human beings most of the time act as rational egoists who maximize their selfish interests. While recognizing that human beings are naturally selfish, these authors insist that human beings are also naturally social beings. They contend that experimental research in game theory has falsified the predictions of the Homo economicus model, because while a substantial proportion of people (20-30%) do behave as rational egoists in these game theory experiments, a larger proportion act as "strong reciprocators," who cooperate as long as they think others are cooperating, and who punish cheaters who violate the norms of cooperation. This seems, then, to confirm Adam Smith's view of human nature as moved both by "moral sentiments" and by "material interests."
Herbert Gintis and Samuel Bowles were once well known as Marxist economics professors at the University of Massachusetts. They no longer identify themselves as Marxists, presumably because of the discouraging failure of Marxist utopias around the world. But one can still see some of the moral passion of Marxism in their writing and the writing of others in their book. The attack on Homo economicus and the insistence that human beings can learn to cooperate based on moral norms of communal sharing are familiar expressions of Marxist passion. Darwinian science seems to support this by showing how the moral sentiments arise by natural evolution, and particularly by genetic and cultural group selection. Here Gintis, Bowles, and others follow the lead of Peter Singer who has argued that a Darwinian conception of cooperation as rooted in evolved human nature could support leftist thinking.
In a paper on "Reciprocity in the Welfare State," Fong, Bowles, and Gintis argue that the modern welfare state is supported by the natural morality of reciprocity as long as people perceive that welfare recipients are deserving of aid and not undeserving free riders. The reforms of welfare programs in the 1990s show the disposition to design welfare programs that benefit the deserving poor while punishing the undeserving. Supporting prudent welfare state measures expresses a moral community of shared concern based on strong reciprocity.
At the conclusion of their paper, they quote from Friedrich Hayek: "the demand for a just distribution . . . is . . . an atavism, based on primordial emotions. And it is these widely prevalent feelings to which prophets and moral philosophers . . . appeal by their plans for the deliberate creation of a new type of society" (297). But while Fong, Bowles, and Gintis think it is good for us to evoke those "primordial emotions" of justice, Hayek warned against the pursuit of a "just society" as a threat to the "free society," because "social justice" would require a centrally planned allocation of resources based on merit that would destroy freedom. The proponents of the theory of strong reciprocity in the Gintis book seem to reject Hayek's position, because they seem to say that a free society requires norms of justice based on reciprocity.
But here is where Darwinian conservatives should insist on distinctions between different levels of social order. We need state coercion to enforce a constitutional framework of law within which civil society and free markets are possible. But to secure liberty we need to minimize state coercion. We might need a minimal welfare state to provide some security for individuals who might become unfairly deprived through no fault of their own. But generally we will rely on the spontaneous orders of civil society and free markets to secure our social and economic needs.
After all, even the proponents of strong reciprocity are not arguing for fully enforcing reciprocity through state coercion. Rather, they are arguing--as in Elinor Ostrom's chapter in the Gintis book--that we need "complex polycentric systems" that combine "public governance" (state coercion), "private markets," and "community governance." This is illustrated by Ostrom's account of how common pool resources can be best managed by local groups that spontaneously develop and enforce their own norms (as in irrigation systems managed by farmers themselves rather than bureaucratic experts).
Isn't this compatible with Hayek's position? We can enforce norms of reciprocal justice in social groups at the local level while leaving markets to function freely in coordinating exchange across the larger community. The state enforces a constitutional framework of law within which these local communal groups and impersonal free markets can work. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments assumes that the moral sentiments arise spontaneously in social life with minimal reliance on governmental coercion. So we could say that Hayek's "free society" needs the strong reciprocity of moral sentiments as sustaining the moral community that makes freedom possible, but this moral community would be understood as arising in civil society from the bottom up rather than being constructed from the top down by state coercion and central planning.
Hayek recognizes this point in The Constitution of Liberty (62)when he notes the importance of moral rules enforced as "conventions and customs of human intercourse": "Coercion . . . may sometimes be avoidable only because a high degree of voluntary conformity exists, which means that voluntary conformity may be a condition of a beneficial working of freedom. It is indeed a truth, which all the great apostles of freedom outside the rationalistic school have never tired of emphasizing, that freedom has never worked without deeply ingrained moral beliefs and that coercion can be reduced to a minimum only where individuals can be expected as a rule to conform voluntarily to certain principles."
The Darwinian explanation of how the natural moral sense arises from evolved human nature supports this conception of morality enforced by voluntary conformity. A good society will cultivate those conditions of free association in which the moral norms of cooperation can emerge spontaneously as conventions or customs of social life. In this way, a "free society" is also a "just society."
This reliance on morality as an unintended, emergent social order based on individuals learning to voluntarily conform their behavior to social norms goes against the leftist tradition of rationalist constructivism. If the left is willing to give up its utopian vision of perfecting human nature through top-down central planning and state coercion, then there might be something like a "Darwinian left." But as Peter Singer has conceded, this would be "a sharply deflated vision of the left, its utopian ideas replaced by a coolly realistic view of what can be achieved." In fact, it would look a lot like Darwinian conservatism.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
Debate with John West in Seattle
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute is sponsoring a debate on Darwinian conservatism between me and John West. The debate will be in Seattle at Seattle Pacific University, November 15, at 7:30 pm in Demaray Hall 150.
I have written a number of blog posts in response to West's book Darwin's Conservatives, which is a detailed critique of my Darwinian Conservatism.
I have written a number of blog posts in response to West's book Darwin's Conservatives, which is a detailed critique of my Darwinian Conservatism.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Behavioral Game Theory and Smith's Moral Philosophy
Adam Smith is famous for his remark in The Wealth of Nations about how "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from a regard to their interest." This suggests that Smith would support the idea common in neoclassical economics that human beings are predominantly rational egoists who maximize their selfish interests. But then Smith is also famous for his teaching in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that no matter how selfish human beings might be, they are still moved by some fellow-feeling or sympathy with other human beings, so that they share in one another's pleasures and pains, and this is the ground of morality as rooted in moral sentiments that show a concern for others and for how we appear to others.
A lot of the scholarly commentary on Smith turns on the debate as to whether these two positions of Smith are contradictory or compatible. I agree with those who conclude that they are compatible because they manifest a complex view of human nature as both self-regarding and other-regarding. We are selfish animals who care for ourselves. But we are also social animals who care for others. Smith's social science is an attempt to account for that complex human nature that is both selfish and social. As selfish animals, we are inclined to exploit others for our own selfish advancement. But as social animals, we are capable of cooperating for the good of the group.
How do we decide the truth or falsity of Smith's position? It often seems that in moral and political philosophy, we must try to judge the relative plausibility of various positions without any possibility of experimental testing such as we find in the natural sciences. But there are ways of introducing experimental research into moral and political philosophy, and one is to employ behavioral game theory. In fact, the general movement in behavioral game theory research today is to confirm Smith's complex conception of human nature.
Almost 50 years of game theory experimentation has produced results that contradict the narrow conception of human beings as purely or predominantly rational egoists. For example, in the "ultimatum game," we can give some amount of money--say, $100--to a "proposer" who is asked to propose a split with a "responder" who is free to accept or reject the proposed split. If the responder accepts the offer, the split occurs. But if the responder rejects the offer, neither one gets any of the money. If the participants were rational egoists, then the proposer would offer $1 and keep $99 for himself, while the responder would accept this, because $1 is better than nothing. But this is not exactly what happens. Most proposers will offer something close to a 50/50 split, which is accepted. Those 15-25% of the proposers who offer an unfair split will usually have their offer rejected. This pattern of behavior has been replicated consistently, even across diverse societies around the world (with some cultural variation). It suggests that a substantial minority of people really are rational egoists. But a majority of people are "strong reciprocators" who are conditional cooperators (cooperating with others as long as they think others are cooperating) and altruistic punishers (punishing those who violate the norms of cooperation). Those who reject unfair proposals in the ultimatum game are willing to bear a cost to punish unfairness.
Other kinds of games--"dictator games," "public goods" games, "trust" games, and "charity" games--show a similar pattern of behavior. Much of this research is surveyed in Herbert Gintis, et al., Moral Sentiments and Material Interests (MIT Press, 2005). The authors in that book conclude that this experimental research provides scientific support for Smith's understanding of human beings as other-regarding animals whose selfishness is checked by their concern for others.
As the authors in the Gintis book indicate, experimental game theory research needs to be combined with other kinds of research. We might wonder about "experimenter effects" in game-theory experiments: Are these rather contrived games creating behavior that we would not see in "real-world" behavior. But when this experimentation is combined with evolutionary theories of cooperation supported by historical, ethnographic, statistical, and other kinds of empirical research, we can gain growing confidence in our conclusion that human beings are by nature "strong reciprocators" whose motivations conform to Smith's account of human beings as guided both by the moral sentiments and by material interests.
This kind of work would support the sort of interdisciplinary research required for Darwinian political science. We need to explain the political universals of human behavior as reflecting our ambivalent nature as both self-regarding and other-regarding animals. We then need to explain how this ambivalent human nature is expressed in the cultural history of political institutions. And, finally, we need to explain how individual political judgments of political actors show the contingency and uncertainty of political history as constrained by both the genetic evolution of political universals and the social evolution of political cultures. So, for example, we might explain the history of American constitutionalism as a search for institutional structures to channel the ambivalent motivations of human beings so that they can cooperate for the common good, but without expecting them to become perfectly altruistic. And that constitutional history will reflect both the cultural history of constitutional republicanism and the individual history of political actors who must judge what should be done in particular circumstances.
This debate over whether human beings are predominantly rational egoists or strong reciprocators has implications for the possibility of liberty, and thus it's a crucial issue for Darwinian conservatives. Sometimes, it is said that conservative political thought is Hobbesian in its pessimistic assessment of human nature. But this is wrong. Conservatives are not utopians, because they recognize the imperfectibility of human nature, and part of that imperfectibility is the power of self-interest in motivating human behavior. But to assume--as Hobbes does--that human beings are by nature rational egoists and nothing more is contrary to conservative thought, because this Hobbesian view of human nature would say that there is no natural basis for morality. In this respect, Hobbes prepares the way for Kant, for whom morality requires a transcendence of Hobbesian human nature. The Hobbesian conception of human beings as rational egoists would also subvert the case for liberty, because it suggests that the only way for individuals to solve collective action problems is coercive central planning by a Leviathan state. By contrast, conservatives assume that human beings are naturally social animals who are capable of solving collective action problems by establishing norms of trust and reciprocity, and punishing those rational egoists who violate such norms.
Some good illustrations of this point come out in the chapter by Elinor Ostrom in the Gintis et al. book. It has been common for public policy analysts to assume that the management of common pool resources--for example, fisheries, grazing lands, and irrigation systems--requires a national bureaucracy to enforce a top-down plan for the efficient management of resources. But Ostrom's research has shown that local communities can develop their own arrangements for collective management of common resources that are far more effective than any bureaucratically devised and enforced plan.
Here we see the superiority of Hayekian spontaneous order over bureaucratic central planning. The possibility of such spontaneous order assumes a natural human disposition to cooperation based on reciprocity and trust, as well as moralistic punishment of cheaters. This rests on a view of human nature that is neither cynical nor utopian but Darwinian in its realism.
Some of these issues will be discussed in a few days at a Liberty Fund conference in Charleston, South Carolina, that I am directing. We will be reading selections from Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments along with the book edited by Gintis, Moral Sentiments and Material Interests. From my experience, Liberty Fund conferences are a wonderful way to explore such topics with a great collection of people. This group includes a Nobel-Prize-winning economist (Vernon Smith), a distinguished evolutionary biologist (David Sloan Wilson), a leading scholar of Adam Smith (Ryan Hanley), and a prominent libertarian journalist (Ron Bailey). It also helps to have lots of good food and drink in a beautiful location.
A lot of the scholarly commentary on Smith turns on the debate as to whether these two positions of Smith are contradictory or compatible. I agree with those who conclude that they are compatible because they manifest a complex view of human nature as both self-regarding and other-regarding. We are selfish animals who care for ourselves. But we are also social animals who care for others. Smith's social science is an attempt to account for that complex human nature that is both selfish and social. As selfish animals, we are inclined to exploit others for our own selfish advancement. But as social animals, we are capable of cooperating for the good of the group.
How do we decide the truth or falsity of Smith's position? It often seems that in moral and political philosophy, we must try to judge the relative plausibility of various positions without any possibility of experimental testing such as we find in the natural sciences. But there are ways of introducing experimental research into moral and political philosophy, and one is to employ behavioral game theory. In fact, the general movement in behavioral game theory research today is to confirm Smith's complex conception of human nature.
Almost 50 years of game theory experimentation has produced results that contradict the narrow conception of human beings as purely or predominantly rational egoists. For example, in the "ultimatum game," we can give some amount of money--say, $100--to a "proposer" who is asked to propose a split with a "responder" who is free to accept or reject the proposed split. If the responder accepts the offer, the split occurs. But if the responder rejects the offer, neither one gets any of the money. If the participants were rational egoists, then the proposer would offer $1 and keep $99 for himself, while the responder would accept this, because $1 is better than nothing. But this is not exactly what happens. Most proposers will offer something close to a 50/50 split, which is accepted. Those 15-25% of the proposers who offer an unfair split will usually have their offer rejected. This pattern of behavior has been replicated consistently, even across diverse societies around the world (with some cultural variation). It suggests that a substantial minority of people really are rational egoists. But a majority of people are "strong reciprocators" who are conditional cooperators (cooperating with others as long as they think others are cooperating) and altruistic punishers (punishing those who violate the norms of cooperation). Those who reject unfair proposals in the ultimatum game are willing to bear a cost to punish unfairness.
Other kinds of games--"dictator games," "public goods" games, "trust" games, and "charity" games--show a similar pattern of behavior. Much of this research is surveyed in Herbert Gintis, et al., Moral Sentiments and Material Interests (MIT Press, 2005). The authors in that book conclude that this experimental research provides scientific support for Smith's understanding of human beings as other-regarding animals whose selfishness is checked by their concern for others.
As the authors in the Gintis book indicate, experimental game theory research needs to be combined with other kinds of research. We might wonder about "experimenter effects" in game-theory experiments: Are these rather contrived games creating behavior that we would not see in "real-world" behavior. But when this experimentation is combined with evolutionary theories of cooperation supported by historical, ethnographic, statistical, and other kinds of empirical research, we can gain growing confidence in our conclusion that human beings are by nature "strong reciprocators" whose motivations conform to Smith's account of human beings as guided both by the moral sentiments and by material interests.
This kind of work would support the sort of interdisciplinary research required for Darwinian political science. We need to explain the political universals of human behavior as reflecting our ambivalent nature as both self-regarding and other-regarding animals. We then need to explain how this ambivalent human nature is expressed in the cultural history of political institutions. And, finally, we need to explain how individual political judgments of political actors show the contingency and uncertainty of political history as constrained by both the genetic evolution of political universals and the social evolution of political cultures. So, for example, we might explain the history of American constitutionalism as a search for institutional structures to channel the ambivalent motivations of human beings so that they can cooperate for the common good, but without expecting them to become perfectly altruistic. And that constitutional history will reflect both the cultural history of constitutional republicanism and the individual history of political actors who must judge what should be done in particular circumstances.
This debate over whether human beings are predominantly rational egoists or strong reciprocators has implications for the possibility of liberty, and thus it's a crucial issue for Darwinian conservatives. Sometimes, it is said that conservative political thought is Hobbesian in its pessimistic assessment of human nature. But this is wrong. Conservatives are not utopians, because they recognize the imperfectibility of human nature, and part of that imperfectibility is the power of self-interest in motivating human behavior. But to assume--as Hobbes does--that human beings are by nature rational egoists and nothing more is contrary to conservative thought, because this Hobbesian view of human nature would say that there is no natural basis for morality. In this respect, Hobbes prepares the way for Kant, for whom morality requires a transcendence of Hobbesian human nature. The Hobbesian conception of human beings as rational egoists would also subvert the case for liberty, because it suggests that the only way for individuals to solve collective action problems is coercive central planning by a Leviathan state. By contrast, conservatives assume that human beings are naturally social animals who are capable of solving collective action problems by establishing norms of trust and reciprocity, and punishing those rational egoists who violate such norms.
Some good illustrations of this point come out in the chapter by Elinor Ostrom in the Gintis et al. book. It has been common for public policy analysts to assume that the management of common pool resources--for example, fisheries, grazing lands, and irrigation systems--requires a national bureaucracy to enforce a top-down plan for the efficient management of resources. But Ostrom's research has shown that local communities can develop their own arrangements for collective management of common resources that are far more effective than any bureaucratically devised and enforced plan.
Here we see the superiority of Hayekian spontaneous order over bureaucratic central planning. The possibility of such spontaneous order assumes a natural human disposition to cooperation based on reciprocity and trust, as well as moralistic punishment of cheaters. This rests on a view of human nature that is neither cynical nor utopian but Darwinian in its realism.
Some of these issues will be discussed in a few days at a Liberty Fund conference in Charleston, South Carolina, that I am directing. We will be reading selections from Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments along with the book edited by Gintis, Moral Sentiments and Material Interests. From my experience, Liberty Fund conferences are a wonderful way to explore such topics with a great collection of people. This group includes a Nobel-Prize-winning economist (Vernon Smith), a distinguished evolutionary biologist (David Sloan Wilson), a leading scholar of Adam Smith (Ryan Hanley), and a prominent libertarian journalist (Ron Bailey). It also helps to have lots of good food and drink in a beautiful location.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Five Sexes?
The U.S. Congress is considering legislation to prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. The legislation has provoked a debate between gay-rights activists who support the bill and transgender activists who oppose it. Originally, the bill had language protecting people who are born one sex but live as another sex. This language was removed to enhance the chances of passage. Protecting gay rights is more popular than protecting transgender rights.
The idea of being "transgender"--being neither male nor female or passing from one to the other--would seem to challenge my claim that "sexual identity" is one of the 20 natural desires. Here is how I describe it in Darwinian Conservatism (28): "Human beings generally desire to identify themselves as male or female. Sex is the single most important characteristic of personal identity. It is the first question we ask about a newborn infant. It is the first thing we notice about a person and the last thing we forget. In all human societies, sex terminology is fundamentally dualistic. Male and female are the basic sexes. Others are either a combination of the basic sexes (hermaphrodites) or a crossover from one to the other (men who act as women or women who act as men). All human societies have some sexual division of labor. And although different societies assign somewhat different sex roles, there are some recurrent differences that manifest a universal bipolarity in the pattern of human desires. For example, women in general (on average) tend to be more nurturing as manifested in a greater propensity to care for children, and men in general (on average) tend to be more dominant as manifested in a greater propensity to seek high-status positions. Yet while this average difference is true for most men and women, for some it is not: some women have manly desires, and some men have womanly desires."
One should notice that even as I stress the dualism of sexual identity as male or female, I recognize the variation from this strict bipolarity--hermaphrodites who combine both sexes or those who cross from one to the other--as well as the manifestation of manly women and womanly men. One dramatic way to speak of this variation would be to consider Anne Fausto-Sterling's claim in a famous article that there are actually five human sexes. In addition to males and females, there are three other sexes. True hermaphrodites ("herms") have one testis and one ovary, and they might have a vagina with a large clitoris that at puberty grows to the size of a penis. Female pseudohermaphrodites ("ferms") have ovaries and female chromosomes (XX), but they might have beards, what looks like a penis, and other apparently masculine traits. Male pseudohermaphrodites ("merms") have testes and male chromosomes (XY), but they might have a vagina, a clitoris, and breasts. In fact, there is a long history of intersexuality that can now be explained as products of biological disorders.
This phenomenon of intersexual ambiguity creates legal and moral problems. For some time, doctors have advised parents with intersexual infants to authorize surgical and hormonal treatments to force sexually ambiguous infants to look more clearly male or female. Fausto-Sterling argues that this is an attempt to force a culturally constructed sexual dualism on a biological nature that resists such dualism. She recommends that children should be free to grow up as intersexuals, and then at the age of reason, they can decide for themselves whether they want medical treatment to assign them more clearly to one sex or the other.
What we see here is an ambiguity about nature recognized by Aristotle in his biological works. Aristotle studied the natural causes that created hermaphrodites (History of Animals, 589b30-90a5; Generation of Animals, 770a25-71a15). In one sense, he reasoned, hermaphrodites are "contrary to nature," because they deviate from what naturally happens "for the most part." But in another sense, hermaphrodites are "natural," because they arise from natural causes. So it is natural for human beings to have a sexual identity that is either male or female. But the biological nature of sexual differentiation sometimes deviates from this central tendency.
Deciding how to handle those cases that deviate from the central tendency of sexual bipolarity is a matter of cultural tradition and prudential judgment. But the fact that biological nature throws up such exceptional cases should not obscure the fact that the central tendency of nature is to clearly distinguish male and female.
The idea of being "transgender"--being neither male nor female or passing from one to the other--would seem to challenge my claim that "sexual identity" is one of the 20 natural desires. Here is how I describe it in Darwinian Conservatism (28): "Human beings generally desire to identify themselves as male or female. Sex is the single most important characteristic of personal identity. It is the first question we ask about a newborn infant. It is the first thing we notice about a person and the last thing we forget. In all human societies, sex terminology is fundamentally dualistic. Male and female are the basic sexes. Others are either a combination of the basic sexes (hermaphrodites) or a crossover from one to the other (men who act as women or women who act as men). All human societies have some sexual division of labor. And although different societies assign somewhat different sex roles, there are some recurrent differences that manifest a universal bipolarity in the pattern of human desires. For example, women in general (on average) tend to be more nurturing as manifested in a greater propensity to care for children, and men in general (on average) tend to be more dominant as manifested in a greater propensity to seek high-status positions. Yet while this average difference is true for most men and women, for some it is not: some women have manly desires, and some men have womanly desires."
One should notice that even as I stress the dualism of sexual identity as male or female, I recognize the variation from this strict bipolarity--hermaphrodites who combine both sexes or those who cross from one to the other--as well as the manifestation of manly women and womanly men. One dramatic way to speak of this variation would be to consider Anne Fausto-Sterling's claim in a famous article that there are actually five human sexes. In addition to males and females, there are three other sexes. True hermaphrodites ("herms") have one testis and one ovary, and they might have a vagina with a large clitoris that at puberty grows to the size of a penis. Female pseudohermaphrodites ("ferms") have ovaries and female chromosomes (XX), but they might have beards, what looks like a penis, and other apparently masculine traits. Male pseudohermaphrodites ("merms") have testes and male chromosomes (XY), but they might have a vagina, a clitoris, and breasts. In fact, there is a long history of intersexuality that can now be explained as products of biological disorders.
This phenomenon of intersexual ambiguity creates legal and moral problems. For some time, doctors have advised parents with intersexual infants to authorize surgical and hormonal treatments to force sexually ambiguous infants to look more clearly male or female. Fausto-Sterling argues that this is an attempt to force a culturally constructed sexual dualism on a biological nature that resists such dualism. She recommends that children should be free to grow up as intersexuals, and then at the age of reason, they can decide for themselves whether they want medical treatment to assign them more clearly to one sex or the other.
What we see here is an ambiguity about nature recognized by Aristotle in his biological works. Aristotle studied the natural causes that created hermaphrodites (History of Animals, 589b30-90a5; Generation of Animals, 770a25-71a15). In one sense, he reasoned, hermaphrodites are "contrary to nature," because they deviate from what naturally happens "for the most part." But in another sense, hermaphrodites are "natural," because they arise from natural causes. So it is natural for human beings to have a sexual identity that is either male or female. But the biological nature of sexual differentiation sometimes deviates from this central tendency.
Deciding how to handle those cases that deviate from the central tendency of sexual bipolarity is a matter of cultural tradition and prudential judgment. But the fact that biological nature throws up such exceptional cases should not obscure the fact that the central tendency of nature is to clearly distinguish male and female.
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Problem of Free Will and John West
A few weeks ago, I posted a statement on John West's new book--Darwin Day in America. I indicated that I thought the book was a good survey of the bad effects of a crude scientific materialism in some areas of American public policy. But I also explained why West's attempt to trace this crude scientific materialism back to Darwin was implausible. I wrote a blurb for the publisher (ISI Books) praising the book, while also indicating my disagreement with West's attack on Darwinian science. Now, the Discovery Institute has set up a website for the book, which quotes my blurb. People who know about my continuing debate with West (on this blog and elsewhere) have questioned me as to why I wrote the blurb. My answer is laid out in my post of September 16th.
West's new book is designed to carry out the original "wedge strategy" of the Discovery Institute. A copy of the "wedge document" can be found here. As Barbara Forest and Paul Gross show in their book Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, this document was prepared in 1998 as a secret plan for the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. West was one of the original founders of the Center, and he is now the Associate Director. As the wedge document indicates, the Center was established to lead a public relations strategy that would transform modern culture by defeating scientific materialism and reviving the traditional religious conception of human beings as created in God's image. Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud were identified as the major sources of the scientific materialism that would have to be defeated. But Darwin has become the primary enemy for those following the wedge strategy.
West's Darwin Day in America carries out that strategy by claiming that all of the bad consequences of scientific materialism come from Charles Darwin. What's good about West's book is his broad survey of the deleterious effects of scientific materialism on American public policy. But what's bad about the book is his ridiculously contrived efforts at connecting all of this to Darwin.
Consider, for example, Chapter 3 of the book--"Criminal Science." The chapter opens with Clarence Darrow's famous argument that to hold Leopold and Loeb fully responsible for their murder would be unscientific in denying the scientific knowledge that all human behavior is determined by heredity and environment. West then shows how such shallow reasoning corrupted much of the putatively scientific criminology of the twentieth century.
But where's the connection to Darwin? Well, West establishes the connection with one sentence: "In his notebooks, Charles Darwin struggled with the serious consequences that scientific materialism posed for free will and responsibility, but for the most part he chose to keep his misgivings to himself." That's it! That one sentence is all that West ever says about Darwin in this chapter. He never even explains exactly why and how Darwin "struggled" with "free will and responsibility." Nor does West ever explain or defend his own conception of "free will."
In Darwinian Natural Right (83-87), I have defended a conception of "natural freedom" as compatible with a Darwinian naturalism in accounting for moral responsibility. West doesn't respond to such a conception.
In his notebooks, Darwin endorsed the idea that "every action whatever is the effect of a motive," and for that reason he doubted the existence of "free will." Our motives arise from a complex interaction of innate temperament, individual experience, social learning, and external conditions. Still, although we are not absolutely free of the causal regularities of nature, Darwin believes, we are morally responsible for our actions because of our uniquely human capacity for reflecting on our motives and circumstances and acting in the light of those reflections. As he wrote in The Descent of Man, "a moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives--of approving of some and disapproving of others; and the fact that man is the one being who certainly deserves this designation is the greatest of all distinctions between him and the lower animals."
If "free will" means "uncaused cause," then God is the only being with "free will," because whatever comes into existence must have a cause. Only what is self-existent from all eternity could be uncaused or undetermined. So instead of attributing "free will" to human beings, we should say that human beings have the moral freedom to act as one chooses, regardless of the cause of the choice. (Here I am following the reasoning of Jonathan Edwards.)
I agree with Aristotle, who never speaks of "free will." Aristotle believes we hold people responsible for their actions when they act voluntarily and deliberately. They act voluntarily when they act knowingly and without external force to satisfy their desires. They act with deliberate choice when, having weighed one desire against another in the light of past experience and future expectations, they choose that course of action likely to satisfy their desires harmoniously over a complete life. Such deliberation is required for "virtue in the strict sense," although most human beings most of the time act by impulse and habit with little or no deliberation.
Children and other animals are capable of voluntary action. But only mature human adults have the cognitive capacity for deliberate choice. Thus, for Aristotle, being morally responsible is not being free of one's natural desires. Rather, to be responsible, one must organize and manage one's desires through habituation and reflection to conform to some conception of a whole life well lived. One must do this to become happy as a human being, which is the ultimate end of all human action.
This Aristotelian and Darwinian understanding of moral responsibility is supported by a modern scientific understanding of human nature. In Darwinian Conservatism, I indicate how modern neuroscience might explain the emergence of human freedom through the evolution of the primate brain.
West doesn't explain what's wrong with such a naturalistic understanding of human moral freedom. Nor does he explain how he would defend a conception of "free will" as "uncaused cause." It seems that thinking through such things is not part of the Discovery Institute's "wedge strategy."
West's new book is designed to carry out the original "wedge strategy" of the Discovery Institute. A copy of the "wedge document" can be found here. As Barbara Forest and Paul Gross show in their book Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, this document was prepared in 1998 as a secret plan for the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. West was one of the original founders of the Center, and he is now the Associate Director. As the wedge document indicates, the Center was established to lead a public relations strategy that would transform modern culture by defeating scientific materialism and reviving the traditional religious conception of human beings as created in God's image. Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud were identified as the major sources of the scientific materialism that would have to be defeated. But Darwin has become the primary enemy for those following the wedge strategy.
West's Darwin Day in America carries out that strategy by claiming that all of the bad consequences of scientific materialism come from Charles Darwin. What's good about West's book is his broad survey of the deleterious effects of scientific materialism on American public policy. But what's bad about the book is his ridiculously contrived efforts at connecting all of this to Darwin.
Consider, for example, Chapter 3 of the book--"Criminal Science." The chapter opens with Clarence Darrow's famous argument that to hold Leopold and Loeb fully responsible for their murder would be unscientific in denying the scientific knowledge that all human behavior is determined by heredity and environment. West then shows how such shallow reasoning corrupted much of the putatively scientific criminology of the twentieth century.
But where's the connection to Darwin? Well, West establishes the connection with one sentence: "In his notebooks, Charles Darwin struggled with the serious consequences that scientific materialism posed for free will and responsibility, but for the most part he chose to keep his misgivings to himself." That's it! That one sentence is all that West ever says about Darwin in this chapter. He never even explains exactly why and how Darwin "struggled" with "free will and responsibility." Nor does West ever explain or defend his own conception of "free will."
In Darwinian Natural Right (83-87), I have defended a conception of "natural freedom" as compatible with a Darwinian naturalism in accounting for moral responsibility. West doesn't respond to such a conception.
In his notebooks, Darwin endorsed the idea that "every action whatever is the effect of a motive," and for that reason he doubted the existence of "free will." Our motives arise from a complex interaction of innate temperament, individual experience, social learning, and external conditions. Still, although we are not absolutely free of the causal regularities of nature, Darwin believes, we are morally responsible for our actions because of our uniquely human capacity for reflecting on our motives and circumstances and acting in the light of those reflections. As he wrote in The Descent of Man, "a moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives--of approving of some and disapproving of others; and the fact that man is the one being who certainly deserves this designation is the greatest of all distinctions between him and the lower animals."
If "free will" means "uncaused cause," then God is the only being with "free will," because whatever comes into existence must have a cause. Only what is self-existent from all eternity could be uncaused or undetermined. So instead of attributing "free will" to human beings, we should say that human beings have the moral freedom to act as one chooses, regardless of the cause of the choice. (Here I am following the reasoning of Jonathan Edwards.)
I agree with Aristotle, who never speaks of "free will." Aristotle believes we hold people responsible for their actions when they act voluntarily and deliberately. They act voluntarily when they act knowingly and without external force to satisfy their desires. They act with deliberate choice when, having weighed one desire against another in the light of past experience and future expectations, they choose that course of action likely to satisfy their desires harmoniously over a complete life. Such deliberation is required for "virtue in the strict sense," although most human beings most of the time act by impulse and habit with little or no deliberation.
Children and other animals are capable of voluntary action. But only mature human adults have the cognitive capacity for deliberate choice. Thus, for Aristotle, being morally responsible is not being free of one's natural desires. Rather, to be responsible, one must organize and manage one's desires through habituation and reflection to conform to some conception of a whole life well lived. One must do this to become happy as a human being, which is the ultimate end of all human action.
This Aristotelian and Darwinian understanding of moral responsibility is supported by a modern scientific understanding of human nature. In Darwinian Conservatism, I indicate how modern neuroscience might explain the emergence of human freedom through the evolution of the primate brain.
West doesn't explain what's wrong with such a naturalistic understanding of human moral freedom. Nor does he explain how he would defend a conception of "free will" as "uncaused cause." It seems that thinking through such things is not part of the Discovery Institute's "wedge strategy."
Friday, October 05, 2007
Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, and Chimpanzee Natural Law
Quoting Ulpian, Thomas Aquinas declared that "natural right is that which nature has taught all animals." Developing this thought, his account of natural moral law as rooted in natural inclinations draws ideas from Aristotle's biology and from Albert the Great's elaboration of Aristotle's biology. Although there is no idea of Darwinian evolution in this biology, the reasoning about natural moral law as rooted in biological inclinations is similar to Darwin's explanation of the natural moral sense.
Against this Thomistic/Darwinian naturalism, much of modern moral philosophy has adopted a Kantian dualism that views morality as belonging to a transcendental realm of freedom beyond nature. Heidegger manifested this Kantian tradition in dismissing natural law as "biologism." Contemporary Heideggerian existentialists like Peter Lawler continue this tradition by insisting that the transcendental freedom of human beings make them all "aliens" in the universe. Hans Jonas identified this tradition of thought as essentially Gnostic, and he saw that Darwinian science refuted Gnostic dualism.
Under the influence of Aristotle's biology, Thomas concluded that, although only human beings act from "free" judgment, other animals act from "estimative" judgment about what will satisfy their desires. Thus all animals have a natural capacity for practical judgment that shows a certain "participation in prudence and reason" and a certain "likeness of moral good" (ST, I, q. 83, a. 1; q. 96, a. 1; I-II, q. 11, a. 2; q. 24, a. 4; q. 40, a. 3). The influence of this biological psychology on the Thomistic understanding of natural law is evident in the account of marriage in the Supplement to the Summa Theologica (q. 41, a. 1; q. 54, a. 3; q. 65, a. 1-3; q. 67, a. 1).
Thomas explains that something can be natural to human beings in different ways (ST, II-II, q. 46, a. 5; q. 51, a. 1; q. 63, a. 1). The natural dispositions can be considered either as generic (shared with other animals), or as specific (shared with other human beings), or as temperamental (the unique traits of human individuals). This trichotomy of the natural dispositions comes from Aristotle's theory of biological inheritance (Generation of Animals, 767b24-69b31).
So although human politics is uniquely human, we might still learn something about the natural roots of politics by looking at chimpanzee politics. This would be in the tradition of Thomas and Albert (Thomas's teacher at the University of Paris). Albert wrote a massive survey of the whole field of zoology, building upon Aristotle's biology. Albert's work in biological science was part of his larger project to vindicate the scientific study of natural causal laws through reason, observation, and experimentation. The end result of this was to establish science as a source of knowledge independent of theology. Albert stressed the uniqueness of human beings as the only animals endowed with the powers of intellect and speech. Yet he also observed that other animals "are not entirely without the power of thought," which shows that nature "progresses gradually through many intermediates." Some nonhuman animals do have "experiential knowledge" that manifests "a sort of prudence" and a "capacity for instruction," which thus shows that these animals have at least "a shadow of reason." Many animals have some "estimative power" by which, while deciding how they should act to satisfy their desires, they judge the intentions of other animals. The most intelligent of the nonhuman animals are simians--monkeys and apes--and pygmies, which belong to a species that is intermediate between simians and humans. The simians and pygmies, Albert says, show a "human likeness beyond all other animals," and "seem to have something like reason." (All my references are to the translation of Albert's zoological work published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1999.)
Albert also observed that as political animals, human beings are like other social animals such as ants, bees, wasps, and cranes. Human society is unique, however, insofar as it can be based on formal laws or customary rules formualted deliberately by reason. Similarly, ethics in the strict sense is uniquely human to the extent tht it requires some rational deliberation in formulating a plan of how to live. Albert notes, however, that some other animals do exhibit "some natural inclination to a likeness of virtue," because their natural instincts and cognitive capacities incline them to act according to a "plan of life." On each of these points, Albert reiterates a biological teaching of Aristotle that is later adopted by Thomas.
Despite this, many of the most influential scholarly commentators on Thomas give little attention to the biological foundation of Thomas's understanding of natural law. John Finnis, for example, has led a recent revival of interest in Thomistic natural law, yet he largely ignores the importance of biological reasoning in Thomas's account. Finnis's natural law is actually "natural law without nature," because he accepts the Kantian dualism of natural law and moral freedom. In contrast to those like Finnis, I agree with Alasdair MacIntyre that the Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition of ethical naturalism is rooted in a biological understanding of human nature that has been confirmed by modern Darwinian biology. MacIntyre makes this point in his Dependent Rational Animals (1999).
Against this Thomistic/Darwinian naturalism, much of modern moral philosophy has adopted a Kantian dualism that views morality as belonging to a transcendental realm of freedom beyond nature. Heidegger manifested this Kantian tradition in dismissing natural law as "biologism." Contemporary Heideggerian existentialists like Peter Lawler continue this tradition by insisting that the transcendental freedom of human beings make them all "aliens" in the universe. Hans Jonas identified this tradition of thought as essentially Gnostic, and he saw that Darwinian science refuted Gnostic dualism.
Under the influence of Aristotle's biology, Thomas concluded that, although only human beings act from "free" judgment, other animals act from "estimative" judgment about what will satisfy their desires. Thus all animals have a natural capacity for practical judgment that shows a certain "participation in prudence and reason" and a certain "likeness of moral good" (ST, I, q. 83, a. 1; q. 96, a. 1; I-II, q. 11, a. 2; q. 24, a. 4; q. 40, a. 3). The influence of this biological psychology on the Thomistic understanding of natural law is evident in the account of marriage in the Supplement to the Summa Theologica (q. 41, a. 1; q. 54, a. 3; q. 65, a. 1-3; q. 67, a. 1).
Thomas explains that something can be natural to human beings in different ways (ST, II-II, q. 46, a. 5; q. 51, a. 1; q. 63, a. 1). The natural dispositions can be considered either as generic (shared with other animals), or as specific (shared with other human beings), or as temperamental (the unique traits of human individuals). This trichotomy of the natural dispositions comes from Aristotle's theory of biological inheritance (Generation of Animals, 767b24-69b31).
So although human politics is uniquely human, we might still learn something about the natural roots of politics by looking at chimpanzee politics. This would be in the tradition of Thomas and Albert (Thomas's teacher at the University of Paris). Albert wrote a massive survey of the whole field of zoology, building upon Aristotle's biology. Albert's work in biological science was part of his larger project to vindicate the scientific study of natural causal laws through reason, observation, and experimentation. The end result of this was to establish science as a source of knowledge independent of theology. Albert stressed the uniqueness of human beings as the only animals endowed with the powers of intellect and speech. Yet he also observed that other animals "are not entirely without the power of thought," which shows that nature "progresses gradually through many intermediates." Some nonhuman animals do have "experiential knowledge" that manifests "a sort of prudence" and a "capacity for instruction," which thus shows that these animals have at least "a shadow of reason." Many animals have some "estimative power" by which, while deciding how they should act to satisfy their desires, they judge the intentions of other animals. The most intelligent of the nonhuman animals are simians--monkeys and apes--and pygmies, which belong to a species that is intermediate between simians and humans. The simians and pygmies, Albert says, show a "human likeness beyond all other animals," and "seem to have something like reason." (All my references are to the translation of Albert's zoological work published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1999.)
Albert also observed that as political animals, human beings are like other social animals such as ants, bees, wasps, and cranes. Human society is unique, however, insofar as it can be based on formal laws or customary rules formualted deliberately by reason. Similarly, ethics in the strict sense is uniquely human to the extent tht it requires some rational deliberation in formulating a plan of how to live. Albert notes, however, that some other animals do exhibit "some natural inclination to a likeness of virtue," because their natural instincts and cognitive capacities incline them to act according to a "plan of life." On each of these points, Albert reiterates a biological teaching of Aristotle that is later adopted by Thomas.
Despite this, many of the most influential scholarly commentators on Thomas give little attention to the biological foundation of Thomas's understanding of natural law. John Finnis, for example, has led a recent revival of interest in Thomistic natural law, yet he largely ignores the importance of biological reasoning in Thomas's account. Finnis's natural law is actually "natural law without nature," because he accepts the Kantian dualism of natural law and moral freedom. In contrast to those like Finnis, I agree with Alasdair MacIntyre that the Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition of ethical naturalism is rooted in a biological understanding of human nature that has been confirmed by modern Darwinian biology. MacIntyre makes this point in his Dependent Rational Animals (1999).
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
The Machiavellian Biopolitics of Assassination and Conspiracy
It appears for now that the military dictators of Burma have suppressed the public protests against their rule led by Buddhist monks. But now there are reports that the rebel groups in the countryside are plotting to overcome their ethnic differences so that they can successfully launch an assault on the government.
This is a reminder of how political rule depends ultimately on violence and military force. And although the appeal to violence might seem to favor tyrannical rule, just the opposite is true. Tyrants are more vulnerable to violent attacks than are rulers with some claim to justice. This is as true for chimpanzee politics as it is for human politics.
Studies of chimpanzee groups both in captivity and in the wild show that becoming the dominant ruler or alpha male is not just a matter of physical strength. Dominant chimps must have the personality traits that allow them to manage the complex social life of a chimpanzee society. When adult males are fighting for dominance, their fights are ritualized through bluffing displays that minimize violence, even though the canine teeth of an adult male are powerful enough to kill with one bite. But the threat of physical violence is always there, and both Frans de Waal and Jane Goodall have reported a few cases of lethal violence in fights for dominance.
The same is true for human beings fighting for political dominance. The fighting can generally be ritualized in ways that prevent actual violence. But the threat of violence runs throughout political life.
The longest chapters in Machiavelli's Prince (ch. 19)and his Discourses (III, 6) are on the danger that princes face when--being hated by their people--they are exposed to conspiracies, and particularly conspiracies for assassination. In fact, these chapters are actually little treatises on how to assassinate or otherwise conspire against tyrants. This explains why Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, coauthored with Voltaire a book--Anti-Machiavel--attacking Machiavelli's Prince as a handbook for regicide.
There is some empirical evidence supporting the conclusion that tyrannical leaders who become hated are more likely to suffer a bad end than are democratic leaders. Arnold Ludwig's book King of the Mountain (2002)supports the claim of Aristotle and Darwin that male dominance of politics is rooted in human biological nature. He argues that the male desire to be the supreme political ruler expresses the same biological propensities that support the dominance of alpha males among monkeys and apes. He develops his argument through a meticulous analysis of the 1,941 chief executive rulers of the independent countries in the twentieth century. He illustrates his points with anecdotes from the lives of the 377 rulers for whom he had extensive biographical information. He shows that the struggle for social dominance is a "dangerous game" (chap. 4). A tyrant is much more likely to be victimized by assassination plots or to be overthrown by violence than is a leader of an established democracy. "Tyrants, by far, are most likely to suffer a bad outcome, with half of them being deposed, one-fifth being ousted after having lost a war or being voted out of office, and another 15 percent being assassinated or executed. That is a whopping 85 percent chance of leaving office in disgrace or in a casket" (120).
As Machiavelli indicated, the history of politics is largely determined by the history of war and violence. But this harsh reality of political violence does not necessarily favor tyranny, because tyrants who become hated are likely to be assassinated, executed, or overthrown. This favors republican or democratic politics. For example, the execution of Charles I in 1649, which opened the way for the English Republic, was a dramatic illustration of how popular violence can check the power of a tyrant. Similarly, the American and French Revolutions showed the vulnerability of would-be tyrants to revolutionary violence.
Republican institutions supporting limited government are designed to so limit power that recourse to political violence will be minimized. But when political conflicts of interest and principle become so deep that persuasion cannot resolve the dispute, then there is no final settlement except by force of arms--as was the case, for example, in the American Civil War.
A Darwinian political science recognizes that political order always rests on a natural rivalry for power and dominance that must be resolved either by persuasion or by force.
This is a reminder of how political rule depends ultimately on violence and military force. And although the appeal to violence might seem to favor tyrannical rule, just the opposite is true. Tyrants are more vulnerable to violent attacks than are rulers with some claim to justice. This is as true for chimpanzee politics as it is for human politics.
Studies of chimpanzee groups both in captivity and in the wild show that becoming the dominant ruler or alpha male is not just a matter of physical strength. Dominant chimps must have the personality traits that allow them to manage the complex social life of a chimpanzee society. When adult males are fighting for dominance, their fights are ritualized through bluffing displays that minimize violence, even though the canine teeth of an adult male are powerful enough to kill with one bite. But the threat of physical violence is always there, and both Frans de Waal and Jane Goodall have reported a few cases of lethal violence in fights for dominance.
The same is true for human beings fighting for political dominance. The fighting can generally be ritualized in ways that prevent actual violence. But the threat of violence runs throughout political life.
The longest chapters in Machiavelli's Prince (ch. 19)and his Discourses (III, 6) are on the danger that princes face when--being hated by their people--they are exposed to conspiracies, and particularly conspiracies for assassination. In fact, these chapters are actually little treatises on how to assassinate or otherwise conspire against tyrants. This explains why Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, coauthored with Voltaire a book--Anti-Machiavel--attacking Machiavelli's Prince as a handbook for regicide.
There is some empirical evidence supporting the conclusion that tyrannical leaders who become hated are more likely to suffer a bad end than are democratic leaders. Arnold Ludwig's book King of the Mountain (2002)supports the claim of Aristotle and Darwin that male dominance of politics is rooted in human biological nature. He argues that the male desire to be the supreme political ruler expresses the same biological propensities that support the dominance of alpha males among monkeys and apes. He develops his argument through a meticulous analysis of the 1,941 chief executive rulers of the independent countries in the twentieth century. He illustrates his points with anecdotes from the lives of the 377 rulers for whom he had extensive biographical information. He shows that the struggle for social dominance is a "dangerous game" (chap. 4). A tyrant is much more likely to be victimized by assassination plots or to be overthrown by violence than is a leader of an established democracy. "Tyrants, by far, are most likely to suffer a bad outcome, with half of them being deposed, one-fifth being ousted after having lost a war or being voted out of office, and another 15 percent being assassinated or executed. That is a whopping 85 percent chance of leaving office in disgrace or in a casket" (120).
As Machiavelli indicated, the history of politics is largely determined by the history of war and violence. But this harsh reality of political violence does not necessarily favor tyranny, because tyrants who become hated are likely to be assassinated, executed, or overthrown. This favors republican or democratic politics. For example, the execution of Charles I in 1649, which opened the way for the English Republic, was a dramatic illustration of how popular violence can check the power of a tyrant. Similarly, the American and French Revolutions showed the vulnerability of would-be tyrants to revolutionary violence.
Republican institutions supporting limited government are designed to so limit power that recourse to political violence will be minimized. But when political conflicts of interest and principle become so deep that persuasion cannot resolve the dispute, then there is no final settlement except by force of arms--as was the case, for example, in the American Civil War.
A Darwinian political science recognizes that political order always rests on a natural rivalry for power and dominance that must be resolved either by persuasion or by force.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Utopianism of David Wilson and Herbert Spencer
My fundamental argument for Darwinian conservatism is that Darwinian science generally supports conservatives in their realist view of human imperfectibility, in contrast to the utopian view of human perfectibility that tends to run through leftist thought. Nevertheless, there is a tradition of utopianism coming from Herbert Spencer that is often associated with Darwinian evolution. One can see some of that Spencerian utopianism in the writing of David Sloan Wilson. (A previous post on Spencer can be found here. A previous post on Wilson can be found here.)
Spencer foresaw an evolutionary trend towards completely harmonious cooperation in a "social organism" that would embrace all of humanity. This would bring about the transformation of human nature into a state of perfection in a stateless anarchy with perpetual peace.
There are some intimations of a similar utopian progressivism in Wilson's Evolution for Everyone. Although I generally agree with Wilson, I am not persuaded by the utopian elements in his writing. Like Spencer, Wilson defends a theory of group selection based on the idea of the "social organism"--the idea that a social group can become as harmoniously cooperative as an organic body. This can easily be pushed towards the sort of perfectionist utopianism that one sees in Spencer.
For example, Wilson's chapter on "The Egalitarian Ape" in Evolution for Everyone suggests that human groups can become so egalitarian that no individual has more authority than another. To support this conclusion, he looks to the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer groups, he appeals to Chris Boehm's conception of how a "reverse dominance hierarchy" can enforce equality, and he contrasts human egalitarianism with "despotic chimp society."
There are problems with this reasoning. Hunter-gatherers are not completely without leaders or conflicts over dominance. If they appear to be egalitarian, it's only because their resistance to exploitative dominance inclines them to punish individuals who become too pushy in their dominance. Wilson quotes from Richard Lee's studies of the !Kung San in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. But he does not quote Lee's comments on "patterns of leadership" among the !Kung (see Lee, THE !KUNG SAN [1979], 343-50, 457-61). Wilson concedes this point later in his book when he writes: "The balance of power is never equal in real villages. Some members are always better than others in their physical prowess, intelligence, or experience. . . . Powerful members of villages who demonstrate their good intentions are rewarded with leadership, whole those who throw their weight around are shunned and excluded" (292).
The same is true for chimps. Although Wilson claims that Frans de Waal has shown the "despotism" of chimp society, de Waal actually contrasts the "egalitarian dominance" style of chimps and the "despotic dominance" style of rhesus monkeys. Dominant male chimps must serve the good of their group, and they are punished by their group when they don't. This supports de Waal's argument that there is an evolutionary logic behind limited government based on checks and balances: even as we allow ambitious individuals to pursue their dominance drive, we can check and channel that dominance to satisfy the desire of the many to be free from exploitative dominance.
Like Spencer, Wilson foresees that international relations will evolve towards peaceful cooperation. He sees the emergence of a "global village" based on a "shared value system." But he is vague as to what this "shared value system" would be, how it would be enforced, and whether it could really secure perpetual peace.
In contrast to Spencer and Wilson, I think that Darwinian science supports a realist conception of human nature that makes conflicts of interests unavoidable. This supports a tragic view of the human condition in which some conflicts cannot be resolved except by force. That's why war is inevitable. Human beings desire war when fear, interest, or honor move them to fight for their community against opposing communities. I agree with Wilson about the importance of evolution by group selection. But I would stress that group-selected cooperation will always be weakened by competition both within and between groups, so that the best we can achieve is to maintain a tense balance of competition and cooperation.
Spencer foresaw an evolutionary trend towards completely harmonious cooperation in a "social organism" that would embrace all of humanity. This would bring about the transformation of human nature into a state of perfection in a stateless anarchy with perpetual peace.
There are some intimations of a similar utopian progressivism in Wilson's Evolution for Everyone. Although I generally agree with Wilson, I am not persuaded by the utopian elements in his writing. Like Spencer, Wilson defends a theory of group selection based on the idea of the "social organism"--the idea that a social group can become as harmoniously cooperative as an organic body. This can easily be pushed towards the sort of perfectionist utopianism that one sees in Spencer.
For example, Wilson's chapter on "The Egalitarian Ape" in Evolution for Everyone suggests that human groups can become so egalitarian that no individual has more authority than another. To support this conclusion, he looks to the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer groups, he appeals to Chris Boehm's conception of how a "reverse dominance hierarchy" can enforce equality, and he contrasts human egalitarianism with "despotic chimp society."
There are problems with this reasoning. Hunter-gatherers are not completely without leaders or conflicts over dominance. If they appear to be egalitarian, it's only because their resistance to exploitative dominance inclines them to punish individuals who become too pushy in their dominance. Wilson quotes from Richard Lee's studies of the !Kung San in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. But he does not quote Lee's comments on "patterns of leadership" among the !Kung (see Lee, THE !KUNG SAN [1979], 343-50, 457-61). Wilson concedes this point later in his book when he writes: "The balance of power is never equal in real villages. Some members are always better than others in their physical prowess, intelligence, or experience. . . . Powerful members of villages who demonstrate their good intentions are rewarded with leadership, whole those who throw their weight around are shunned and excluded" (292).
The same is true for chimps. Although Wilson claims that Frans de Waal has shown the "despotism" of chimp society, de Waal actually contrasts the "egalitarian dominance" style of chimps and the "despotic dominance" style of rhesus monkeys. Dominant male chimps must serve the good of their group, and they are punished by their group when they don't. This supports de Waal's argument that there is an evolutionary logic behind limited government based on checks and balances: even as we allow ambitious individuals to pursue their dominance drive, we can check and channel that dominance to satisfy the desire of the many to be free from exploitative dominance.
Like Spencer, Wilson foresees that international relations will evolve towards peaceful cooperation. He sees the emergence of a "global village" based on a "shared value system." But he is vague as to what this "shared value system" would be, how it would be enforced, and whether it could really secure perpetual peace.
In contrast to Spencer and Wilson, I think that Darwinian science supports a realist conception of human nature that makes conflicts of interests unavoidable. This supports a tragic view of the human condition in which some conflicts cannot be resolved except by force. That's why war is inevitable. Human beings desire war when fear, interest, or honor move them to fight for their community against opposing communities. I agree with Wilson about the importance of evolution by group selection. But I would stress that group-selected cooperation will always be weakened by competition both within and between groups, so that the best we can achieve is to maintain a tense balance of competition and cooperation.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Darwinian Natural Law: A Reply to Gavin Colvert
In Darwinian Natural Right and Darwinian Conservatism, I have suggested that a Darwinian naturalism can support a conception of "Darwinian natural right" that is similar to traditional natural law reasoning. I have also elaborated this point in my paper "Thomistic Natural Law as Darwinian Natural Right," published as an article in Social Philosophy & Policy (winter 2001)and in Natural Law and Modern Moral Philosophy (edited by Ellen Frankel Paul et al. for Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Recently, Gavin Colvert, a philosopher at Assumption College, has published a response to my reasoning--"Back to Nature: Aquinas and Ethical Naturalism"--which can be found here.
Although Colvert praises my efforts at providing a Darwinian grounding for natural moral law, he argues that there are serious defects in my position. Actually, I think that he and I are even closer than he realizes. He writes: "Aquinas holds that the normative force of the natural inclinations to various goods must be integrated through the consideration of reason. Humean sentimentalism does not provide for this possibility" (49). He concludes: "Natural inclinations are normative within a practical grasp of our nature and possibilities for human fulfillment. In other words, a genuine theory of practical reason is needed. Sentimentalism is not enough" (59). I agree! But Colvert doesn't see this agreement because he does not notice my emphasis on prudence as essential for moral deliberation. See, for example, Darwinian Natural Right (17-21, 44-49, 80-81, 152-60, 166-70,188-89, 224-30) and Darwinian Conservatism (10, 15, 23-25, 32-33, 41-45, 110-11, 133, 142).
The good is the desirable, I argue, but what is desirable is not the same as what we happen to desire at any moment. What is desirable for us as human beings conforms to our happiness or flourishing as a deliberate conception of the harmonious satisfaction of our desires over a whole life. As Darwin indicates, only human beings can be moral beings in this sense, because only they have the cognitive capacities for reason and language that allow them to formulate a plan of life, so that they can judge present actions in the light of past experience and future expectations. Pure reason by itself cannot move us to action. But practical reason can move us when it is linked to natural desire or inclination. I agree, therefore, with Colvert's claim that "reason must integrate the objects of natural desire into a coherent understanding of the human good" (37).
Colvert identifies me as a "Humean sentimentalist." This ignores the emphasis I give to practical reasoning. It also ignores Hume's point that morality requires a conjunction of reason and sentiment. I and Hume would agree with Darwin's conclusion: "Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment--originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit."
Colvert relies on Carson Holloway's critique of my position. I have responded to Holloway on various occasions. One of my posts on Holloway can be found here.
Like Holloway, Colvert appeals to Tocqueville in stressing the importance of religious belief for morality. I agree with Tocqueville's claim that "considering religions from a purely human point of view, one can say that all religions derive an element of strength which will never fail from man himself, because it is attached to one of the constituent principles of human nature" (quoted by Colvert at p. 53). After all, I stress the natural desire for religious understanding and the ways in which religion reinforces morality. But I also argue that the natural moral sense can stand on its own natural ground in human nature even without religious belief.
Recently, Gavin Colvert, a philosopher at Assumption College, has published a response to my reasoning--"Back to Nature: Aquinas and Ethical Naturalism"--which can be found here.
Although Colvert praises my efforts at providing a Darwinian grounding for natural moral law, he argues that there are serious defects in my position. Actually, I think that he and I are even closer than he realizes. He writes: "Aquinas holds that the normative force of the natural inclinations to various goods must be integrated through the consideration of reason. Humean sentimentalism does not provide for this possibility" (49). He concludes: "Natural inclinations are normative within a practical grasp of our nature and possibilities for human fulfillment. In other words, a genuine theory of practical reason is needed. Sentimentalism is not enough" (59). I agree! But Colvert doesn't see this agreement because he does not notice my emphasis on prudence as essential for moral deliberation. See, for example, Darwinian Natural Right (17-21, 44-49, 80-81, 152-60, 166-70,188-89, 224-30) and Darwinian Conservatism (10, 15, 23-25, 32-33, 41-45, 110-11, 133, 142).
The good is the desirable, I argue, but what is desirable is not the same as what we happen to desire at any moment. What is desirable for us as human beings conforms to our happiness or flourishing as a deliberate conception of the harmonious satisfaction of our desires over a whole life. As Darwin indicates, only human beings can be moral beings in this sense, because only they have the cognitive capacities for reason and language that allow them to formulate a plan of life, so that they can judge present actions in the light of past experience and future expectations. Pure reason by itself cannot move us to action. But practical reason can move us when it is linked to natural desire or inclination. I agree, therefore, with Colvert's claim that "reason must integrate the objects of natural desire into a coherent understanding of the human good" (37).
Colvert identifies me as a "Humean sentimentalist." This ignores the emphasis I give to practical reasoning. It also ignores Hume's point that morality requires a conjunction of reason and sentiment. I and Hume would agree with Darwin's conclusion: "Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment--originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit."
Colvert relies on Carson Holloway's critique of my position. I have responded to Holloway on various occasions. One of my posts on Holloway can be found here.
Like Holloway, Colvert appeals to Tocqueville in stressing the importance of religious belief for morality. I agree with Tocqueville's claim that "considering religions from a purely human point of view, one can say that all religions derive an element of strength which will never fail from man himself, because it is attached to one of the constituent principles of human nature" (quoted by Colvert at p. 53). After all, I stress the natural desire for religious understanding and the ways in which religion reinforces morality. But I also argue that the natural moral sense can stand on its own natural ground in human nature even without religious belief.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
John West's DARWIN DAY IN AMERICA
I have had a series of debates with John West, the Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute will sponsor our next debate on November 15 at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle.
I have responded to West's book Darwin's Conservatives in various posts, some of which can be found here, here, and here.
West's new book--Darwin Day in America--is being published by ISI Books. The book will be released next month. But I have already read the book in page proofs. It is a very good book in surveying the bad effects of a crude scientific materialism in American public policy. That's why I have written a blurb for ISI Books praising it.
My one point of disagreement with West, however, is that I cannot understand why he wants to blame Darwinian science for all of the bad thinking and bad policies attributed to scientific materialism. For example, he criticizes Louis Sullivan's modern architecture for its "reductionist view of buildings as the sum of their functions and building materials." What does this have to do with Darwin? Well, Sullivan said that he was influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, and therefore, West concludes, Darwin must have been responsible for modern architecture. But then West also notes that Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright also manifested a mystical romanticism that didn't seem very Darwinian. Again, I don't see that there is any kind of inevitable connection to Darwinian science.
Similarly, West criticizes John Watson for his behavioral psychology. But Watson's denial of human nature and affirmation that human beings come into the world as a "blank slate" with no innate propensities and open to environmental conditioning rejects any Darwinian science of human nature! And yet somehow, according to West, this behaviorist rejection of human biological nature is a consequence of Darwinism. I can't see the logic in this at all.
West assumes that Darwinian science requires a strong reductionism in which "the parts are more important than the whole--to the degree that sometimes the whole seems to be a lot less than the sum of the parts." But in Darwinian Conservatism, I argue that Darwinian biology requires the idea of emergence, in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That's why I argue against E. O. Wilson's "consilience" as strong reductionism and in favor of "consilience" as emergent complexity.
West presents his argument in almost totally negative terms. He indicates the weaknesses in a strongly reductionist science--particularly, in its moral and political implications. But he never elaborates his positive alternative. (This reliance on negative argumentation is common for the proponents of intelligent design theory.) His argument would be strengthened if he could say: having shown the morally dubious consequences of scientific reductionism, now let me explain to you the moral strength of my alternative conception, which is . . .
West says that Darwin's science cannot support "traditional morality," because it provides no "permanent foundation for ethics," and it abolishes "transcendent moral standards." But then he never explains anywhere in his book the content or ground of those "transcendent moral standards."
At the end of the book, he criticizes Darwin for not appealing to "timeless standards of truth sanctioned by God or nature." He thinks the clearest evidence for this is the "startling passage" about how the morality of human beings would be different if they were hive-bees. If human beings lived like bees, Darwin suggests, "our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering." But why does West find this "startling"? Does he believe that the morality of bees must be the same as the morality of human beings, because all living things are governed by the same "timeless standards"? But surely what is naturally good or desirable for human beings is not the same as what would be good or desirable for bees.
West says that "according to Darwin's framework, everything that regularly occurred in nature must be regard as normal almost by nature." But Darwin's hive-bee passage says just the opposite. What is "normal" for hive-bees is not "normal" for human beings.
So, again, I ask, what is West's alternative conception of morality as based on "timeless standards of truth sanctioned by God or nature"? Could he give us an example of the "transcendent moral standards" that he has in mind? Perhaps he could say that the Bible provides such transcendent moral standards sanctioned by God. But don't we have to pass the Bible through a moral filter to get morally correct conclusions, because sometimes the Bible is contrary to our natural moral sense?
As someone deeply influenced by C. S. Lewis, West might want to appeal to Lewis's idea of the universal morality that he calls the Tao in The Abolition of Man. But isn't it interesting that when Lewis adds his appendix to that book, with examples of the Tao, he is very selective. Lewis quotes from the Bible the commandment "thou shalt not kill." But he does not quote the command to "let no breathing thing live" in the conquest of Canaan (Deuteronomy 20:10-20). Nor does Lewis quote any of the biblical passages endorsing slavery. Thus, Lewis carefully picks out those biblical passages that conform to his natural moral sense and rejects those that don't.
West devotes a lot of attention to the debate over the moral status of fetuses, because he sees abortion as a denial of the human dignity of the fetus. But there is no clear biblical statement that life begins at conception. On the contrary, the only biblical passage that seems pertinent suggests that a fetus's life has less value than that of a fully formed human being (Exodus 21:22-27). Even the papal statesments on abortion concede that the belief in life as beginning at conception cannot be based on the Bible. By contrast, many Jews interpret the biblical account of the creation of Adam as indicating that a fetus does not become human until there is a respiratory system in place, because Adam was less than fully human until God breathed life into him.
When readers of the Bible go through the story of God commanding Abraham to kill his innocent son Isaac as a test of Abraham's faith (Genesis 22), some readers interpret this to mean that we must obey any command of God no matter how immoral it is, and thus we are taught, as Kierkegaard said, that faith in God requires "the suspension of the ethical." But most readers assume that there must be some mistake in this biblical story, because surely God would not command what most of us recognize as an immoral act.
On this and other moral issues, it is not clear how we could grasp the transcendent moral standards sanctioned by God if we did not already have a natural moral sense.
West makes a lot of the connection between Darwin and eugenics. In Darwinian Conservatism, I argue that Darwin supported "good eugenics"--such as legally forbidding incestuous marriages that would produce harmful physical and mental disabilities. The recent efforts of Ashkenazi Jews to discourage the marriage of Tay-Sachs carriers would illustrate such "good eugenics." But I don't see any evidence in Darwin's writing that he endorsed Francis Galton's utopian schemes that we could properly condemn as "bad eugenics." West says that "Charles Darwin himself praised the idea of eugenic restrictions on marriage." But West doesn't notice that Darwin was specifically concerned about the effects of incest, which should be of concern for most people. Nor does West indicate that Galton's utopian eugenics goes back to Plato's proposal for eugenic mating in the Republic (459d). The cause of bad eugenics is not Darwin but utopianism.
I have responded to West's book Darwin's Conservatives in various posts, some of which can be found here, here, and here.
West's new book--Darwin Day in America--is being published by ISI Books. The book will be released next month. But I have already read the book in page proofs. It is a very good book in surveying the bad effects of a crude scientific materialism in American public policy. That's why I have written a blurb for ISI Books praising it.
My one point of disagreement with West, however, is that I cannot understand why he wants to blame Darwinian science for all of the bad thinking and bad policies attributed to scientific materialism. For example, he criticizes Louis Sullivan's modern architecture for its "reductionist view of buildings as the sum of their functions and building materials." What does this have to do with Darwin? Well, Sullivan said that he was influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, and therefore, West concludes, Darwin must have been responsible for modern architecture. But then West also notes that Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright also manifested a mystical romanticism that didn't seem very Darwinian. Again, I don't see that there is any kind of inevitable connection to Darwinian science.
Similarly, West criticizes John Watson for his behavioral psychology. But Watson's denial of human nature and affirmation that human beings come into the world as a "blank slate" with no innate propensities and open to environmental conditioning rejects any Darwinian science of human nature! And yet somehow, according to West, this behaviorist rejection of human biological nature is a consequence of Darwinism. I can't see the logic in this at all.
West assumes that Darwinian science requires a strong reductionism in which "the parts are more important than the whole--to the degree that sometimes the whole seems to be a lot less than the sum of the parts." But in Darwinian Conservatism, I argue that Darwinian biology requires the idea of emergence, in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That's why I argue against E. O. Wilson's "consilience" as strong reductionism and in favor of "consilience" as emergent complexity.
West presents his argument in almost totally negative terms. He indicates the weaknesses in a strongly reductionist science--particularly, in its moral and political implications. But he never elaborates his positive alternative. (This reliance on negative argumentation is common for the proponents of intelligent design theory.) His argument would be strengthened if he could say: having shown the morally dubious consequences of scientific reductionism, now let me explain to you the moral strength of my alternative conception, which is . . .
West says that Darwin's science cannot support "traditional morality," because it provides no "permanent foundation for ethics," and it abolishes "transcendent moral standards." But then he never explains anywhere in his book the content or ground of those "transcendent moral standards."
At the end of the book, he criticizes Darwin for not appealing to "timeless standards of truth sanctioned by God or nature." He thinks the clearest evidence for this is the "startling passage" about how the morality of human beings would be different if they were hive-bees. If human beings lived like bees, Darwin suggests, "our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering." But why does West find this "startling"? Does he believe that the morality of bees must be the same as the morality of human beings, because all living things are governed by the same "timeless standards"? But surely what is naturally good or desirable for human beings is not the same as what would be good or desirable for bees.
West says that "according to Darwin's framework, everything that regularly occurred in nature must be regard as normal almost by nature." But Darwin's hive-bee passage says just the opposite. What is "normal" for hive-bees is not "normal" for human beings.
So, again, I ask, what is West's alternative conception of morality as based on "timeless standards of truth sanctioned by God or nature"? Could he give us an example of the "transcendent moral standards" that he has in mind? Perhaps he could say that the Bible provides such transcendent moral standards sanctioned by God. But don't we have to pass the Bible through a moral filter to get morally correct conclusions, because sometimes the Bible is contrary to our natural moral sense?
As someone deeply influenced by C. S. Lewis, West might want to appeal to Lewis's idea of the universal morality that he calls the Tao in The Abolition of Man. But isn't it interesting that when Lewis adds his appendix to that book, with examples of the Tao, he is very selective. Lewis quotes from the Bible the commandment "thou shalt not kill." But he does not quote the command to "let no breathing thing live" in the conquest of Canaan (Deuteronomy 20:10-20). Nor does Lewis quote any of the biblical passages endorsing slavery. Thus, Lewis carefully picks out those biblical passages that conform to his natural moral sense and rejects those that don't.
West devotes a lot of attention to the debate over the moral status of fetuses, because he sees abortion as a denial of the human dignity of the fetus. But there is no clear biblical statement that life begins at conception. On the contrary, the only biblical passage that seems pertinent suggests that a fetus's life has less value than that of a fully formed human being (Exodus 21:22-27). Even the papal statesments on abortion concede that the belief in life as beginning at conception cannot be based on the Bible. By contrast, many Jews interpret the biblical account of the creation of Adam as indicating that a fetus does not become human until there is a respiratory system in place, because Adam was less than fully human until God breathed life into him.
When readers of the Bible go through the story of God commanding Abraham to kill his innocent son Isaac as a test of Abraham's faith (Genesis 22), some readers interpret this to mean that we must obey any command of God no matter how immoral it is, and thus we are taught, as Kierkegaard said, that faith in God requires "the suspension of the ethical." But most readers assume that there must be some mistake in this biblical story, because surely God would not command what most of us recognize as an immoral act.
On this and other moral issues, it is not clear how we could grasp the transcendent moral standards sanctioned by God if we did not already have a natural moral sense.
West makes a lot of the connection between Darwin and eugenics. In Darwinian Conservatism, I argue that Darwin supported "good eugenics"--such as legally forbidding incestuous marriages that would produce harmful physical and mental disabilities. The recent efforts of Ashkenazi Jews to discourage the marriage of Tay-Sachs carriers would illustrate such "good eugenics." But I don't see any evidence in Darwin's writing that he endorsed Francis Galton's utopian schemes that we could properly condemn as "bad eugenics." West says that "Charles Darwin himself praised the idea of eugenic restrictions on marriage." But West doesn't notice that Darwin was specifically concerned about the effects of incest, which should be of concern for most people. Nor does West indicate that Galton's utopian eugenics goes back to Plato's proposal for eugenic mating in the Republic (459d). The cause of bad eugenics is not Darwin but utopianism.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Gregory Clark's A FAREWELL TO ALMS
Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World has been generating a lot of discussion. My interest in the book comes from its Darwinian theory of the Industrial Revolution. As I study the book, I am generally persuaded, but I am slow to fully embrace it because it goes against what I have believed about this issue.
Explaining why the Industrial Revolution emerged first in England, beginning around 1800, is one of the great questions in the social sciences. Throughout human history up to that point, all societies were caught in what Clark calls "the Malthusian trap." Clark shows that the average person in 1800 did not enjoy better material standards of living than the average person of 100,000 BC. This was because short-term increases in income due to technological improvements would bring growth in population, which would eventually force income down as greater numbers of people would divide up the limited resources. In the long run, birth rates would have to equal death rates. This was the natural economy of all animal species as subject to natural selection, including human beings. But then something happened in England around 1800, so that average incomes rose without falling, and this has spread to the most prosperous societies over the last 200 years.
The common explanation from many economists is that the institutional incentives for productivity--private property rights, free markets, low taxes, rule of law, limited government--developed first in England. The human preferences for accumulating material wealth had always been there throughout history, but the cultural evolution of institutional incentives in England was necessary to direct and channel these preferences. Before reading Clark's book, this was my position.
Against this, Clark offers some powerful empirical evidence that many, if not most, of these institutional incentives were already present in England in the Middle Ages, when private property was protected, taxes were low, markets were free, and so on. So there must have been something else at work to explain the emergence of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
Clark's answer is that from 1200 to 1800 in England, there was a Darwinian process of "survival of the richest" by which the richest families had the highest fertility rates, so that their offspring spread through the population of England. This evolution favored the spread of middle class or bourgeois values. "Thrift, prudence, negotiation, and hard work were becoming values for communities that previously had been spendthrift, impulsive, violent, and leisure loving" (166). "The bourgeois values of hard work, patience, honesty, rationality, curiosity, and learning" were embedded "into the culture, and perhaps even the genetics" of the English (11).
This last phrase--"the culture, and perhaps even the genetics"--is repeated in various ways through the book but without much explanation. The thought seems to be that while the evidence for a cultural evolution of bourgeois values is strong, the evidence for a genetic evolution of such values is not so clear. It would be hard to prove such a genetic change by group selection in only a few centuries.
I can believe that such a cultural evolution of bourgeois values could have occurred, and if so, this would be part of what I have called Darwinian political science, which rests on the interaction of history at three levels--the genetic evolution of the species, the cultural evolution of groups within the species, and the individual history of political judgments.
There are, however, some unresolved problems in Clark's reasoning. Most important for me is whether he can adequately explain the "demographic transition." Beginning around 1890, fertility rates in the most prosperous societies begin to vary in inverse proportion to wealth. Wealthier classes of people tend to have fewer children. This reverses the "survival of the richest" trend that Clark finds in England leading up to the Industrial Revolution and then up to 1890.
Clark offers various possible explanations for the demographic transition (289-96). He seems to reject the ideas that increasing incomes in general reduce fertility or that the lack of contraception in earlier years kept fertility high. He seems to favor explanations based on the idea that people had to produce more children in the past to hope to have two or three surviving children because of the high infant mortality in the past, or based on the idea that increasing social status for women made them less inclined to submit to the rigors of mothering many children. But Clark never lays out his final assessment of the demographic transition.
This is an important issue, because it seems that if the "survival of the richest" had not shifted to the demographic transition at the end of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution would have returned to the Malthusian trap, because overpopulation would eventually have exhausted the resource base (see 289).
I would suggest that Clark's position needs to be reformulated slightly. He has shown that explaining the English Industrial Revolution as a product of institutional incentives is not sufficient. But by implication those institutional incentives are still necessary conditions for the "survival of the fittest" to bring about the cultural evolution of bourgeois values over hundreds of years. The crucial point, then, is that introducing capitalist, liberal institutions into a poor society is not going to immediately bring prosperity. That might require a long period of cultural evolution.
Explaining why the Industrial Revolution emerged first in England, beginning around 1800, is one of the great questions in the social sciences. Throughout human history up to that point, all societies were caught in what Clark calls "the Malthusian trap." Clark shows that the average person in 1800 did not enjoy better material standards of living than the average person of 100,000 BC. This was because short-term increases in income due to technological improvements would bring growth in population, which would eventually force income down as greater numbers of people would divide up the limited resources. In the long run, birth rates would have to equal death rates. This was the natural economy of all animal species as subject to natural selection, including human beings. But then something happened in England around 1800, so that average incomes rose without falling, and this has spread to the most prosperous societies over the last 200 years.
The common explanation from many economists is that the institutional incentives for productivity--private property rights, free markets, low taxes, rule of law, limited government--developed first in England. The human preferences for accumulating material wealth had always been there throughout history, but the cultural evolution of institutional incentives in England was necessary to direct and channel these preferences. Before reading Clark's book, this was my position.
Against this, Clark offers some powerful empirical evidence that many, if not most, of these institutional incentives were already present in England in the Middle Ages, when private property was protected, taxes were low, markets were free, and so on. So there must have been something else at work to explain the emergence of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
Clark's answer is that from 1200 to 1800 in England, there was a Darwinian process of "survival of the richest" by which the richest families had the highest fertility rates, so that their offspring spread through the population of England. This evolution favored the spread of middle class or bourgeois values. "Thrift, prudence, negotiation, and hard work were becoming values for communities that previously had been spendthrift, impulsive, violent, and leisure loving" (166). "The bourgeois values of hard work, patience, honesty, rationality, curiosity, and learning" were embedded "into the culture, and perhaps even the genetics" of the English (11).
This last phrase--"the culture, and perhaps even the genetics"--is repeated in various ways through the book but without much explanation. The thought seems to be that while the evidence for a cultural evolution of bourgeois values is strong, the evidence for a genetic evolution of such values is not so clear. It would be hard to prove such a genetic change by group selection in only a few centuries.
I can believe that such a cultural evolution of bourgeois values could have occurred, and if so, this would be part of what I have called Darwinian political science, which rests on the interaction of history at three levels--the genetic evolution of the species, the cultural evolution of groups within the species, and the individual history of political judgments.
There are, however, some unresolved problems in Clark's reasoning. Most important for me is whether he can adequately explain the "demographic transition." Beginning around 1890, fertility rates in the most prosperous societies begin to vary in inverse proportion to wealth. Wealthier classes of people tend to have fewer children. This reverses the "survival of the richest" trend that Clark finds in England leading up to the Industrial Revolution and then up to 1890.
Clark offers various possible explanations for the demographic transition (289-96). He seems to reject the ideas that increasing incomes in general reduce fertility or that the lack of contraception in earlier years kept fertility high. He seems to favor explanations based on the idea that people had to produce more children in the past to hope to have two or three surviving children because of the high infant mortality in the past, or based on the idea that increasing social status for women made them less inclined to submit to the rigors of mothering many children. But Clark never lays out his final assessment of the demographic transition.
This is an important issue, because it seems that if the "survival of the richest" had not shifted to the demographic transition at the end of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution would have returned to the Malthusian trap, because overpopulation would eventually have exhausted the resource base (see 289).
I would suggest that Clark's position needs to be reformulated slightly. He has shown that explaining the English Industrial Revolution as a product of institutional incentives is not sufficient. But by implication those institutional incentives are still necessary conditions for the "survival of the fittest" to bring about the cultural evolution of bourgeois values over hundreds of years. The crucial point, then, is that introducing capitalist, liberal institutions into a poor society is not going to immediately bring prosperity. That might require a long period of cultural evolution.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Darwinian Political Science in the APSA
Having just returned from the convention of the American Political Science Association in Chicago, I am thinking about the future of Darwinian political science in the APSA. (My convention paper on "Darwinian Political Science" is available on the APSA website.)
The general theme for this convention was "Political Science and Beyond," which looks to the multidisciplinary study of politics. Many of the theme panels and many of the regular panels showed interest in various areas of biology--particularly, genetics, neuroscience, evolutionary game theory, and evolutionary psychology. One of the plenary lectures for the convention was Frans de Waal's presentation on the 25th anniversary of his book CHIMPANZEE POLITICS. De Waal's lecture was a dramatic manifestation of the growing interest in Darwinian science among American political scientists.
This confirms my long-held view that although "biopolitics" is never going to sweep through political science as some kind of intellectual revolution, biological thinking will gradually enter many fields of political science research as scholars discover that human biology provides intellectual tools for political scientists working in their fields of specialization.
In particular, I see biopolitical ideas finding points of entry in public policy, political psychology, international relations, political history, and political theory. It's easy to see the importance of biology for public policy because of the issues surrounding biomedical policy. Advances in neuroscience and biotechnology will necessarily provoke deep legal and political questions with policy implications. Students get excited by these issues. And many political scientists specializing in public policy will see these issues as deserving research.
In political psychology, many political scientists are discovering the deep insights into the shaping of political attitudes and behavior coming from genetics and neuroscience. Some of the most interesting panels at the convention were devoted to this research in which neuroscientists and behavioral genetics researchers are cooperating with political scientists to develop a biological political psychology, much of which assumes evolutionary psychology as explaining the ultimate causes of human genetic and neural nature. Evolutionary game theory is also showing a growing influence among political scientists who want to understand the evolution of cooperation and the conditions for social order.
In international relations, human evolutionary biology might provide insights into the motivations for suicide terrorism and political theology. This research could also fall under the rubric of political psychology.
The APSA organized section on "Politics and History" has grown dramatically over the last few years. In the "behavioral revolution" after World War II, the tendency for American political scientists was to ignore political history and thus to ignore the historical character of political life. Now, many political scientists recognize how ridiculous this is. Political events have significance as they emerge in temporal sequences of events that often go back far into history. To abstract these events from historical time for the sake of measuring the correlations of "variables" is a strange way to study politics. The criticism of studying political history is that it becomes mere story-telling with no grounding in general theory or explanations of causal mechanisms, and is therefore not really scientific. Many of the papers for the political history panels at the APSA convention were attempts to develop and defend various ways to theorize about political history and find causal mechanisms for explaining historical patterns. Although there is no reference to Darwinian evolutionary reasoning, I believe this new political history would benefit from Darwinian thinking. A big part of my "Darwinian Political Science" paper is defending the need for Darwinian deep political history that ranges over the whole history of political animals from the Pleistocene to the present. By contrast, much of this new political history research tends to be remarkably shallow history--concentrating on the last century or two of American and European history.
As a political theorist, I see Darwinian science as providing the general theory of human political nature as moving through three levels of political history--the genetic history of political universals, the social history of political cultures, and the individual history of political judgments. And yet I have no hope that many political theorists are going to adopt such Darwinian ideas in their research. In particular, the Straussian political theorists are closed to such thinking because it runs contrary to their generally accepted doctrines about the moral and intellectual dangers coming from modern science because of its presumed reductionist materialism.
It's a safe prediction that modern Darwinian science will continue to probe ever more deeply into the human biological nature of social and political life. Those political scientists who adopt this research in application to their studies of politics will move towards a richer and deeper political science. My theoretical framework for Darwinian political science is a step towards developing a broad intellectual structure for organizing this specialized research into a coherent interdisciplinary study.
I should say, however, that those who think political science should provide precise predictive power are going to be disappointed in Darwinian political science. One of the commentators on my APSA panel criticized my proposed theoretical framework because he could not see that it would allow political scientists to predict political behavior precisely. My response to this is to point out that because Darwinian political science would grasp political life in its full complexity and contingency, such a science would not have any precise predictive power. But, after all, no science of animal behavior--including any science of human political behavior--can provide precise predictions. Jane Goodall's political history of the chimps at Gombe and Frans de Waal's political history of the chimps at Arnhem are histories of unique communities at a unique point in history, and these histories will never repeat themselves exactly. Goodall and de Waal can make some general predictions--for example, predictions about the general pattern of dominance hierarchies. But they can't predict precisely when and how any individual chimp will emerge at some position in the hierarchy. Similarly, Goodall was surprised by the war between two chimp groups that she saw in the 1970s. Based on her observations from the 1960s, she did not anticipate this. Even now, primatologists would probably not be able to predict precisely the future conflicts of chimp groups. Just as political scientists failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union or 9/11 and the influence of terrorist networks on international relations today, so do primatologists fail to predict precisely the future of the chimps they study. The reason for this is that political animals--such as chimps and human beings--are all unique in their individual traits with unique life histories, and so the interaction of these unique individuals confronting the ever-changing circumstances of their lives produce political histories that cannot be precisely predicted.
As a true science of politics, a Darwinian political science would recognize the unpredictable complexity, contingency, and uncertainty of animal political behavior. It would permit us, however, to at least understand the general patterns of political behavior and thereby make some very general predictions about political life. But these predictions would not be precise. As Aristotle wisely said, we must demand only that level of precision that is appropriate to the subject matter that we study.
The general theme for this convention was "Political Science and Beyond," which looks to the multidisciplinary study of politics. Many of the theme panels and many of the regular panels showed interest in various areas of biology--particularly, genetics, neuroscience, evolutionary game theory, and evolutionary psychology. One of the plenary lectures for the convention was Frans de Waal's presentation on the 25th anniversary of his book CHIMPANZEE POLITICS. De Waal's lecture was a dramatic manifestation of the growing interest in Darwinian science among American political scientists.
This confirms my long-held view that although "biopolitics" is never going to sweep through political science as some kind of intellectual revolution, biological thinking will gradually enter many fields of political science research as scholars discover that human biology provides intellectual tools for political scientists working in their fields of specialization.
In particular, I see biopolitical ideas finding points of entry in public policy, political psychology, international relations, political history, and political theory. It's easy to see the importance of biology for public policy because of the issues surrounding biomedical policy. Advances in neuroscience and biotechnology will necessarily provoke deep legal and political questions with policy implications. Students get excited by these issues. And many political scientists specializing in public policy will see these issues as deserving research.
In political psychology, many political scientists are discovering the deep insights into the shaping of political attitudes and behavior coming from genetics and neuroscience. Some of the most interesting panels at the convention were devoted to this research in which neuroscientists and behavioral genetics researchers are cooperating with political scientists to develop a biological political psychology, much of which assumes evolutionary psychology as explaining the ultimate causes of human genetic and neural nature. Evolutionary game theory is also showing a growing influence among political scientists who want to understand the evolution of cooperation and the conditions for social order.
In international relations, human evolutionary biology might provide insights into the motivations for suicide terrorism and political theology. This research could also fall under the rubric of political psychology.
The APSA organized section on "Politics and History" has grown dramatically over the last few years. In the "behavioral revolution" after World War II, the tendency for American political scientists was to ignore political history and thus to ignore the historical character of political life. Now, many political scientists recognize how ridiculous this is. Political events have significance as they emerge in temporal sequences of events that often go back far into history. To abstract these events from historical time for the sake of measuring the correlations of "variables" is a strange way to study politics. The criticism of studying political history is that it becomes mere story-telling with no grounding in general theory or explanations of causal mechanisms, and is therefore not really scientific. Many of the papers for the political history panels at the APSA convention were attempts to develop and defend various ways to theorize about political history and find causal mechanisms for explaining historical patterns. Although there is no reference to Darwinian evolutionary reasoning, I believe this new political history would benefit from Darwinian thinking. A big part of my "Darwinian Political Science" paper is defending the need for Darwinian deep political history that ranges over the whole history of political animals from the Pleistocene to the present. By contrast, much of this new political history research tends to be remarkably shallow history--concentrating on the last century or two of American and European history.
As a political theorist, I see Darwinian science as providing the general theory of human political nature as moving through three levels of political history--the genetic history of political universals, the social history of political cultures, and the individual history of political judgments. And yet I have no hope that many political theorists are going to adopt such Darwinian ideas in their research. In particular, the Straussian political theorists are closed to such thinking because it runs contrary to their generally accepted doctrines about the moral and intellectual dangers coming from modern science because of its presumed reductionist materialism.
It's a safe prediction that modern Darwinian science will continue to probe ever more deeply into the human biological nature of social and political life. Those political scientists who adopt this research in application to their studies of politics will move towards a richer and deeper political science. My theoretical framework for Darwinian political science is a step towards developing a broad intellectual structure for organizing this specialized research into a coherent interdisciplinary study.
I should say, however, that those who think political science should provide precise predictive power are going to be disappointed in Darwinian political science. One of the commentators on my APSA panel criticized my proposed theoretical framework because he could not see that it would allow political scientists to predict political behavior precisely. My response to this is to point out that because Darwinian political science would grasp political life in its full complexity and contingency, such a science would not have any precise predictive power. But, after all, no science of animal behavior--including any science of human political behavior--can provide precise predictions. Jane Goodall's political history of the chimps at Gombe and Frans de Waal's political history of the chimps at Arnhem are histories of unique communities at a unique point in history, and these histories will never repeat themselves exactly. Goodall and de Waal can make some general predictions--for example, predictions about the general pattern of dominance hierarchies. But they can't predict precisely when and how any individual chimp will emerge at some position in the hierarchy. Similarly, Goodall was surprised by the war between two chimp groups that she saw in the 1970s. Based on her observations from the 1960s, she did not anticipate this. Even now, primatologists would probably not be able to predict precisely the future conflicts of chimp groups. Just as political scientists failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union or 9/11 and the influence of terrorist networks on international relations today, so do primatologists fail to predict precisely the future of the chimps they study. The reason for this is that political animals--such as chimps and human beings--are all unique in their individual traits with unique life histories, and so the interaction of these unique individuals confronting the ever-changing circumstances of their lives produce political histories that cannot be precisely predicted.
As a true science of politics, a Darwinian political science would recognize the unpredictable complexity, contingency, and uncertainty of animal political behavior. It would permit us, however, to at least understand the general patterns of political behavior and thereby make some very general predictions about political life. But these predictions would not be precise. As Aristotle wisely said, we must demand only that level of precision that is appropriate to the subject matter that we study.
Monday, August 27, 2007
The Kibbutz Returns to Nature
In Darwinian Natural Right, I have a section on the kibbutz as an example of "secular communism." From their earliest foundings at the beginning of the 20th century, these Jewish socialist communities have been one of the most radical attempts at establishing pure socialism. In the original communities, private property and private families were abolished. Not only was all property shared in common, but children were reared in common without special ties between parents and children. This was one of the purest efforts to establish the sort of socialism prescribed by Marx and others.
My argument was that this was contrary to evolved human nature, and therefore it was not surprising that the kibbutzim were forced to give up much of their original socialism, particularly in response to the second generation of mothers and children who found the abolition of parent-child bonding too painful to endure.
I know a woman who was reared in the "children's house" of a kibbutz in Israel. She describes how painful this was and how she left as soon as she could, and then became remarkably conservative in her moral and political views, rebelling against the utopian socialism of her parents.
Now, the New York Times has an article on the recent history of the kibbutzim. It seems that not only have they given up on abolishing private families, but now they are even giving up on abolishing private property, as they increasingly rely on privatization and market incentives.
So we see even the most radical socialists returning to nature--returning to the private property and traditional family life of evolved human nature.
My argument was that this was contrary to evolved human nature, and therefore it was not surprising that the kibbutzim were forced to give up much of their original socialism, particularly in response to the second generation of mothers and children who found the abolition of parent-child bonding too painful to endure.
I know a woman who was reared in the "children's house" of a kibbutz in Israel. She describes how painful this was and how she left as soon as she could, and then became remarkably conservative in her moral and political views, rebelling against the utopian socialism of her parents.
Now, the New York Times has an article on the recent history of the kibbutzim. It seems that not only have they given up on abolishing private families, but now they are even giving up on abolishing private property, as they increasingly rely on privatization and market incentives.
So we see even the most radical socialists returning to nature--returning to the private property and traditional family life of evolved human nature.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
A Darwinian Account of England's Industrial Revolution
Gregory Clark has written a brief article summarizing the argument of his new book Farewell to Arms: A Brief Economic History of the World.
The general idea is stated in the third paragraph: "The Industrial Revolution is . . . plausibly linked to a Darwinian process of 'survival of the richest' that opeated from at least 1250. Capitalist attitudes and economic growth triumphed in England becasue those with such attitudes came to predominate in the population by biological means. The modern English are the descendents of the upper classes of the preindustrial world, those who prospered economically. The poor disappeared. The process was most likely cultural, but we cannot exclude the possibility that the English may even be genetically capitalist."
Since I don't yet have my copy of the book, I can't judge the persuasiveness of Clark's evidence and arguments based just on this article and some of the other press coverage of the book. But in principle at least, Clark's reasoning would fit into what I have called "Darwinian political science"--as in my immediately preceding post. Capitalist attitudes could have been shaped by a process of cultural evolution.
Whether this could also be genetic is, as Clark indicates, more controversial and dubious, because it's not clear that 800 years would be enough time for genetic evolution. Apparently, Clark appeals to some of the research on gene-culture coevolution--particularly, the classic case of the evolution of lactose-tolerance among people in dairying societies--as possibly applying to this case. But I will need to study the book before I can decide how plausible this is.
The general idea is stated in the third paragraph: "The Industrial Revolution is . . . plausibly linked to a Darwinian process of 'survival of the richest' that opeated from at least 1250. Capitalist attitudes and economic growth triumphed in England becasue those with such attitudes came to predominate in the population by biological means. The modern English are the descendents of the upper classes of the preindustrial world, those who prospered economically. The poor disappeared. The process was most likely cultural, but we cannot exclude the possibility that the English may even be genetically capitalist."
Since I don't yet have my copy of the book, I can't judge the persuasiveness of Clark's evidence and arguments based just on this article and some of the other press coverage of the book. But in principle at least, Clark's reasoning would fit into what I have called "Darwinian political science"--as in my immediately preceding post. Capitalist attitudes could have been shaped by a process of cultural evolution.
Whether this could also be genetic is, as Clark indicates, more controversial and dubious, because it's not clear that 800 years would be enough time for genetic evolution. Apparently, Clark appeals to some of the research on gene-culture coevolution--particularly, the classic case of the evolution of lactose-tolerance among people in dairying societies--as possibly applying to this case. But I will need to study the book before I can decide how plausible this is.
"Darwinian Political Science" at APSA Convention
On September 1, I will present a paper on "Darwinian Political Science" at the convention of the American Political Science Association in Chicago. My panel will meet at 2:00 pm. Preceding our panel, at 12:30, Frans de Waal will be speaking at a plenary session on the 25th anniversary of de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics. Here I will provide the introductory section of my paper, but without the references. The full paper can be found at the APSA website for the convention.
Political science could become a true science by becoming a Darwinian science of political animals. This science would be both Aristotelian and Darwinian. It would be Aristotelian in fulfilling Aristotle's original understanding of political science as the biological study of the political life of human beings and other political animals. It would be Darwinian in employing Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory as well as modern advances in Darwinian biology to explain political behavior as shaped by genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and individual judgment.
Some political scientists have complained about the deficiencies of their discipline in explaining politics. A small but growing number of political scientists have argue that a political science rooted in an evolutionary theory of human nature could overcome many of these deficiencies. I support this claim by laying out a theoretical framework for a Darwinian political science that indicates how it would rectify the defects in contemporary political science. To illustrate how such a Darwinian political science would explain particular political events, I show how such a science could account for one of the crucial turns in American political history--Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.
Critics of the contemporary state of political science have identified at least seven deficiencies that could be alleviated by a Darwinian political science. (1) Although history matters in the study of politics, because the significance of each political event depends on its place in a temporal sequence of events over extended periods of time, contemporary political science often ignores the historical character of political life. So some political scientists have sought to recover political history as an integral part of political science. Darwinian political science would build on this scholarship, while exploring the deep history of politics over millions of years that includes not only human beings but other political animals. This evolutionary political history would move through three levels--natural history, cultural history, and individual history. So, for example, to fully explain Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, we need to see it as an event in the natural history of cooperation in the human species, in the cultural history of slavery in America, and in the individual history of Lincoln as a political actor in the Civil War.
(2) Although morality matters in the study of politics, contemporary political science often ignores the moral dimensions of political life. Against the assumption of many political scientists that political behavior is motivated solely or predominantly by the rational maximization of self-interest, some political scientists have argued for going beyond self-interest to recognize the other-regarding motives of political actors that drive political controversy as a moral debate over the common good. Darwinian political science would support this position by showing how the evolved political nature of human beings as shaped by genetic and cultural group selection shows not only a selfish concern for oneself and one's kin but also a moral concern for reciprocity, fairness, and the good of the group. Lincoln's participation in the debate over slavery and emancipation manifests this moral sense in the recognition of slavery as unjust exploitation, while also manifesting the need to accommodate the self-interest of the slaveholder as a constraint on the pursuit of justice.
(3) Although judgment matters in the study of politics, contemporary political science often has little to say about practical judgment in politics and how to distinguish good and bad political judgment. To rectify its defect, some political scientists have contended that political science needs to recognize and explain political judgment as an intellectual and moral virtue of practical wisdom that cannot be reduced to scientific or theoretical reasoning. Darwinian political science confirms Aristotle's insight about the importance of prudence or practical judgment in morality and politics. Darwinian science recognizes that brains evolved to help animals who need to make practical decisions to satisfy their desires in response to the risks and opportunities offered by their physical and social environments. Human beings and other political animals have evolved brains that allow them to make practical judgments in circumstances of social complexity where knowledge must be always uncertain and imprecise. For human beings, such judgments require deliberate reflection. But they also require worldly experience, proper habituation, intuitive insight, and emotional dispositions that go beyond purely logical reasoning. Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation illustrates the intricacy--if not mystery--of practical judgment in politics.
(4) Although emotion matters in the study of politics, political scientists who emphasize "rational choice" have often played down the role of emotion in political life, and generally many political scientists have assumed that emotion subverts rational decision-making, particularly in democracies threatened by popular passions. And yet some political scientists have argued that political decision-making and rhetoric show the interdependence of reason and emotion, because human practical cognition is guided by the emotional dispositions of human nature, which is apparent in the power that emotion has in electoral behavior. Darwinian political science shows how emotion belongs to the evolved nature of human beings and other political animals. Biological psychology uncovers the neural bases of emotion in the practical judgments of political animals. The power of emotion in political rhetoric is illustrated in the passionate controversies surrounding the Civil War and Lincoln's emancipation of slaves.
(5) Although religion matters in the study of politics, many political scientists have ignored the political importance of religion, particularly those who have assumed that "modernization" would bring a withering away of religious belief. But in recent years, the political effects of religion have been hard to ignore, which has made "politics and religion" a vibrant field of study. Even though Darwinism is sometimes associated with atheism, Darwin recognized religion's importance in the moral evolution of human beings. Following Darwin's lead, David Sloan Wilson has developed an evolutionary theory of religion as a product of genetic and cultural evolution driven by group selection: religion is adaptive insofar as it helps groups to solve collective action problems and function as collective units. American political culture has always been deeply shaped by biblical religion, and so a critical part of the debate over slavery was whether it was compatible with the Bible. It was crucial, therefore, for Lincoln to defend his Emancipation Proclamation as conforming to biblical morality.
(6) Although ambition matters in the study of politics, many political scientists look to impersonal laws of political behavior and abstract models of rational choice in which the personal ambition of political actors falls out of view. Against this tendency, some political scientists have asserted that politics is all about the manly spiritedness of ambitious political actors competing for importance. Darwinian political science recognizes such political ambition as the striving for hegemonic dominance that arises among political animals organizing themselves into hierarchies of dominance and submission. Among human beings and some other primates, this competition for dominance creates a tense balance of power between the desire of the dominant few to rule and the desire of the subordinate many to be free from exploitation. Lincoln was an example of a restlessly ambitious man who yearned to do something great in politics that would bring immortal glory to his name. His ambition was channeled and checked by the American system of constitutional government. But that constitutional system also allowed him to satisfy his ambition by winning the glory that came from issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
(7) Although liberal education matters in the study of politics, the discipline of political science has become so specialized and fragmented as to be almost completely separated not only from the natural sciences and the humanities, but even from the other social sciences, and thus it cannot be integrated into the interdisciplinary activity of liberal learning. Some political scientists worry that this professional isolation of political science from general education prevents students and scholars from seeing how the study of politics ultimately requires a general understanding of the place of human beings in the universe. Darwinian political science employs evolutionary thinking as a way of unifying knowledge across all the disciplines of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities to understand the evolved nature of human beings as political animals. This is illustrated by explaining Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation as an individual political judgment constrained by the natural history of the human species and the cultural history of American politics.
The fundamental framework for Darwinian political science is the theoretical analysis of political behavior as conforming to a nested hierarchy of three levels of deep political history--the universal history of the species, the cultural history of the group, and the individual history of animals within the group. To fully comprehend the human nature of politics, we must understand the unity of political universals, the diversity of political cultures, and the individuality of political judgments. I will work through these three levels of Darwinian deep political history as they are generally manifested in human politics, and as they are particularly illustrated in Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
Political science could become a true science by becoming a Darwinian science of political animals. This science would be both Aristotelian and Darwinian. It would be Aristotelian in fulfilling Aristotle's original understanding of political science as the biological study of the political life of human beings and other political animals. It would be Darwinian in employing Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory as well as modern advances in Darwinian biology to explain political behavior as shaped by genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and individual judgment.
Some political scientists have complained about the deficiencies of their discipline in explaining politics. A small but growing number of political scientists have argue that a political science rooted in an evolutionary theory of human nature could overcome many of these deficiencies. I support this claim by laying out a theoretical framework for a Darwinian political science that indicates how it would rectify the defects in contemporary political science. To illustrate how such a Darwinian political science would explain particular political events, I show how such a science could account for one of the crucial turns in American political history--Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.
Critics of the contemporary state of political science have identified at least seven deficiencies that could be alleviated by a Darwinian political science. (1) Although history matters in the study of politics, because the significance of each political event depends on its place in a temporal sequence of events over extended periods of time, contemporary political science often ignores the historical character of political life. So some political scientists have sought to recover political history as an integral part of political science. Darwinian political science would build on this scholarship, while exploring the deep history of politics over millions of years that includes not only human beings but other political animals. This evolutionary political history would move through three levels--natural history, cultural history, and individual history. So, for example, to fully explain Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, we need to see it as an event in the natural history of cooperation in the human species, in the cultural history of slavery in America, and in the individual history of Lincoln as a political actor in the Civil War.
(2) Although morality matters in the study of politics, contemporary political science often ignores the moral dimensions of political life. Against the assumption of many political scientists that political behavior is motivated solely or predominantly by the rational maximization of self-interest, some political scientists have argued for going beyond self-interest to recognize the other-regarding motives of political actors that drive political controversy as a moral debate over the common good. Darwinian political science would support this position by showing how the evolved political nature of human beings as shaped by genetic and cultural group selection shows not only a selfish concern for oneself and one's kin but also a moral concern for reciprocity, fairness, and the good of the group. Lincoln's participation in the debate over slavery and emancipation manifests this moral sense in the recognition of slavery as unjust exploitation, while also manifesting the need to accommodate the self-interest of the slaveholder as a constraint on the pursuit of justice.
(3) Although judgment matters in the study of politics, contemporary political science often has little to say about practical judgment in politics and how to distinguish good and bad political judgment. To rectify its defect, some political scientists have contended that political science needs to recognize and explain political judgment as an intellectual and moral virtue of practical wisdom that cannot be reduced to scientific or theoretical reasoning. Darwinian political science confirms Aristotle's insight about the importance of prudence or practical judgment in morality and politics. Darwinian science recognizes that brains evolved to help animals who need to make practical decisions to satisfy their desires in response to the risks and opportunities offered by their physical and social environments. Human beings and other political animals have evolved brains that allow them to make practical judgments in circumstances of social complexity where knowledge must be always uncertain and imprecise. For human beings, such judgments require deliberate reflection. But they also require worldly experience, proper habituation, intuitive insight, and emotional dispositions that go beyond purely logical reasoning. Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation illustrates the intricacy--if not mystery--of practical judgment in politics.
(4) Although emotion matters in the study of politics, political scientists who emphasize "rational choice" have often played down the role of emotion in political life, and generally many political scientists have assumed that emotion subverts rational decision-making, particularly in democracies threatened by popular passions. And yet some political scientists have argued that political decision-making and rhetoric show the interdependence of reason and emotion, because human practical cognition is guided by the emotional dispositions of human nature, which is apparent in the power that emotion has in electoral behavior. Darwinian political science shows how emotion belongs to the evolved nature of human beings and other political animals. Biological psychology uncovers the neural bases of emotion in the practical judgments of political animals. The power of emotion in political rhetoric is illustrated in the passionate controversies surrounding the Civil War and Lincoln's emancipation of slaves.
(5) Although religion matters in the study of politics, many political scientists have ignored the political importance of religion, particularly those who have assumed that "modernization" would bring a withering away of religious belief. But in recent years, the political effects of religion have been hard to ignore, which has made "politics and religion" a vibrant field of study. Even though Darwinism is sometimes associated with atheism, Darwin recognized religion's importance in the moral evolution of human beings. Following Darwin's lead, David Sloan Wilson has developed an evolutionary theory of religion as a product of genetic and cultural evolution driven by group selection: religion is adaptive insofar as it helps groups to solve collective action problems and function as collective units. American political culture has always been deeply shaped by biblical religion, and so a critical part of the debate over slavery was whether it was compatible with the Bible. It was crucial, therefore, for Lincoln to defend his Emancipation Proclamation as conforming to biblical morality.
(6) Although ambition matters in the study of politics, many political scientists look to impersonal laws of political behavior and abstract models of rational choice in which the personal ambition of political actors falls out of view. Against this tendency, some political scientists have asserted that politics is all about the manly spiritedness of ambitious political actors competing for importance. Darwinian political science recognizes such political ambition as the striving for hegemonic dominance that arises among political animals organizing themselves into hierarchies of dominance and submission. Among human beings and some other primates, this competition for dominance creates a tense balance of power between the desire of the dominant few to rule and the desire of the subordinate many to be free from exploitation. Lincoln was an example of a restlessly ambitious man who yearned to do something great in politics that would bring immortal glory to his name. His ambition was channeled and checked by the American system of constitutional government. But that constitutional system also allowed him to satisfy his ambition by winning the glory that came from issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
(7) Although liberal education matters in the study of politics, the discipline of political science has become so specialized and fragmented as to be almost completely separated not only from the natural sciences and the humanities, but even from the other social sciences, and thus it cannot be integrated into the interdisciplinary activity of liberal learning. Some political scientists worry that this professional isolation of political science from general education prevents students and scholars from seeing how the study of politics ultimately requires a general understanding of the place of human beings in the universe. Darwinian political science employs evolutionary thinking as a way of unifying knowledge across all the disciplines of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities to understand the evolved nature of human beings as political animals. This is illustrated by explaining Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation as an individual political judgment constrained by the natural history of the human species and the cultural history of American politics.
The fundamental framework for Darwinian political science is the theoretical analysis of political behavior as conforming to a nested hierarchy of three levels of deep political history--the universal history of the species, the cultural history of the group, and the individual history of animals within the group. To fully comprehend the human nature of politics, we must understand the unity of political universals, the diversity of political cultures, and the individuality of political judgments. I will work through these three levels of Darwinian deep political history as they are generally manifested in human politics, and as they are particularly illustrated in Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Mark Lilla's "The Politics of God"
Today's New York Times Magazine (August 19) has an article by Mark Lilla on "The Politics of God."
Lilla traces back to Thomas Hobbes the modern Western liberal idea of separation of politics and religion. "In order to escape the destructive passions of messianic faith, political theology centered on God was replaced by political philosophy centered on man. This was the Great Separation." But he argues that despite the apparent success of this Great Separation in the West, it ignored what Rousseau recognized--that human beings are "theotropic creatures" with an "urge to connect" who long for redemption from the world. Political theology, therefore, will always reassert itself to satisfy this religious longing. This can come in a secular form--such as the messianic utopianism of Nazism and Marxism. Or it can come in the form of an orthodox religious movement like Islamism. But in any case, this religious longing supporting political theology will not be easily defeated by Western liberalism.
Lilla is obviously much influenced by Eric Voegelin, particularly in his account of political messianism, although Lilla never refers to Voegelin.
In speaking of human beings as "theotropic creatures," Lilla is acknowledging what I have called the natural desire for religious understanding. Because this religious longing is rooted in evolved human nature, there is no reason to think that it can be eliminated by "modernization" or "secularization."
The question, then, is whether this religious longing can be channeled in such a way as to avoid a dangerous moral and political fanaticism. Lilla seems pessimistic about Hobbes' Great Separation as the final answer. At the end of his article, he suggests the better answer might be a "renewal of traditional political theology from within" that makes orthodox believers good citizens. He suggests that Martin Luther and John Calvin did this in the Protestant Reformation, and that Islamic thinkers like Khaled Abou El Fadl and Tariq Ramadan might do that for Islam today. But it's hard for me to understand exactly what Lilla has in mind here, particularly since both Calvin and Luther taught that heretics should be persecuted!
The one path that he does not consider is that taken by Roger Williams--the path of radical Protestantism. Contrary to what Lilla says, Hobbes did not invent the separation of religion and politics. Williams and other radical Protestants had argued before Hobbes that the New Testament--as opposed to the Old Testament--dictated liberty of conscience in religious belief. That's why Williams was expelled from Massachusetts when he rejected the theocracy in Massachusetts Bay. Moreover, Williams could argue that the New Testament Christians showed no interest in politically enforcing their beliefs on those outside their Christian churches. Paul was clear about this: "For what is it to me to judge those outside? Is it not for you to judge those inside? But God is to judge those outside" (I Corinthians 5:12-13). Here, then, is the New Testament basis for a Christian libertarianism that runs against the theocratic traditions that began with Constantine and Augustine. It is not surprising that Locke was able to quote Paul's verse as supporting the idea of toleration.
Actually, Williams and others in the Baptist tradition would seem to be much better sources for the idea of separating religion and politics than are Hobbes and Locke. In fact, Hobbes taught that the political sovereign should have the sole power to dictate the theological doctrines sanctioned by the state. So it would seem that far from teaching the Great Separation, Hobbes taught the Great Unification!
Darwinian conservatism recognizes the importance of religious belief as satisfying a natural human desire and as supporting the social life of believers within their religious groups. But it also recognizes that the natural human tendency to be corrupted by unchecked power makes it necessary to separate religion and politics by securing individual freedom of conscience.
In another post, I have elaborated my argument for Williams's position.
Lilla traces back to Thomas Hobbes the modern Western liberal idea of separation of politics and religion. "In order to escape the destructive passions of messianic faith, political theology centered on God was replaced by political philosophy centered on man. This was the Great Separation." But he argues that despite the apparent success of this Great Separation in the West, it ignored what Rousseau recognized--that human beings are "theotropic creatures" with an "urge to connect" who long for redemption from the world. Political theology, therefore, will always reassert itself to satisfy this religious longing. This can come in a secular form--such as the messianic utopianism of Nazism and Marxism. Or it can come in the form of an orthodox religious movement like Islamism. But in any case, this religious longing supporting political theology will not be easily defeated by Western liberalism.
Lilla is obviously much influenced by Eric Voegelin, particularly in his account of political messianism, although Lilla never refers to Voegelin.
In speaking of human beings as "theotropic creatures," Lilla is acknowledging what I have called the natural desire for religious understanding. Because this religious longing is rooted in evolved human nature, there is no reason to think that it can be eliminated by "modernization" or "secularization."
The question, then, is whether this religious longing can be channeled in such a way as to avoid a dangerous moral and political fanaticism. Lilla seems pessimistic about Hobbes' Great Separation as the final answer. At the end of his article, he suggests the better answer might be a "renewal of traditional political theology from within" that makes orthodox believers good citizens. He suggests that Martin Luther and John Calvin did this in the Protestant Reformation, and that Islamic thinkers like Khaled Abou El Fadl and Tariq Ramadan might do that for Islam today. But it's hard for me to understand exactly what Lilla has in mind here, particularly since both Calvin and Luther taught that heretics should be persecuted!
The one path that he does not consider is that taken by Roger Williams--the path of radical Protestantism. Contrary to what Lilla says, Hobbes did not invent the separation of religion and politics. Williams and other radical Protestants had argued before Hobbes that the New Testament--as opposed to the Old Testament--dictated liberty of conscience in religious belief. That's why Williams was expelled from Massachusetts when he rejected the theocracy in Massachusetts Bay. Moreover, Williams could argue that the New Testament Christians showed no interest in politically enforcing their beliefs on those outside their Christian churches. Paul was clear about this: "For what is it to me to judge those outside? Is it not for you to judge those inside? But God is to judge those outside" (I Corinthians 5:12-13). Here, then, is the New Testament basis for a Christian libertarianism that runs against the theocratic traditions that began with Constantine and Augustine. It is not surprising that Locke was able to quote Paul's verse as supporting the idea of toleration.
Actually, Williams and others in the Baptist tradition would seem to be much better sources for the idea of separating religion and politics than are Hobbes and Locke. In fact, Hobbes taught that the political sovereign should have the sole power to dictate the theological doctrines sanctioned by the state. So it would seem that far from teaching the Great Separation, Hobbes taught the Great Unification!
Darwinian conservatism recognizes the importance of religious belief as satisfying a natural human desire and as supporting the social life of believers within their religious groups. But it also recognizes that the natural human tendency to be corrupted by unchecked power makes it necessary to separate religion and politics by securing individual freedom of conscience.
In another post, I have elaborated my argument for Williams's position.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Reproduction Favors Religion--The Darwinian Link
Mary Eberstadt has an article in Policy Review entitled "How the West Really Lost God." Proponents of the "secularization thesis" argue that modernity brings atheism, because the spread of "Enlightened" education will bring to more and more people the news announced by Nietzsche that "God is dead." There are some problems with this idea, however. Although proponents of secularization generally assume that this is an improvement in the human condition, it has been noticed that decline in religious belief is connected to declining fertility. Particularly, in western Europe, where "secularization" seems most evident, declining birth rates are creating a social crisis, because the present generation is not producing enough children to replace themselves. One explanation is that declining religious belief creates declining birth rates, because atheists are less inclined to have and care for lots of children. So here it seems that secularization is socially harmful. Another problem, however, is that the secularization thesis can't explain why one of the most "modern" countries--the United States--is also one of the most religious.
To resolve these issues, Eberstadt argues that the causal arrow might point in the opposite direction for many people--it's not that people produce lots of babies because they're religious; rather, they are religious because they are producing lots of babies. She suggests, for example, that the history of secularization in Europe could be explained this way, because, historically, low rates of fertility in various European countries preceded the drop in religious practices.
Thus, Eberstadt is offering an anthropology of religion based on the biology of the "natural family." Giving birth, caring for children, and forming families are elemental experiences for human beings throughout history in all societies. This universal experience teaches us that there is something greater than ourselves--the perpetuation of our offspring and our families--and this opens us up to the thought that there is transcendent reality that is captured by religious belief. After all, religion is not for most people a purely intellectual and solitary decision. It's a social activity. We're religious because our religion is part of our family and the extended community of family ties.
This might also explain, Eberstadt suggests, why women tend to be more religious than men--because women are more immediately and deeply affected by having children than are men.
As I have suggested in some previous posts, the Bible shows this connection between religion and reproduction. Whenever Moses has to give some explanation as to why the Jews should obey his laws, he tells them that if they obey, they will live and propagate themselves with numerous offspring (see, for example, Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
While Eberstadt recognizes the biological ground of this connection between reproduction and religion, she does not see that she is implicitly making a Darwinian argument. In fact, her argument is very similar to what David Sloan Wilson says about religion as an adaptation of cultural group selection in which religious belief helps believers to work together as collective units, so that family ties are reinforced and extended through the group.
One should also notice that like Wilson, Eberstadt concentrates on the practical benefits of religion rather than its theological doctrines. For Wilson (and for Darwinians generally), the "vertical" dimension of religion (beliefs in supernatural agents and supernatural afterlife) is a proximate means to secure the "horizontal" dimension (practical rules for cooperation) as the ultimate end. Eberstadt says nothing about the theological truth or falsity of any particular religion, because what counts for her is the practical truth of reinforcing good social order in supporting the natural family. The concern here is with the social or moral effects of a religion, regardless of its doctrinal claims.
This preoccupation with the practical effects of religion is the proper conservative stance. That's why conservatives can agree on the practical benefits of religion even when they disagree about whether any particular religion is superior in its theological truth to any other. So you can have conservative Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Mormons working together, even though they disagree in their doctrinal creeds. You might even have skeptical conservatives (like Friedrich Hayek or Michael Oakeshott) who agree on the moral importance of religious traditions, but without necessarily accepting their theological doctrines.
Eberstadt lists Darwin along with Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud as intellectuals who proclaimed that "God is dead." But in fact, as I have often argued, Darwin never openly spoke against religious belief. He was probably a skeptic by the end of his life. But he never professed atheism. And he spoke often (in THE DESCENT OF MAN and elsewhere) about the importance of religious belief for moral progress.
Conservatives like Eberstadt who make so much of the connection between reproduction, the natural family, and religious belief should recognize that they are making a Darwinian argument, which should be part of the case for Darwinian conservatism.
To resolve these issues, Eberstadt argues that the causal arrow might point in the opposite direction for many people--it's not that people produce lots of babies because they're religious; rather, they are religious because they are producing lots of babies. She suggests, for example, that the history of secularization in Europe could be explained this way, because, historically, low rates of fertility in various European countries preceded the drop in religious practices.
Thus, Eberstadt is offering an anthropology of religion based on the biology of the "natural family." Giving birth, caring for children, and forming families are elemental experiences for human beings throughout history in all societies. This universal experience teaches us that there is something greater than ourselves--the perpetuation of our offspring and our families--and this opens us up to the thought that there is transcendent reality that is captured by religious belief. After all, religion is not for most people a purely intellectual and solitary decision. It's a social activity. We're religious because our religion is part of our family and the extended community of family ties.
This might also explain, Eberstadt suggests, why women tend to be more religious than men--because women are more immediately and deeply affected by having children than are men.
As I have suggested in some previous posts, the Bible shows this connection between religion and reproduction. Whenever Moses has to give some explanation as to why the Jews should obey his laws, he tells them that if they obey, they will live and propagate themselves with numerous offspring (see, for example, Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
While Eberstadt recognizes the biological ground of this connection between reproduction and religion, she does not see that she is implicitly making a Darwinian argument. In fact, her argument is very similar to what David Sloan Wilson says about religion as an adaptation of cultural group selection in which religious belief helps believers to work together as collective units, so that family ties are reinforced and extended through the group.
One should also notice that like Wilson, Eberstadt concentrates on the practical benefits of religion rather than its theological doctrines. For Wilson (and for Darwinians generally), the "vertical" dimension of religion (beliefs in supernatural agents and supernatural afterlife) is a proximate means to secure the "horizontal" dimension (practical rules for cooperation) as the ultimate end. Eberstadt says nothing about the theological truth or falsity of any particular religion, because what counts for her is the practical truth of reinforcing good social order in supporting the natural family. The concern here is with the social or moral effects of a religion, regardless of its doctrinal claims.
This preoccupation with the practical effects of religion is the proper conservative stance. That's why conservatives can agree on the practical benefits of religion even when they disagree about whether any particular religion is superior in its theological truth to any other. So you can have conservative Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Mormons working together, even though they disagree in their doctrinal creeds. You might even have skeptical conservatives (like Friedrich Hayek or Michael Oakeshott) who agree on the moral importance of religious traditions, but without necessarily accepting their theological doctrines.
Eberstadt lists Darwin along with Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud as intellectuals who proclaimed that "God is dead." But in fact, as I have often argued, Darwin never openly spoke against religious belief. He was probably a skeptic by the end of his life. But he never professed atheism. And he spoke often (in THE DESCENT OF MAN and elsewhere) about the importance of religious belief for moral progress.
Conservatives like Eberstadt who make so much of the connection between reproduction, the natural family, and religious belief should recognize that they are making a Darwinian argument, which should be part of the case for Darwinian conservatism.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Bonobo Politics
In a previous post, I commented briefly on Ian Parker's article on bonobo research in The New Yorker. The article was slanted against Frans de Waal, arguing that de Waal has been responsible for a naive view of bonobos as "hippie primates" based on his limited observations of bonobos in the San Diego zoo, but without having ever seen a bonobo in the wild. Now, de Waal has written a response, which I find persuasive.
Here's how I would summarize the points of agreement and disagreement in this debate. The fundamental problem is that the observational study of bonobos is not as extensive as that for chimpanzees. In the wild, bonobos are found only south of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's very hard to study them there because of the density and inaccessibility of their jungle habitat, and because of the political violence in the DRC. Most of the behavioral research has been done in zoos. In 2006, there were only a total of 84 bonobos in North America and 76 in Europe. The largest captive group is in the Milwaukee County Zoo, which has 21 individuals. By contrast, there are far more chimps in zoos around the world. Moreover, chimps have been studied in the wild for many decades at multiple sites.
Chimps have both male and female dominance hiearchies, but the alpha male dominates overall. Chimps are both competitive and cooperative. Their competition can be violent, even to the point of lethal violence. Until the 1970s, Jane Goodall was reporting that chimps were remarkably peaceful. But then she observed the chimps at Gombe dividing into two territorial groups that went to war, with the northern group (led by aggressive males) decimating the southern group. There have also been observations of lethal violence within chimp groups in the competition for alpha male status.
Bonobos also have both male and female dominance hierarchies, but it seems that the females dominate over the males. Although the adult bonobo males are bigger and stronger than the females, the females seem to be able to intimidate the males through a sexual bonding of females, who engage in elaborate bisexual acrobatics. The situation here is unclear because some primatologists speak of bonobos as showing "co-dominance," in which the alpha male and alpha female share dominance. Richard Wrangham, Takayoshi Kano, and Chris Boehm take this position. But de Waal and Amy Parish tend to stress female dominance.
This ambiguity in the dominance structure of bonobos is evident in the group at the Milwaukee Zoo, where I have often taken the students from my "Chimpazee Politics" class. Until recently, the top of the dominance hierarchy has been held by a male-female mated pair. (A good survey of this Milwaukee group can be found in a new book--Jo Sandin's Bonobos: Encounters in Empathy.) Careful observation by keepers at the zoo, supported with meticulous daily records of behavior, suggests that the female Maringa is the "matriarch" over the whole group, although her longtime mate Lody is the alpha male. At times, Lody seemed to be just enforcing the female dominance of "the power chicks." At other times, he seemed to be acting as equal to Maringa, as if they were the "royal couple."
Bonobos seem to use sexual pleasure--homosexual as well as heterosexual--as a way of pacifying conflict and releasing tension. Thus, sexuality is not just for reproduction but also for nonreproductive bonding. This pacifying effect of sexual coupling also seems to be used when bonobo groups meet in the wild. While chimps have been observed using lethal violence in group competition, bonobos have never been seen to do this. This might be because we haven't yet observed bonobos long enough. After all, Goodall had to wait for almost 15 years before she saw warfare among her chimps. But at least as of now, the evidence suggests that bonobos are better at pacifying conflict than are chimps.
Still, this does not mean that bonobos are totally peaceful. As de Waal says, the very fact that bonobos have to work hard at reconciliation shows that there is competition and conflict that needs to be controlled.
And if bonobos seem in some ways to be more egalitarian than chimps, this does not mean that hierarchy is completely absent among bonobos. There is a dominance structure among both females and males, and it's ultimately a matter either of female dominance over the males or co-dominance of alpha female and alpha male.
If human ancestry is traceable back to a common ancestor with bonobos and chimps, then one would expect that human beings show a political nature that is ambivalent in combining competition and cooperation, a propensity to dominance and a propensity to resist dominance. In his newest book Our Inner Ape, de Waal concludes that human beings are the "bipolar ape," combining chimp and bonobo traits, "being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathic than bonobos."
In any case, I see nothing here to support the Marxist notion that social engineering in a socialist society could make human beings so selflessly cooperative that they would have no interest in private property or social hierarchy. The failure of the Marxist regimes in the 20th century confirms the conclusion of primatologists like de Waal that Marxism is contrary to human nature.
We are neither selfless cooperators nor rational egoists. We are neither purely egalitarian animals nor purely despotic. We are a complex mixture of natural propensities that balance self-interest against cooperation and dominance against equality.
This goes against the utopian belief of the radical left in human perfectibility as supporting a revolutionary transformation of the human condition through social re-education. Rather, it supports the realistic belief of libertarian conservatism in human imperfectiblity as showing the need for regimes based on traditional morality, family life, private property, and limited government.
Other posts on bonobos can be found here and here.
Here's how I would summarize the points of agreement and disagreement in this debate. The fundamental problem is that the observational study of bonobos is not as extensive as that for chimpanzees. In the wild, bonobos are found only south of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's very hard to study them there because of the density and inaccessibility of their jungle habitat, and because of the political violence in the DRC. Most of the behavioral research has been done in zoos. In 2006, there were only a total of 84 bonobos in North America and 76 in Europe. The largest captive group is in the Milwaukee County Zoo, which has 21 individuals. By contrast, there are far more chimps in zoos around the world. Moreover, chimps have been studied in the wild for many decades at multiple sites.
Chimps have both male and female dominance hiearchies, but the alpha male dominates overall. Chimps are both competitive and cooperative. Their competition can be violent, even to the point of lethal violence. Until the 1970s, Jane Goodall was reporting that chimps were remarkably peaceful. But then she observed the chimps at Gombe dividing into two territorial groups that went to war, with the northern group (led by aggressive males) decimating the southern group. There have also been observations of lethal violence within chimp groups in the competition for alpha male status.
Bonobos also have both male and female dominance hierarchies, but it seems that the females dominate over the males. Although the adult bonobo males are bigger and stronger than the females, the females seem to be able to intimidate the males through a sexual bonding of females, who engage in elaborate bisexual acrobatics. The situation here is unclear because some primatologists speak of bonobos as showing "co-dominance," in which the alpha male and alpha female share dominance. Richard Wrangham, Takayoshi Kano, and Chris Boehm take this position. But de Waal and Amy Parish tend to stress female dominance.
This ambiguity in the dominance structure of bonobos is evident in the group at the Milwaukee Zoo, where I have often taken the students from my "Chimpazee Politics" class. Until recently, the top of the dominance hierarchy has been held by a male-female mated pair. (A good survey of this Milwaukee group can be found in a new book--Jo Sandin's Bonobos: Encounters in Empathy.) Careful observation by keepers at the zoo, supported with meticulous daily records of behavior, suggests that the female Maringa is the "matriarch" over the whole group, although her longtime mate Lody is the alpha male. At times, Lody seemed to be just enforcing the female dominance of "the power chicks." At other times, he seemed to be acting as equal to Maringa, as if they were the "royal couple."
Bonobos seem to use sexual pleasure--homosexual as well as heterosexual--as a way of pacifying conflict and releasing tension. Thus, sexuality is not just for reproduction but also for nonreproductive bonding. This pacifying effect of sexual coupling also seems to be used when bonobo groups meet in the wild. While chimps have been observed using lethal violence in group competition, bonobos have never been seen to do this. This might be because we haven't yet observed bonobos long enough. After all, Goodall had to wait for almost 15 years before she saw warfare among her chimps. But at least as of now, the evidence suggests that bonobos are better at pacifying conflict than are chimps.
Still, this does not mean that bonobos are totally peaceful. As de Waal says, the very fact that bonobos have to work hard at reconciliation shows that there is competition and conflict that needs to be controlled.
And if bonobos seem in some ways to be more egalitarian than chimps, this does not mean that hierarchy is completely absent among bonobos. There is a dominance structure among both females and males, and it's ultimately a matter either of female dominance over the males or co-dominance of alpha female and alpha male.
If human ancestry is traceable back to a common ancestor with bonobos and chimps, then one would expect that human beings show a political nature that is ambivalent in combining competition and cooperation, a propensity to dominance and a propensity to resist dominance. In his newest book Our Inner Ape, de Waal concludes that human beings are the "bipolar ape," combining chimp and bonobo traits, "being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathic than bonobos."
In any case, I see nothing here to support the Marxist notion that social engineering in a socialist society could make human beings so selflessly cooperative that they would have no interest in private property or social hierarchy. The failure of the Marxist regimes in the 20th century confirms the conclusion of primatologists like de Waal that Marxism is contrary to human nature.
We are neither selfless cooperators nor rational egoists. We are neither purely egalitarian animals nor purely despotic. We are a complex mixture of natural propensities that balance self-interest against cooperation and dominance against equality.
This goes against the utopian belief of the radical left in human perfectibility as supporting a revolutionary transformation of the human condition through social re-education. Rather, it supports the realistic belief of libertarian conservatism in human imperfectiblity as showing the need for regimes based on traditional morality, family life, private property, and limited government.
Other posts on bonobos can be found here and here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)