Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior

by David Sloan Wilson and Elliott Sober

Book Overview

No matter what we do, however kind or generous our deeds may seem, a hidden motive of selfishness lurks--or so science has claimed for years. This book, whose publication promises to be a major scientific event, tells us differently. In Unto Others philosopher Elliott Sober and biologist David Sloan Wilson demonstrate once and for all that unselfish behavior is in fact an important feature of both biological and human nature. Their book...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674930479
• ISBN13: 9780674930476
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant but still probably wrong

That modern researchers can question such a basic tenant of evolution as whether evolution acts at the group level shows just how young this new science still is. That they can do it as effectively as they've done in this book probably says more about the writers and their ability to argue than it does about the strength of their arguments. In brief the traditionally received wisdom on evolution is that at best it acts at the level of the individual. Individuals surivive or die and in so doing either do or do not pass on their genes. Their individual fecundity therefore is their key hedge against oblivion. In this book, however, it is asserted that evolution also acts at the group level putting one group at a genetic advantage over others. To the extent that these writers posit the significance of ultruism in connection with kin selection, I think they find no argument. It is well settled that parents have a strong genetic interest (even greater than their own survival) in promoting the survival of their young. In group settings this group survival sees its greatest power when higher genetically related individuals live together in a common community (like bees in a hive or ants in a hill). To the extent however that genetic commonality breaks down the interest in members of the same species to preserve each other likewise breaks down (like a new lion killing off the cubs of other lions when he takes over another lion's harem). Where this book becomes hard to argue with is when it reduces its argument to the proposition that in some communities the evolutionary force may be muchly diminished. And in this regard the writers are right. Perhaps no force ultimately zeros out on genetic matters. However, if the subject is where evolution exhibits its overwhelmingly primary impact I think the day will be held where its been held up until now...on the individual who by living or dying gives evolution its real expression.

Altruism Has Biological Underpinnings

Is there empirical, biological, and evolutionary justification that mankind acts with unselfish behavior? The authors approach the subject of human altruism and the biological advantages of multilevel (group) selection vis-a-vis human egoism, hedonism, anti-functionalism, and individual functionalism from an interdisciplinary, but primarily evolutionary, approach. The first half of the book deals with biology, genetics, and anthropology that provide the empirical grounds and logical inferences for believing that multi-level functionalism (groups and stratification) as opposed to individual-only and anti-functionalism evolved through natural selection by rewarding the fittest group selection, social norms, group adaptation, and cultural evolution, just as it rewards the fittest individual. Ergo, just as natural selection favors the fittest individuals, so it favors those individuals who cooperate in the traits of the fittest groups that survive over many generations. The second section of the book takes the multi-level functionalism and altruism of the first half and evaluates arguments for and against it from psychological, motivational, and philosophical perspectives. While largely armchair speculation (due to lack of empirical studies confined to products of evolution rather than the actual process of evolution), the authors conclude again that natural selection again favors the fittest group, multi-level functionalism, and altruism over egoism, hedonism, selfishness, and individual selection only. The authors' evidence and arguments are elegant, persuasive, and rigorous, but as the authors admit, much of the arguments are speculative, as no large scale studies have been done to prove or disprove their theses, because the whole subject had been largely abandoned for decades. Still, the cogent and coherent arguments make a convincing case for the rehabilitation of group-altruistic natural selection that is every bit as effectual as individual-selfish natural selection, just as Darwin presciently observed in the "Descent of Man." The conclusion is that mankind is naturally disposed by evolution to work altruistically in groups and that certain groups adapt to their environment better than others increases the significance of natural selection of the group as well as the individual. What the authors prove is that we can no longer ignore group dynamics in the evolutionary process. Altruism benefits both the individual and the group in natural selection. Highly recommended.

The Invisible [Helping] Hand?

Altruism has always been a problem for evolutionists. How does one explain a creature giving up something for another, sometimes its very life? Why, for example, will a monkey give a warning cry that alerts other members of the troop, but that gives away its own position? How could genes governing such behavior persist in the relentless competition for a place in the genome?The kinds of reasoning used to explain behavior that is good for the group but perhaps not so good for the individual performing it is as old as Darwin. Until George Williams demolished whole classes of argument in his lovely 1966 book, "Adaptation and Natural Selection", it was common to invoke "group selection" as an analog to individual selection, and explain, in a vague, hand-waving sort of way, how altruistic behavior could arise by enhancing the survival of the herd, or school, or flock. And after Dawkins, both the individual and the group were banished from consideration, and the selfish gene reigned supreme.Only one category of altruism has been taken as consonant with the unit of replication being the gene, namely "kin selection". This is the favoring of relatives: since relatives share genes, helping a gene-mate helps one's own genes, whether or not it benefits one's self. Yet much altruism in nature goes unexplained by kin selection. Think of the soldier who falls on the hand grenade so his (unrelated) buddies can live. There are many more examples from the lives of many creatures, most of whom never saw a war movie. How does one explain the clear patterns of altruistic behavior in animals at all levels of consciousness and cuddliness? Wilson, a biologist, and Sober, a philosopher, dare to think the unthinkable, or at least the unfashionable: is it possible that individuals or groups really do play a replicator role in evolution? They believe that group selection deserves another chance, but this time more rigorously specified.I was very impressed with the first half of the book, in which they justify a group-selection model for adaptive evolution that can explain a persistent strain of altruism. What they show is that selection can take place at the level of a group of individuals in many more sorts of situations than were thought possible. (A nice bonus of this approach is that kin selection can be explained more simply using this more general context of the group.) Groups, however ephemeral, do have a role to play in selection.The second half of the book is less convincing, as it involves psychological and philosophical arguments for "psychological altruism" in humans (that is, you not only behave unselfishly, but "want" to behave unselfishly), which, by its very nature, is hard (or very hard) to tease out in experiments, or to introspect to. However, the authors are reasonably convincing that nature would most likely not employ some Rube Goldberg-type of mental devices that depended on hedonism (pleasure-and-pain-driven behavior) to accomplish important tasks, s

Evolutionary break through--why races are at war

This book is a continuation of those books that keep moving us closer to where we came from. After decades of wandering in the jungle of postmodernism, we are finally emerging to find our roots. This book is not for the casual reader. But it is an important contribution in understanding the evolution of groupism, why humans go to war, and why belonging to the human race is not enough to bring forth altruism. Altruism evolved as a means of group consolidation of the ingroup, and genocide towards all other groups. This book should be read along with "Demonic Males" to get a good understanding of how altruism evolved.

An antidote to what we've been taught about group selection

For more than a generation now, students of evolutionary biology have been taught that natural selection is a process that works on individuals. Where there is a conflict between the good of the individual and the good of the community, the selfish almost always prevails. There are good theoretical reasons to believe this should be so. Most of the work that has been done in the last century to turn Darwin's theory into a quantitative science seems to point in that direction. Individual selection should be fast and efficient; group selection slow and unreliable. Yet the biological world that we see seems to fly in the face of this conclusion. So much of the adaptation we see in the natural world looks like it benefits the community or the species, often at the expense of the individual. So the pure individual selectionists (99% of evolutionary biologists today) have had to concoct a series of excuses, kluges, and workarounds. There are a multitude of reasons! that what looks like a group adaptation is really an individual adaptation. Most of our community has unthinkingly adopted the view that the "selfish gene" perspective holds a key to understanding the "illusion" of group selection. Wilson has been working for 20 years to reform this situation, and to restore common sense. If it looks like a group adaptation, it probably is a group adaptation. No surprise here - except to that 99% of the academic community who has been raised to think that "group selection" is a dirty word - something like "Lamarckism" or "Creationism". Wilson's book is just the kick in the pants that the 99% of us need. It is readable, yet meticulously documented. He traces the history of our prejudice against group selection, and exposes the faulty logic in those kluges and workarounds. Group selection really is necessary to explain what we observe in nature. Then, he goes on to offer us the th! eoretical foundation we need to make group selection plausi! ble. There are mechanisms overlooked by the quantitative theorists that make group selection a far more viable process than they give it credit for. If you're a lay person, you may think "of course - what's the big deal." But if you're an academic evolutionist educated in the last 30 years, you need this book; your thinking about altruism and fitness of communities will be changed forever. All this is in the first half of the book. The second half, presumably contributed by Sober, is much less focused and scientific, more apt to dwell on definitions and philosophical distinctions. The attempt to connect the sound conclusions of the book's first half to attitudes about human cultures is both more speculative and somehow less ambitious and important than the book's first half.