The selection is from ‘Origins of Virtue’ by Matt Ridley, chapter 9, ‘The Source of War’. The previous chapters (2-8) describe just about the same arguments used by Tullock in his text which was presented by Ionut two weeks ago. This chapter focuses on the less desirable consequences of the sociability of people: xenophobia, war, and the spread of irrational beliefs (religions, Communism, Nazism, etc.)
Only by understanding how such phenomena occurred through the natural selections can we establish the factors that are the cornerstone of human society. Briefly, why is there a human society and not scattered families (like, for instance, gibbons and gorillas)? Man is a challenge to biology because human society does not resemble other animal societies, and the factors that explain the formation of animal societies are not enough to explain those of humans. What is, then, amiss? What’s more: in the animal society, the primary concern is to have as many descendants as possible – all other goals follow. Man might seem different, even though he too is an animal evolved through natural selection. On the other hand, human society is challenge for economy too: if we were to focus only on the ‘positive’ agents (such as division of labour) and name them the cause for society, we’d have an incomplete picture with social phenomena mysterious and inexplicable.
Our text is at the border between biology and economy, and it asserts that at the origin of all social phenomena which cannot be accounted for solely by selfish/ rational behaviour of individuals, be it cooperative or violent, there is one common feature, meaning the propensity of humans to imitate one another and to respect general agreements. The book ‘The Origins of Virtue’ is the popularization of evolutionist psychology, a domain which contends for the place of fundamental paradigm of all social sciences. (Vlad Tarko presents)
To read: Matt Ridley, The Source of War
Handout:
