GENETIC WILL: a PHILOSOPHICAL MEDITATION on DETERMINISM by VICTOR FUNK Integrated Studies Project Submitted to Dr. Gloria Filax
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GENETIC WILL: A PHILOSOPHICAL MEDITATION ON DETERMINISM By VICTOR FUNK Integrated Studies Project submitted to Dr. Gloria Filax in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts – Integrated Studies Athabasca, Alberta May 20, 2006 V. Funk 2 Genetic Will: A Philosophical Meditation on Determinism MAIS 701 Integrated Project Athabasca University Victor Funk 2213536 Professor -- Dr. Gloria Filax March 30, 2006 Abstract As humans in the twenty-first century begin a global capitalist project in earnest the ability of the planet to maintain a sustainable balance is severely compromised. Although the best attempts of philosophers and a wide array of sociological perspectives have been presented to explicate the enduring diabolical side of human nature, none explains the short-term thinking, significance of capitalism, and recurring self-interest successfully. As a response this MAIS 701 Integrated Project attempts to capture the significant influence of genes in this human behavior. Genetic determinism is a highly contentious subject, particularly with philosophers, sociologists, and feminists, but it may help explain the persistent irrational and immoral behavior of humans that befuddles all conventional logic. The premises presented here includes the drive or force behind this wanton consumption and self-aggrandizement as the primal need to survive and to reproduce one’s own genetic material, and secondly, that our large brain has not evolved to create codes of ethics but rather simply to promote the advantage of one’s own genetic material. My term for this force is genetic will. Key Words: genetic determinism, determinism, evolutionary theory, anthropocentricism, genetic will. V. Funk 3 Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………….…….…..2 Contents……………………………………………………………………….………..3 Introduction…………………………………………………………………....….…….4 Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory…………………………………….…...…….…..8 Neurological Analysis…………………………………………………………………15 Philosophical Meditation………………………………………………………………22 Sociobiology………………………………………………………………..……….....34 The Genetic Penchant for Capitalism………………………………………….....……37 Genes and Literature…………………………………………………………..……….40 Consequences of Human Nature……………………………………………..……...…43 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………….46 References………………………………………………………………………...…....51 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………..…55 Appendix A: The radical implications of natural selection—Gould……………..…….55 Appendix B: Wilson interview on sociobiology and absolute moral precepts..…...…..56 Appendix C: Biology and human nature—Gould………………………………..…....57 Appendix D: Postmodernism and garish Western culture—Jameson…………….…...64 Appendix E: Analogies of determinism lost in metaphor—Jameson…………...….….65 Appendix F: Adaptation by evolution—Gould…………………………………..….....67 Appendix G: Darwin and Adam Smith—Gould……………………………………….68 Appendix H: Sigmoidal population graph—Gould……………………………….....…69 Appendix I: The morality of the gene—Wilson…………………………..…...……….70 Appendix J: Competition—Wilson………………………………………..…………...71 Appendix K: Central dilemmas behind ignoring the influences of biology—Wilson…72 Appendix L: Sociobiology—Wilson………………………...………………………....77 Appendix M: Evolution: an uphill struggle—Rihani……………………………….….79 Appendix N: Elites and hierarchies—Rihani………………………………………......81 Appendix O: Gathering clouds of food scarcity—Rihani…………………...……...….83 Appendix P: The Story of Man, The Economist………………………………………..84 Appendix Q: Will and Causality—Ingvar………………………………………......….86 Appendix R: Neurological connections—Spence…………………………………..….87 V. Funk 4 “A rampant species, Homo sapiens may be nearing full occupancy of arable lands. Too many people along with disproportionate consumption by developed nations pose the dilemma of the next century.” Ehrlich—National Geographic Introduction To begin I will use the words of Michael Foucault: What I would like to tell you in [this paper] are some things that may be inexact, untrue, or erroneous, which I will present as working hypotheses, with a view to a future work. I beg your indulgence, and more than that, your malice. Indeed, I would be very pleased if at the end of [this paper] you would voice some criticisms and objections so that, insofar as possible and assuming my mind is not yet too rigid, I might gradually adapt to your questions and thus at the end of this [paper] we might have done some work together or possibly made some progress. (2000, p. 1) Written in frustration at the persistent behavior that predominates the human social condition, this essay will examine humanity as a singular species with a problem: it is systematically destroying the biosphere that supports it in spite of being, by its own admission, the most intelligent life-form on earth. Conclusions here do not offer a definitive solution as there are probably many and none at the same time. Instead, it offers reasons why the current reality tenaciously exists and why Hobbes description of life as “nasty, brutish, and short” stubbornly continues to fit the human dilemma. Tom Bonnicksen, for example, shares the frustration: Even though our intervention [in nature] is obvious, we prefer to maintain an illusion that nature—or God—is in charge, and we don’t like to be reminded otherwise because that might get in the way of our feelings and our role in it.1 (in Alexander Wilson, 1992) The global destruction resulting from human intervention takes the form of loss of habitat, resource depletion, and pollution of water and air—this is despite humanity’s current wealth of knowledge. At the writing of this paper the world of multinationals and subsequent consumerism is expanding at exponential speed with China and India, not to 1 Please see page 35 for a description of cognitive dissonance. V. Funk 5 mention a myriad of smaller countries, frantically joining the Western world in the glut of production. The uniquely Western brand of capitalism is “catching-on” the world over creating a consumer frenzy that will increase the stress on the living biosphere. This trend is accelerating – not diminishing – and points to a calamity of colossal dimensions driven by open-ended growth in a closed system. All living things are subject to the indifference of nature and therefore are compelled to endure its effects—except man— who is temporarily able to dominate nature in a way that allows this disregard of balance. But there are costs, and humans in a grand and fatal gesture are attempting to step outside of the animals that they are. In an effort to explain human arrogance this paper will examine the concept of genetic will as an overarching life force with a universal agenda: to survive and reproduce. It will examine this concept from a deterministic stance, but it will do this warily, and with the understanding, as Stephen Gould contends, “that biological determinism has always been used to defend existing social arrangements as biologically inevitable” (1975, p. 258). The problem, it would seem, is that humans cannot help themselves and the destructive actions are not intentional and not preventable.2 Human behavior, and human nature at the macroscopic level, is diabolically predictable. Humanity stubbornly continues with exploitation, arrogance, and contempt in its treatment of the planet—but why? What is the source of this anthropocentricism? 3 The repetition of destruction is not reflected in the current sociological and philosophical rationalizations, which 2 A grounded overview of the historical data exposes correlations between habitat destruction and human activity. 3 Blackburn (1996, p.19) defines anthropocentric as “[a]ny view magnifying the importance of human beings in the cosmos, e.g. by seeing it as created for our benefit. An account of a property such as that of a colour is anthropocentric if it incorporates an element relation possession of the property to the state of some observer in some conditions. V. Funk 6 although well intentioned and eloquent, ignore the underlying purpose of humanity: like all other life forms humanity exists to reproduce and foster more humans that carry precious genetic material. This paper will investigate through published science and literature the etiology of this human behavior and look within the concept of genetic will for sources of power4, competition, and secondary or projected behavior. Stephen Jay Gould writes, “the evolutionary unity of humans with all other organisms is the cardinal message of Darwin’s revolution of nature’s most arrogant species” (1981, p.324).5 And it is precisely this message that allows a consensus confirming animal behavior as deterministic, but Homo sapiens stubbornly resist acceptance of the deterministic nature of humans. Although humans may possess some capacity for logic and freewill, the outcome of human effort at the macroscopic level is eerily similar to animals left to their own devices; and the gross consequence is the same: overpopulation and over-use of the habitat. 6 Macroscopic biological determinism7 in and of itself should not be mysterious but there is a generalized attitude afoot that resists the notion that in Homo sapiens a connection to animals survives. Fredric Jameson maintains, “the fundamental problem with articulating biological determinism in humans is charging that Homo sapiens are like other life forms; the proof is lost in metaphor and 4 Power is used simplistically as violent domination as opposed to the Foucaultian post-structuralist view. 5 Please see Appendix C for Gould’s expanded argument on biological