Evolutionary Psychology and the Social Sciences By Todd J. Zywicki Recent years have seen an explosion in interest in evolutionary biology and its implications for the social sciences. Few areas of social science research have been untouched by the Darwinian revolution currently taking place. Economics, sociology, political science, law, history, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology have seen Darwinian arguments slowly gravitate from the periphery toward the center of their disciplines. The purpose of this essay is to provide an introduction to the field and to suggest future avenues for further research in the intersection between evolutionary biology and the humane sciences. It is a fortuitous time for young scholars interested in the application of Darwinian evolution to problems of social science. Increasing understanding of DNA sequencing, combined with the impetus of the human genome project, have given rise to an unprecedented understanding of the genetic basis of much of our physical and mental natures. These developments have also eroded some of the stigma associated with prior efforts to apply Darwinian evolution to the study of human society, the most recent being E. O. Wilson’s Sociobiology, which met with a firestorm of protest when published in the 1975. See E. O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). Today the field travels under a variety of names; although the traditional term “sociobiology” is still occasionally used, more common today is evolutionary psychology, which is can be classified as a subset of evolutionary biology of “neo-Darwinism.” The negative political reception of Wilson’s Sociobiology set back the field for an entire generation of social scientists. This means that there remains a large degree of low- hanging fruit for young scholars to pluck in forming a research agenda in the field. Moreover, because much of the science remains fluid and ongoing, working in the field requires a degree of mental dexterity and the development of new skills that provides a comparative advantage to younger scholars. This essay will not attempt to provide a comprehensive guide to the field of evolutionary psychology. The field is vast and can become technical very quickly. This essay therefore will only attempt to provide an overview and introduction to the field. The sources mentioned will generally be highly comprehensive and generally provide detailed references for those interested in pursuing issues in greater depth. Indeed, this work will not attempt to identify more than a handful of the interesting social science issues that seem to be worth exploring through the lens of evolutionary psychology. Indeed, this portion of the essay is avowedly idiosyncratic and subjective, and is intended primarily to suggest some of the types of questions that can be gainfully addressed through a Darwinian framework. 1 In the remainder of the essay I will first discuss why an understanding of evolutionary psychology is useful for those interested in studying the social sciences. The next section will provide an overview of some of the important concepts that have emerged from evolutionary psychology, focusing in particular on the “four paths to cooperation” that have been identified by scholars. The final section will discuss some of the implications of evolutionary psychology for research in different fields of inquiry. Why Study Evolutionary Psychology? Most classical liberals are somewhat skeptical about the value of studying evolutionary psychology. To some extent this is rooted in the historical association of classical liberalism with the mistaken tenets of “Social Darwinism” at the turn of the century. To some extent this skepticism resides in the frosty reception of sociobiology by a prior generation of scholars. Finally, to some extent this skepticism resides in a misunderstanding of the import of evolutionary psychology, and in particular in the belief that evolutionary psychology believes in the perfect determinacy of human behavior. This latter belief makes evolutionary psychology anathema to those concerned about issues of free will and personal autonomy. This skepticism is unfounded. Social Darwinism was a perversion of the insights of evolutionary psychology. Social Darwinists committed the classic naturalist fallacy, reasoning from the empirical observation that evolution operated according to the principle of the “survival of the fittest” to the normative conclusion that it should be the job of society to weed out the weak so as to further this evolutionary imperative. In so doing, Social Darwinists jumped from the “is” of evolution to the “ought” that the product of natural evolution is morally justified. Interestingly, today some environmentalists are prone to commit the naturalist fallacy in their belief that somehow what is “natural” is morally preferable to that which is not. On the other hand, this does not rule out a belief that what is normatively good for human beings must in some sense be consistent with their fundamental psychological natures. See E. O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998); R. D. Alexander, The Biology of Moral Systems (Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine De Gruyter, 1987). This latter argument recognizes the “is-ought” gap, so the naturalistic fallacy is avoided. Nonetheless, it argues that individuals will flourish only if they act consistently with their evolved natures. See Owen D. Jones, “On the Nature of Norms: Biology, Morality, and the Disruption of Order,” Michigan Law Review 98: 801-832 (Forthcoming 2000). Whether a particular behavior is normatively good or bad cannot be established simply by determining that the actor is “naturally” inclined to behave in such a manner. Certain behaviors can be good or bad only according to an external normative standard. Thus, as discussed below it appears that human beings may be naturally predisposed to engage in trade, act compassionately, and enter into reciprocal arrangements for mutual benefit. By almost any moral code, all of these behaviors are normatively good. By contrast, it also appears that some human beings may be predisposed naturally toward violence and rape. See Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000); Owen D. Jones, 2 “Sex, Culture, and the Biology of Rape: Toward Explanation and Prevention,” California Law Review 827-941 (1999). The fact that these behaviors are “natural” is irrelevant to the fact that they are universally morally condemned. Finally, other predispositions, such as our tendencies to eat too many candy bars, are morally neutral. The desire to consume sugar served an evolutionary purpose in an era where food was scarce and it was useful to have a built-in craving to encourage us to seek food. The task of the philosopher and social scientist is to understand the degree to which certain predilections are hard-wired into human psychology, and thereby to determine what set of institutions and incentives are necessary to restrain, modify, or channel these predilections into pro-social behavior and away from anti-social behavior. Moreover, evolutionary psychology does not imply biological determinism. Modern biology makes clear, rather, that one’s behavior is a function of the mutual interaction between evolved traits and one’s environment, or as the case is frequently (if inaccurately) put, between nature and nurture. Indeed, evolution itself is driven by the interaction of biological variation interacting with environmental selection. There are no absolute degrees of fitness, only comparative degrees of fitness relative to a given environment. Evolutionary psychology simply provides evidence of general tendencies that interact with an individual’s environment. At the same time, evolutionary psychology rejects the claims of current theorists who argue that one’s personality is entirely socially constructed and thus infinitely malleable. As Marxists learned the hard way, there are certain characteristics of human nature that seem to be virtually impossible to eliminate, such as the tendency to prefer the welfare of one’s family to strangers, the tendency to free ride on others’ labors where possible, and the tendency to seek wealth and status. Thus, although the morality of a given behavior cannot be determined simply by whether it is natural, the recognition that there are certain hard-wired tendencies to human nature may constrain what aspirations are attainable or may provide guidance as to what tools are available to accomplish one’s goals. Thus, evolutionary psychology illustrates the folly of the scholarship of recent decades that has tried to ignore the reality of an innate human nature that is not infinitely malleable. More fundamentally, it provides a warning against indulging in the utopian schemes characteristic of the twentieth century, most of which rested on the supposition that human nature could be molded to fit the desires of utopian reformers, rather than recognizing the limits that human nature placed on such schemes. It is now generally accepted that evolutionary biology provides a persuasive explanation for our biological natures, e.g., two arms, two legs, upright gait, vision, hearing, warm-bloodedness, etc. Although evolutionary biology has triumphed for biological evolution, scholars remain reluctant to recognize that evolution has psychological consequences as well. Instead, scholars have preferred