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The Co-operative Being: Humanity and the Selfish Gene

Richard Startup

Volume: 2nd

Swansea University Author: Richard Startup

Abstract

The notion of the selfish gene has been successfully deployed in the understanding of animal behaviour but is widely felt not to have full application at the human level. A lot of evidence and argument is here assembled in support of the comprehensive application of that theory to the human populati...

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Published: Swansea 2014
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa17960
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Abstract: The notion of the selfish gene has been successfully deployed in the understanding of animal behaviour but is widely felt not to have full application at the human level. A lot of evidence and argument is here assembled in support of the comprehensive application of that theory to the human population. With a focus on genes giving rise to characteristically-human cooperation (‘cooperative genes’) it proves possible to situate a whole range of patterned behaviour and phenomena, even including celibacy, the use of contraception, and war, which at first glance seem to present insuperable difficulties. Crucially, the behaviour which tends to propagate the cooperative genes may be ‘at cost’ to the genes of some who may be party to the cooperation itself. The account builds on the primary insight that cooperation itself gives rise to full human conceptualization of the external world and their own place in it as embodied beings. Cooperation thereby structures practical action and progressively impacts on fertility, mortality and migration; cooperation therefore furthers the continued existence and transmission of the genes which give rise to it. Human capacities underlying the ability to cooperate are also responsible for a vitally important long-term process - the domestication of animals and plants; the geographical redistribution of such species means that the Earth is able to sustain a progressively larger human population. A consideration of the implications of characteristically-human cooperation helps one to understand the difference between animal and human sexual behaviour, and to explain the emergence of kinship systems, involving the social recognition of blood ties: one is thereby enabled to bridge the gap between zoology and social anthropology. Cooperation is also the basic source of morality and hence of stabilizing regulation; at the same time it generates a bifurcation in respect of types of human understanding which explains the origin of religion. Significantly, however, the predominating influence of religions on fertility is such as to incline population firmly on an upward trajectory. Competition between societies at one level of complexity tends to lead to societies of a greater level of complexity. The broader picture is not that various independent variables simply ‘cause’ growth in population but rather that various distinguishable elements – such as societal complexity, the rate of technological innovation (seen as evolutionary), food production, and population size and density - inter-affect each other. Perhaps the most strategic aspect of all is development or reshaping of the division and specialization of labour; crucially, that development tends to increase product while reducing the tendency for conflict to occur which may lead to violence. Everywhere humans gain access to the means of their subsistence cooperatively, but how they organize to do so develops in patterned ways. In respect of prehistory and history, hat the same trends – towards food production, social complexity and urbanism – are found as independent developments in different parts of the globe points to the contribution of basic facets of human cooperative behaviour. The historically important phenomenon of empire tended to have positive implications for expansion of population. Larger and more stable political entities tend to emerge over extended time – states, empires, nation states – providing a more predictable and secure context within which populations may grow. In complex societies, the built environment, writing and money contribute to sustaining and extending orderly cooperation. While rationality is generally exhibited within the range of human behaviour, the systematic adoption of a rational approach to life is grounded in the emergence of institutional forms. In connection with globalization, humans are proceeding to reconfigure the external world so as to maximize the possibilities for their own cooperation within it. Contrary to what might initially be thought, there are reasons for judging that the threat or experience of violence and war has played its part in creating the conditions for population growth. In addition, institutional change overtime has tended increasingly to realize a latent potential for cooperation without recourse to violence and war. Significantly, the increases in population experienced in differing types of society have sometimes tended to exceed those anticipated from the theory of the demographic transition, but once one foregrounds the impact of cooperative genes, patterns become that much more explicable. The populations of western societies tend to be rising but the overall demographic pattern can nevertheless be said to be substantially ‘at cost’ to the propagation of the genes of the majority of individuals who choose to limit their own fertility. The use of contraception and abortion in recent centuries is to be viewed as a means towards fertility objectives, but those objectives are substantially independent of the means. The interdependence of generations – notably in the early and later years of life - provides a basic link between mortality and fertility, but the needs of each generation promise to be best served if a (slightly) larger one is following it. The present sometimes ‘unwelcome’ migration into richer nations illustrates the persistent tendency in human experience for there to be re-distribution of the potential for population growth in space and in relation to economic resources which tends to keep overall population numbers on an upward trajectory. In future the human gene pool will be intentionally reshaped increasing the likelihood of there being a large and growing population with a distribution of qualities which will enable them to cooperate even more effectively. The notion of the meme lacks explanatory power and cannot perform the role so far assigned to it. The position is that cooperative genes give rise to cooperative behaviour which tends to propagate the genes, while memes inter alia inhere in cooperative activity; hence the only satisfactory explanatory framework involves a single replicator. It is equally true to say that ‘humans are sometimes selfish’ and that ‘humans naturally create norms of behaviour tending to restrict or eliminate selfishness’. A whole range of phenomena may be understood as involving the working out of the partial ‘conflict of interest’ between cooperative and other genes e.g. theft by a gang, the U.K. National Health Service, and (even) the world’s (possible) emerging political and economic structural form. The propagation of human cooperative genes is potentially ‘at cost’ to the propagation of any of the other genes of other life forms on this planet (and conceivably also elsewhere). That is the full measure of the extent to which these cooperative genes are selfish.
Keywords: selfish gene, cooperation, cooperative genes, division of labour, meme, theory of mind, population, demographic transition
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

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