A Biopolitical Science Library

I am returning to this blog after a hiatus of more than two years.  I am working on a book with the tentative title: Darwin and the Declaration of Independence.  My thesis is that contemporary research in the evolution of human social, political, and moral behaviors supports a natural right tradition that stretches from Aristotle and Plato, through Locke and the American founders, to Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

In this post, I am going to list some of the books and papers in contemporary biosocial science that I lean on heavily.  They constitute a library in what I call biopolitical science. 

First and foremost, Christopher Boehm’s two magisterial works: Hierarchy in the Forest, and Moral Origins.  Boehm establishes that forager societies were characterized by what he calls an egalitarian ethos.  Every (male) member of the band in good standing (not a free rider or a bully) enjoyed the protection of the group and enjoyed more than less equally in whatever resources the group had at its disposal and got the group’s protection against any member who tried to push his weight around.  Group decision making was also egalitarian: each “citizen” gets his say and each abides by the consensus.  Boehm argues that the sanctioning of bullies and free riders (hungry but unwilling to contribute to the hunt) amounted to social selection.  Human moral emotions were shaped by selection pressure as individuals internalized the egalitarian ethos.  For a shorter introduction, see his paper “Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy”. 

Second, Michael Tomasello’s Why We Cooperate is a pretty good introduction his work on the innate human capacity for cooperation that distinguishes us from other social primates.  Tomasello’s work frames Boehm’s, showing how we got from individuals collaborating out of convenience to a species capable of generating the concept of “we” and “our” good.  For a shorter introduction, see his paper “Two Steps in the Evolution of Human Cooperation”. 

Third, Bernard Chapais’ Primeval Kinship, a forceful argument that it was pair-bonding, stable relationships between one male and two or more females, that transformed our early ancestors from typical social apes into a network of related individuals including aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Unlike our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, humans had a much better idea who their fathers were and that opened up the network of family relations.  When our ancestors began to recognize affinal relationships (in-laws) the network of familial relationships expanded indefinitely.  For a brief introduction, see “Monogamy, strongly bonded groups, and the evolution of human social structure”.   

Fourth, Richard Wrangham’s The Goodness Paradox.  Human beings are the best of animals and the worst of animals.  We get along within our groups and commit atrocious violence against other groups.  Wrangham answers the old question whether human beings are violent by nature or not with “yes.”  He does so by distinguishing between reactive violence (spontaneous irritation) and proactive violence (we could sneak up on them and…).  Most importantly, he invests in the domestication syndrome, the theory that selection against reactive violence produces a range of physical changes that present in human beings and other domestic animals.  We are the self-domesticated species.  See “Two types of aggression in human evolution”.  

These works, read together, provide a foundation for political science and political theory that has so far been sorely lacking in the discipline.

Reciprocal Altruism as the Foundation of Group Selection

This is an elaboration of the second point I wish to make in my paper at the APSA this fall.  As I stated in my previous post, to make group selection work you need mechanisms that enable altruists to benefit each other and to avoid being exploited.  Otherwise, altruists who work to benefit the group at their own expense will promote the reproductive success of cheaters within the group.  Since the cheaters pay none of the costs of benefiting the group, they will proliferate at the expense of the altruists.  I argue here that another evolutionary vector for cooperative behavior can help to explain how this problem was solved. 

Reciprocal altruism is one of the basic explanations for cooperative behavior among organisms.  Altruism is here defined in terms of a sacrifice and a benefit, both measured in the coin of the probability of reproductive success.  When organism A delivers some benefit to some other organism B, at some cost to A, because it is likely that the favor will be returned, that is reciprocal altruism.  I use the term because to indicate the selection pressure that sustains the trait in both organisms. 

A paradigmatic example is blood sharing among vampire bats.  These nocturnal hunters must feed every three days to survive, leaving them at the mercy of chance as the herds of animals they prey on move around.  The bats manage the risk by a system of sharing.  If one comes back hungry, she will cozy up to another who obviously sports a full belly.  The latter will share some of her bounty because this makes it more likely that the beneficiary will share later.  There are many such examples in nature, but almost all of them involves exchanges between individuals. 

Christopher Boehm has argued in two magnificent books (Hierarchy in the Forest and Moral Origins) that human social evolution was driven by a specific problem.  Human beings have always been extraordinarily good at cooperating with their fellows.  This, more than anything, explains why we have inherited the earth.  Once we began to cooperate in hunting, gathering, etc., a problem presented.  Some members of each group (free riders) were tempted to let everyone else shoulder the burden (pay the cost in reproductive fitness) while taking their share of the bounty.  Another kind of problem is the individual who, due to physical and perhaps psychological advantage, was tempted to take more than his share of whatever was of value.  If these problems could not be solved, the evolutionary emergence of cooperation would have been precluded.  The free riders and bullies would have proliferated in the populations and the cooperators would have withered until the social unit dissolved. 

The way that this problem was managed was group enforcement.  Cheaters were sanctioned by their comrades.  Slackers could easily be marginalized.  Bullies required more strenuous interventions; however, even the biggest primate cannot stand up to the crowd and anyway, he is vulnerable while he is sleeping.  Boehm proposes that group enforcement eventually became psychologically internalized and that this is the evolutionary origin of the moral sense in human beings. 

It occurs to me that this account is a special case of reciprocal altruism.  What is special about it is that the parties are not two individuals, as in the paradigmatic cases, but the individual and the group.  The individual sacrifices the temptation to take more than his fair share.  If someone always has a bum leg when it is time for hunting or war he conserves his energy and avoids risks, the better to invest them in reproductive success.  If he tries to push his weight around, again, he is exploiting the group.  Every good citizen sacrifices such advantages to the political whole.  The group in turn has to pay the costs of enforcement, which may not be negligible if the bully is really big and the slackers are more than a few.  If the group is successful, it becomes a powerful cooperative unit. 

The social contract has long been regarded as an abstract and artificial invention of philosophers.  To the contrary, it seems to be an emergent product of human evolutionary history.  I think that there are only two possible ways to make group selection work.  One is if the groups frequently break up and reassemble.  Those groups with more cooperators than not out compete those that chance to be pregnant with cheaters.  I suspect that such a process, continually repeated, might result in the proliferation of altruists. 

I suspect, however, that every genuine case of group selection requires enforcement mechanisms.  Cheating must be suppressed if cooperation is to flourish.  This is true even if the cooperators are mostly related.  There are always black sheep in the family.  The evolution of politics is proof that the problem of group selection can be solved.  

Larry Arnhart's Biopolitical Philosophy

In the essay “On Classical Political Philosophy?” Leo Strauss distinguished between the definite activities of the political philosopher, the legislator, and the statesman, in the following way. 

“Political science” as the skill of the excellent politician or statesman consists in the right handling of individual situations; its immediate “products” are commands or decrees or advices effectively expressed, which are intended to cope with the individual case.  Political life knows, however, a still higher kind of political understanding, which is concerned not with individual cases but, as regards each relevant subject, with all cases, and whose immediate “products”‑laws and institutions‑are meant to be permanent...

Every legislator is primarily concerned with the individual community for which he legislates, but he has to raise certain questions which regard all legislation.  These most fundamental and most universal political questions are naturally fit to be made the subject of the most “architectonic,” the truly “architectonic” political knowledge: of that political science which is the goal of the political philosopher. 

I still remember the wonder with which I first encountered this progression from the immediate, to the long term, to the universal.  It came to mind when I read the following conclusion to Larry Arnhart’s essay: “The Grandeur of Biopolitical Science.” 

Biopolitical science would thus explain politics as the joint product of natural propensities, cultural traditions, and individual judgments. The natural propensities as shaped in the genetic evolution of political animals constrain but do not determine the cultural traditions of politics. These natural propensities and cultural traditions constrain but do not determine the practical judgments of political actors about what should be done in particular cases, as in Lincoln’s decision about the Emancipation Proclamation. 

To explain this complex interaction of nature, culture, and judgment, biopolitical science would draw knowledge from all fields of traditional political science and from intellectual disciplines across the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities.

There is grandeur in this view of political life, as originating through the laws of nature for the emergence of irreducibly complex wholes from the cooperation of simple parts, so that, from ants and bees to chimps and humans, endless forms of political order most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

The emphasis is mine.  This essay comes from the June 2013 issue of Perspectives on Politics.  It is one of a series of responses to John R. Hibbing’s article: “Ten Misconceptions Concerning Neurobiology and Politics.” 

The emphasized words constitute one of the most concise and powerful arguments for biopolitical science and, one may go farther here, biopolitical philosophy.  This is evident in the comparison between Strauss’s political philosophy, legislation and statesmanship, and Arnhart’s “natural propensities, cultural traditions, and individual judgments.”  The objects of political philosophy are the political things in the broadest possible sense: those that do not change or change the least with place and time.  Culture traditions are the products of more or less conscious legislation, as the Greek word nomoi indicates.  Finally, statesmanship is only a special case of individual action, which every citizen necessary participates in. 

The point in Arnhart’s statement is that while nature constrains both culture and individual action, it leaves open a space within which both communities and individuals are able to move, innovate, and make deliberate choices.  That addresses one of the most common objections to biopolitical science: that it amounts to determinism. 

I would add three points here.  One is that nature constrains culture and individual action in two ways.  One is that it limits what is possible.  Someone who believes that she can survive without consuming physical nutrients is mistaken, and no amount of faith or spiritual awareness will supply this limitation. 

Another way that nature constrains the human action is that it limits what is desirable.  It is possible for a person to live the solitary life of a hermit, since hermits occasionally do it; however, human beings being social animals, such a life will never be desirable for most of us. 

The second point is that nature constrains individuals in two ways that can, for some purposes, be distinguished.  Human beings are mammals and mammalian nature is a broad universal.  Individual human beings are also individuals and individuals vary not only by environment but also by biological inheritance.  John Hibbing’s work presents powerful evidence for the inheritance of a wide range of character traits that were, not long ago, assumed to be entirely acquired. 

My last point is that causation works both ways.  Christopher Boehm argues (Cross-Cultural Research, November 2008, 319-352) that

Purposive social selection at the level of phenotype can have parallel effects at the level of the genotype, and that social control has shaped human genetic nature profoundly.

In other words, human cultures, operating within that free space that our natural propensities allow, can bring selection pressure to bear that is sufficient to change those natural propensities.  Boehm begins by reference to the fact that Serbian mountain pastoralists are the tallest “Caucasians” in the world.  He argues that this is in part because of a cultural preference for taller women.  This example, if it holds up, suggests that more or less conscious social selection (the Serbs presumably didn’t know they were breeding for stature) can act relatively quickly.

Boehm’s central target is the evolution of human morality.  He thinks that our capacity for altruism and (my terms) our pallet of moral emotions are the result of selection pressure that originated in the free action of individuals, living in small groups, and over time acting more and more collectively.  I think he is right.  

Group Selection and the Evolution of Morality

Perhaps the best single article I have read on the group selection debate is “Evolution ‘for the Good of the Group’”, in American Scientist, September-October 2008.  It is another collaboration between the two Wilsons, E. O. and D.S.  I would add that it is also a very good introduction to the general question of the levels of selection‑genes, individuals, and groups, within a population. 

Group selection is one explanation for the evolution of altruism.  Any time one organism (or any unit within an organism) behaves in such a way as to confer a reproductive advantage to another organism at its own expense, this is evolutionary altruism.  Honey bee workers who serve the queen but do not themselves reproduce are behaving altruistically.  A vampire bat who regurgitates some hard won blood to feed a hungry roost mate is another example.  Many examples of altruism are easily explained in terms of deferred gratification (reciprocity) or benefit to closely related individuals (kin selection). 

Group selection theory is based on the claim that some altruistic behaviors are selected for because they benefit the group without any return to the altruist whether direct (deferred gratification) or indirect (kin selection).  A group with more altruists will be more reproductively successful than a group with fewer and so altruists may increase in the total population, at least initially.  Increase in the total population is what we mean by evolution. 

There seems to be an insuperable problem.  While between group selection might well favor altruistically endowed groups, within group selection will favor the selfish over the public spirited organisms.  Altruists would seem to be doomed to inevitable extinction as their selfish fellows outbreed them.  In this view, which held the field for a long time, group selection is unsustainable. 

However, group selection does in fact occur.  Wilson and Wilson present a number of forceful examples.  My favorite is the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens.

When this species is cultured in an unstirred broth, the cells soon consume most of the oxygen in the bulk of the medium, so only a thin layer near the surface remains habitable. A spontaneous mutation called wrinkly spreader causes cells to secrete a cellulosic polymer that forms a mat and helps them colonize the water surface. Production of the polymer is metabolically expensive, which means that nonproducing “cheaters” have the highest relative fitness within the mat; they get the benefit of the mat without contributing to its upkeep. However, if the proportion of cheaters grows too high, they are undone by their own success. The mat disintegrates, and the entire group sinks into the anoxic broth. Experiments by Paul B. Rainey and Katrina Rainey have shown that the wrinkly spreader trait is maintained in the population by group selection, even though it is disadvantageous within any one group.

This example illustrates the fact that the “free rider problem” is real.  The benefits of altruism in between group selection can indeed be undone when selfish cheaters crowed out the altruists.  At the same time, the very fact that mats form at all demonstrates that group selection was a powerful force in the evolution of this microbe.  Wrinkly spreader can only be maintained by its benefit to the community. 

Obviously, what is needed to maintain group selection is some mechanism for suppressing cheating.  I have no idea how this is done by bacteria but Christopher Boehm has a good idea how it is done among human hunter gatherers.  He argues in Moral Origins that social selection (reproductive benefits that result from a reputation for altruistic behavior) and sanctions against bullies (free riders) functioned to protect altruists from cheaters. 

Human beings are extraordinarily capable of altruism toward unrelated individuals.  Explaining this is a big challenge for evolutionary theory.  Boehm considers a number of explanations that are current in the scholarship.  He doesn’t reject them, but argues that some of them work only when cheating is suppressed by the mechanisms mentioned above. 

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates argues that justice is analogous to medicine: it is a response to dysfunction in the social body.  I am inclined to think that the theory of group selection is beginning to uncover something like the Platonic idea of justice.  It may be that retribution is something that shapes all life on earth.