Social—Not Natural, Not Sexual--Selection

Social—Not Natur= al, Not Sexual--Selection

Lyle Steadm= an

Department = of Anthropology

Arizona State University

Human Behav= ior and Evolution Society Meeting

University of California at Davis

June 1998

Here, I propose a hypothesi= s to account for the selection of morality, altruism, social behavior—sacrifice—that humans in all societies sometimes exhibit. Such behavior, by and large, tends to be traditional; that is, it is encouraged by ancestors. And such ancestral influence canno= t be explained by either natural or sexual selection, for it is at the expense of both.

&nbs= p; Charles Darwin discovered natural selection= , a process by which inheritable traits increase their chances of leaving descendants by promoting the ability of individuals to survive in competition with others. Such a process, Darwin argued, can account for the orig= in of a new species.

&nbs= p; He also discovered sexual selection, by which traits that promote mating opportunities may likewise increase in subsequent generations, but at the expense of the individual’= ;s survival. Darwin struggled with this problem of survival, for it threatened his theory of natural selection. He wrote, males with such traits h= ave been favored “not from being better fitted to survive in the struggle= for existence, but from having gained an advantage over other males, and from having transmitted this advantage to their male offspring . . .” (The Descent of Man, 1871:257). But he also wrote,

“Sexual selection act= s in a less rigorous manner than natural selection. The latter [natural selection] produces its effects by the life or death at all ages of the mor= e or less successful individuals. [However, d]eath, indeed, not rarely ensues from the conflicts of ri= val males . . . [B]ut in regard to structures adapted to make one male victorio= us over another, either in fighting or in charming the female, there is no definite limit to the amount of advantageous modification . . . Nevertheles= s, natural selection will determine that characters of this kind shall not be acquired by the victorious males, which would be injurious to them in any h= igh degree . . .” (The Descent of man, 1871:278; my italics).

&nbs= p; In The Descent of Man, Darwin confronted the problem of morality—the “moral faculties which distinguish [man] from the lower animals” (The Descent o= f Man 1871:158). The problem is that moral behavior involves sacrifice, which is at the expense of both survival= and reproduction. Darwin attempted to explain the selecti= on for moral behavior by its contribution to the group—the community or, especially, the tribe—arguing that such behavior would make a group stronger in competition with other groups.

“An advancement in the standard of morality . . . will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. There can= be no doubt that a tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high de= gree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to give aid to each other and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection” (The Desce= nt of Man 1871:166).

And again [in the following quotations],

“. . . [A]lthough a h= igh standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual = man and his children . . ., an advancement in the standard of morality . . . wi= ll certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another” (The Descent of Man 1871:166).

“Let it be borne in m= ind how all-important, in the never-ceasing wars of savages, fidelity and courage m= ust be. . . . Obedience . . . is of the highest value, for any form of governme= nt is better than none. Selfish = and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. A tribe possessing = the above qualities in a high degree would spread and be victorious over other tribes. . . . Thus the social and moral qualities would tend slowly to adva= nce and be diffused throughout the world” (The Descent of Man 1871:161-2)= .

But Darwin, himself, saw the flaw in this argument:

“It is extremely doub= tful whether the offspring of the more sympathetic and benevolent parents, or of those which were the most faithful to their comrades, would be reared in greater number than the children of selfish and treacherous parents of the = same tribe. He who was ready to sacrifice his life . . . rather than betray his comrades, would often leave= no offspring to inherit his noble nature.&nbs= p; The bravest men . . . would on average perish in larger numbers than other men. Therefore, it seems scarcely possible . . . [that] such virtues . . . could be increased through natural selection, that is, by the survival of the fittest.” (The Des= cent of Man 1871:163).

Morality is a form of social behavior that is encouraged by others, particularly ancestors. Morality and social behavior both = imply sacrifice. For many writers [scholars], like Darwin, being “social” means being a member of a (social) group (The Descent of Man 1871:84; Origin of the Species 1874:229). But a mammalian mother is “social” to her young, regardless of her group. For most writers, the term “social” also implies interaction. However, while social behavior does imply two or more individuals= , it does not imply interaction, for one individual can help another who does not realize it. Nor does interact= ion imply social behavior, for there is much interaction between individuals—enemies for example—that is not social. A sociopath interacts with others.= There is a reason why E.O. Wilson identifies sex as “an anti-social force” (cited in Symons 1979)= . Obviously, sex is interactive, but= it is at the expense of social behavior. As all women know, sex does not imply love, and, as all mothers know, love does not imply sex: love and sex are fueled by very different emotions. Social behavior req= uires only that one individual help another at one’s own expense. From a Darwinian perspective, that expense is reproduction and survival. Parental care is a perfect example of social behavior, for it reduces the parent’s own chances of reproduction and survival. As Darwin noted: “[e]veryone knows how strong the maternal instinct is, [even] = in opposition to the instinct of self-preservation” (The Descent of Man 1871:83-4). But cooperation is also an example of = social behavior, for each of the individuals involved has made himself vulnerable = to (and hence can be taken advantage of by) the other. Moral behavior, as Darwin noted, is doing good to others, = and that means promoting their survival and mating potential, at one’s own expense.

&nbs= p; All mammals depend utterly on maternal care when young, and such care is at the expense of the mother’s survival and reproductive potential. The “r” versus “K” continuum implies that parental care is at the expense of reproduction. Parental care a= lso is at the expense of survival. I= n a “classic study” to determine the relative importance of the fundamental “drives,” Warden, in 1931, found that a female rat = will accept greater pain to be with her young than to get water, food, or sex (s= ex, by the way, was the weakest drive). This drive to be with her offspring, as one social psychologists recognized, was “without an immediately apparent physiological basis” (Gergen 1969:14). This finding, of course, had no effect whatever on the confidence of psychologis= ts, who claim that all human behavior is motivated by hedonism.

&nbs= p; Today, I present an alternative hypothesis to account for social or moral behavior, one that few individuals have appreciated.= Its primary virtue is that it focuses on individual success in leavi= ng descendants, not group selection. The hypothesis is this: that social or moral behavior has been selec= ted for as an ancestral strategy. To the extent that an individual can influence the behavior of his (or her) offspring, and through the offspring, more distant descendants, the behavio= r of the descendants is part of that ancestor’s strategy to leave descenda= nts, and must be so evaluated.

&nbs= p; In 1975, Donald Campbell, “one of the first psychologists to get enthusiastic about modern Darwinism” (Robert Wright 1974:366), in his presidential address to the American Psychological Association, criticized = his fellow psychologists and psychiatrists for,

“not only describ[ing= ] man as selfishly motivated, but implicitly or explicitly teach[ing] that he ought = to be so (1975:1104). [He writes= ,] psychologists almost invariably side with self-gratification over tradition= al restraint. . . . [T]here is in psychology today a general background assump= tion that the human impulses . . . are right and optimal . . . and that repressi= ve or inhibitory moral traditions are wrong. . . . [T]hus psychology may be contributing to the undermining of the retention of what may be extremely valuable . . . (1975:1120). On purely scientific grounds, these recipes for living . . . that have been evolved, tested, and winnowed through hundreds of generations of human soci= al history . . . might be regarded as better tested than the best of psychology’s and psychiatry’s speculations on how lives should = be lived (1975:1103).

&nbs= p; What distinguish humans from other animals is not their appetites but the suppression of those appetites, which everywhere is encouraged by ancestors through traditions. Traditions imply restraint on appetite. Appetite, of course, is the main c= ause of competition, conflict, and violence.&nb= sp; In all tribal societies, religious leaders, representing ancestors, encourage self-restraint through taboos and promote cooperation through rituals. The time consuming activity of transmitting traditions involves parental (and hence ancestral) sacrifice. In modern societie= s, this transmission includes formal education, which is always supported by parents with school-aged children. Accepting the influence of ancestors, rather than following one̵= 7;s own desires, is a sacrifice. Traditions also imply kinship cooperation, for their enactment and transmission depend on cooperation between living ancestors and their descendants. In all societies, kinship identification and cooperation is traditionally encourages well beyond second cousins, sometimes among hundreds, even thousands, of co-descendants.

&nbs= p; The main restraint on the appetites of = non-human animals is the threat posed by other individuals, and this threat restrains humans as well. But humans ac= tively encourage restraint and cooperation among their descendants, through traditions, especially religious traditions. Morality involves both restraint a= nd sacrifice for others, at the expense of satisfying one’s own appetite= s.

&nbs= p; The function of religion is not to satisfy our appetites, our desire for confid= ence etc., as so many have argued, but to encourage sacrifice, thereby promoting cooperation and restraint among co-followers. All religions encourage moral beha= vior among the followers. Buddhism= , for example, argues that all suffering comes from desire (read appetite), and Buddhists should strive to extinguish desire (and thus all the competition, violence, etc., which stem from desire).&n= bsp; Islam, meaning literally “submission,” requires Muslims = to pray five times a day, give alms to the poor, fast each year during the month of Ramadan, and make a pilgrimage to Mecca.

&nbs= p; The fundamental religion of all simpler societies (and hence the religion from which all religions derive) app= ears to be ancestor worship. Its function—the cause of its persistence through time—apparently, = is that it promotes cooperation between co-descendants of the same ancestor, a= nd respect for traditions. Kinsh= ip cooperation and traditions are the basis of all human societies. Most lateral cooperation, in fact,= is the result of accepting a common hierarchy, and in simpler societies everywhere, the hierarchy consists of ancestors, both living and dead, or kinsmen who represent dead ancestors. The prophet-created, so-called “modern religions,” influ= ence their followers to behave as if= they were kin, often calling the alleged creator, and the prophet, “father,” and each other, “brothers” and “sisters.”

Darwin wrote,

As no man can practice the = virtues necessary for the welfare of his tribe without self-sacrifice, self-command, and the power of endurance, these qualities have been at all times highly a= nd most justly valued. . . . The American savage voluntarily submits without g= roan to the most horrid tortures to prove and strengthen his fortitude and coura= ge; and we cannot help admiring him, or even an Indian Fakir, who, from a fooli= sh religious motive, swings suspended by a hook buried in his flesh” (The Descent of Man 1871:95-6).

&nbs= p; What distinguishes man, then, is not his “needs,” “wants,̶= 1; or appetites, but the extent to which he suppresses them. Human appetites are not so differe= nt from mammalian appetites generally—and even that of reptiles and birds—for sex, food, and power. And yet sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists usually focus their attention on man’s attempts to satisfy his appetites. Human males, for example, are said= to be driven by the Coolidge Effect, a strategy followed by male animals, such as boars, stallions, rams, and bulls to inseminate a herd of females. It is this motivation which is sai= d to account for the human male’s continuous interest in variety, or “fresh features” (see Symons 1979). And yet marriage and fatherly beha= vior are important traditions, encouraged in all societies, and apparently have = been for some time.

&nbs= p; Darwin saw that o= ur appetites are not distinctive. With the “lower animals,” man shares the instincts of:

Self-preservation [and] sex= ual love [read “lust”] (The Desc= ent of Man, p. 36). The lower an= imals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. . . . [T= hey] are excited by the same emotions as ourselves . . . (The Descent of Man, p. 39).&nb= sp; “[M]an and the higher animals, especially the Primates . . . h= ave the same senses, intuitions and sensations—similar passions, affectio= ns, and emotions, even the more complex ones . . . (The Descent of Man, p. 48).

The question is: how was mo= rality, which is clearly at the expense of one’s personal survival and reproduction, selected for?

&nbs= p; William Hamilton, in the 1960s, proposed kin selection, or as he preferred, “inclusive fitness,” to account for altruism between kin. As has been pointed out by others,= the key problem with Hamilton’s argument is that it can account only for the altruism that occurs between v= ery close kin. Beyond first cousi= ns, the chances of two individuals sharing the same gene by common descent are small. And yet humans everywh= ere exhibit altruism toward quite distant kin and, in modern societies, to non kin. Such altruism, or social behavior, must be accounted for.

&nbs= p; While Hamilton does focus on individuals (and their genes), he too ignores ancestral influence, focusing instead on the lateral, genealogical relationships between co-descendants. But Hamilton needs an= cestral influence, at least in the form of common genes from ancestors, and for soc= ial insects, birds, and mammals, the mother’s decision to raise her offsp= ring together or separately influences their possibilities of being social. Also, among the social insects, it= is the daughters, all potential mothers at conception, that are altruistic, not the sons. Sibling care is redirected motherly care. Dar= win himself, struggling with the problem of altruism, also focused on co-descendants: “[e]ven if they lest no children, the tribe would sti= ll include their blood-relations” (The Descent of Man 1871:161).

&nbs= p; To account for social behavior between distant kin or non-kin, some have propo= sed reciprocal altruism. Darwin himself uses reciprocal alt= ruism to explain the origin of morality: “as the reasoning powers and fores= ight of the members became improved, each man would soon learn from experience t= hat if he aided his fellow-men, he would commonly receive aid in return” = (The Descent of Man 1871). But such behavior really isn’= ;t altruism at all, but simply delayed reciprocity aimed at maximizing oneR= 17;s own survival or reproduction. While we do exhibit behavior that is consistent with tit for tat—that is, “I’ll help you if you help me”—it is altruism, or social behavior, that must be explained.&n= bsp; For example, trade is a form of cooperation, and therefore is risky. In simpler societies, = it rarely occurs between individuals who are not identifiable kin, for the only individuals one can trust are identifiable kin. Furthermore, reciprocal altruism d= epends on identifying and remembering unique individuals and how they behaved. Surely, selection for such behavio= r is a crucial part of the kinship cooperation found in birds and mammals, who do remember each other’s uniqueness.

&nbs= p; The attempt to explain altruism/morality/social behavior by the social group—a “lateral” explanation—is virtually universal. Darwin writes, the “social instincts” are “for the good of the community” (The Descent of Man 1871:103), and = the term social is used to imply living in a group (The Descent of Man 1871:161).&= nbsp; Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, the “father” of anthropology, defined culture as a product of society—a social group (even though t= his is contradicted by the fact that individuals can copy anyone they encounter, even an enemy, in order to do him in).&nbs= p; Darwin referred to culture as “imitation” (The Descent of Man 1871:161), but also saw it as a group phenomenon. He recognized that “much of the intelligent work done by man is due to imitation and not= to reason . . .” (The Descent of= Man 1871:39). Indeed, among mamma= ls generally imitation is important. When a mother coyote discovers a water hole, a new hunting technique= , or a safe place to sleep, such important information can be transmitted to her offspring simply by having them follow her (that is, they imitate her by go= ing along the same path). Humans,= of course, have been selected to imitate anyone around them, especially when young, and beginning in early infancy.

&nbs= p; Emile Durkheim, the “father” of sociology, also argued that the basis= of social and cultural life is the group, and tried to demonstrate this for the Australian Aborigines (Elementary F= orms of the Religious Life, 1900). For example, he argued that religion was both the product of the gro= up and the worship of the group. But, in fact, the word used to refer to religion in the various Aboriginal langu= ages (e.g., alcheringa of the Aranda tribe), usually translated as “The Dreaming,” literally means ancestors—not religion, the = group, or society. And this word is extended, metaphorically, to refer to virtually all important behavior encouraged by the ancestors: rituals, law, newly initiated men, dead bodies, etc. (e.g., Stanner 1956, and Tonkinson).&= nbsp; Australian Aborigines do not worship their group; they do worship th= eir ancestors, the source of their traditions and their kinsmen!

&nbs= p; What Darwin and the social evolutionists on whom Darwin relied (such as McClennen, Bac= hofen, Maine, Tylor, and Spencer),= did not appreciate is the importance of the influence of individual ancestors on the extension of kinship identification and cooperation to very distant individual co-descendants in all societies. All these writers = tried to explain this behavior as the product of their group, either a clan or a tribe.

&nbs= p; So far, the basic explanation put forward to account for human social and cult= ural behavior has been a group explanation, not only in biology but also in the social sciences. Cultural and social behavior, including moral behavior, is said to be caused by the grou= p, tribe, or society—as Darwin put it, the group “beyond his own f= amily” (The Descent of Man 1871:84). But neither tribes nor clans are social. A tribe is nothing mo= re than the largest set of people who share similar cultural behaviors, includ= ing language, and most fighting and killing takes place within it. It rarely has any kind of leader.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> And a clan is nothing more then th= e name of an ancestor used to identify co-descendants. Due to clan exogamy, individuals b= earing the same ancestral name are scattered all over the place. Humans do form groups of co-descen= dants but these are not exclusive—individuals are members of every descent group from whose ancestor they can trace descent, usually five or six, sometimes more, and they move frequently from one to another.

&nbs= p; The virtual obsession with a lateral, or group, explanation has prevented us fr= om appreciating the influence of ancestors on their descendants—not just genetically, but through traditions, especially on their descendants’ behavior toward one another. = If we lived in a highly traditional society it is much less likely that this would have been overlooked, for in such societies, everything is explained by ancestors; indeed, the articulated aim of life is to live according to the ancestors!

&nbs= p; A tradition is only a phenotype copied from an ancestor. Like all phenotypes, it depends on particular genes. These genes= , in turn, depend on selection; that is, they have had to help individuals leave more descendants than alternative genes.&n= bsp; Humans, like all mammals, have been selected genetically to be extre= mely influence-able by others, particularly the one who cases for them when youn= g, usually their mother. But, as= we know, anyone who acts motherly toward young mammals will tend to be accepte= d as a parent, as the response of puppies and kittens to humans shows. One additional point, when a mutat= ion facilitates the expression of a successful tradition, that mutation will te= nd to increase in frequency along with descendants.

&nbs= p; Darwin and the others failed to appreciate that when offspring imitate their parent’s behavior, it is a form of inheritance, like inheriting money, that can significantly increase the parent’s, as well as the offsprin= g’s chances of leaving descendants, for the offspring thereby acquires successf= ul behavior. Darwin did see the inheritance of copie= d behavior in birds. He writes, “t= he actual song, and even the call notes, are learnt from their parents, or fos= ter parents. . . . Nestlings, which have learnt the song of a distinct species = . . . teach and transmit their new song to their offspring” (The Descent of Man 1871:55). But for man and monkey, Darwin speaks only= of imitating their “fellow-man” (or fellow-monkey) in their commun= ity or tribe, not their parents (The De= scent of Man 1871:57). His fail= ure to recognize that traditions are inheritable may be related to his acceptance = of the Lamarckian (and Wallace’s) idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics as, for example, when he writes that “handwriting is certainly inherited” (The Des= cent of Man 1871:58), or when he states that “an inherited habit”= ; is “an instinct” (The Desc= ent of Man 1871:47). That is, if= we can learn something in our lifetime that can be somehow biologically transmitted to descendants, why speak of the inheritance of behaviors throu= gh imitation? But his contempora= ries in the social sciences did no better, for they too tried to explain culture= , or imitation, by the group.

&nbs= p; While Darwin = used “social” and “imitation” to refer to communal behav= ior, his own personal life shows an awareness of the influence of individual anc= estors on their descendants. Robert Wright, in his analysis of Dar= win’s life, perspicaciously notes first,

“The transition of mo= ral instruction from old to young parallels the transmission of genetic instruc= tion and is sometimes indistinguishable in its effects. . . . [Wright then goes = on,] This fidelity of moral transmission is plain in Darwin. When, in his autobiography, he extols his father—his generosit= y, his sympathy—he might just as well have been talking about himself. And Darwin would in turn work to endow his = own children with solid [moral] skills . . .” (Wright, p. 218). [In Wright’s words, Darwin] “fe= lt compelled to teach [his children] the virtues of kindness” (Wright, p. 156).

&nbs= p; To conclude: There are three kinds of selection that have helped individuals l= eave descendants: traits promoting survival, traits promoting mating opportuniti= es, and traits promoting another’s survival and reproduction at the expen= se of one’s own. Each of t= hese kinds of traits is at the expense of the others.= The vertical influence of ancestors on their descendants has not been fully appreciated as the basic cause of morality and social behavior. Such behavior involves reduced competition and greater cooperation among co-descendants. Reduced competition and increased cooperation increases the ability of individual co-descendants to compete successfully with non-kinsmen, or distant kinsmen, when competition occurs = for any scarce resource: land, space, animals, mates, and so on. An individual with a greater numbe= r of supporters who are willing to sacrifice for him is more likely to win against an individual with fewer supporters. As Robert Lowie, I believe some time ago wrote, in primitive societi= es, one’s influence is directly related to the number of kin one can iden= tify.

&nbs= p; I’ll give one example of a relatively recent tradition that seems to have been extremely successful in the last six or seven thousand years: monogamy. Because males in monogamous societ= ies are prohibited from having more than one wife, once they are married they a= re out of the competition for females. In such societies, males rarely decorate themselves or pay bride pri= ce for their wife—it is females who decorate themselves and pay a dowry.= With reduced competition, it is mu= ch easier for many males to cooperate with one another. This monogamy-based cooperation am= ong many male co-descendants may be the basis for the success of the Indo-Europ= ean expansion into most of the territory between Ireland and India, replacing, for the most part, the native peoples. There is nothing to indicate that = this was an invasion, or one tribe fighting another. Rather, I suggest than when an Indo-European competed for a scarce resource against a non-Indo-European, he would tend to have greater support from a greater number of kinsmen, and he= nce would be more likely to win. = There is some evidence that the non-Indo-Europeans in Europe were polygynous: the Picts in northern Scotland were described by the Romans as being painted, and the “Iceman” found recently in the Alps, was tattooed= . Such male decoration suggests poly= gyny, and thus less cooperation.

Bibliography

Darwin, Charles

1871 (1981) The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Princeton Universit= y Press.

1872 (1994) The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Senate, London.

Campbell, Donald T.

1975 “On the Conflicts Between Biological and Social Evolution and Between Psychology and Moral Tradition.” American Psychologist, December: 1103-1126.

Durkheim, Emile

1961 (First published 1912)= The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.&nb= sp; Collier Books, New Yor= k.

Gergen, Kenneth J.

1969 The Psychology of Behavior Exchange. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA.

Stanner, William

1956    “The Dreaming,” in Hungerford, ed. Australian Signpost. F.W. Cheshire, = Melbourne.

Tonkinson [?]

Tylor, Edward B.

1957    (First published 1873) Religion in Primitive Culture. Harper Torchbooks, New York.

Wright, Robert

1994    The Moral Animal. Vintage Books, New York.

[Addendum]

One thing to keep in mind, = is that we are all a product of ancestors all of whom have successfully left descendants—not one, before reproducing, has sacrificed his life for = his fellow man, close kinsman or not. We are the direct product only of individuals who successfully became ancestors. Anything we acquir= e from them comes from successful individuals, and any inheritable trait that helps individuals to leave descendants will tend to increase in frequency and rep= lace those which are less successful.

   &nbs= p;        (Use?) Individuals are kin because they d= escend from a common ancestor, or one is the ancestor of the other. It is ancestors who create kin. And, for humans, it is ancestors w= ho influence their descendants through traditions, including traditions that encourage the descendants to identify and cooperate with one another. Traditions everywhere include soci= al behavior. Indeed, traditions = not only encourage social behavior, but they imply it, for they are transmitted= at the expense of the survival and reproduction of the ancestors, at least when they were a parent or grandparent.