Joni Finegold

CONF 701 -- Theories of Social Harmony

Autumn 1998

Paper II

Is there any justification for believing that love, mutuality, cooperation, altruism will dominate hatred, adversarialism, competition and selfishness in the 21st century? Cite relevant empirical and theoretical evidence in your arguments (you might want to focus this essay in terms of the debate between evolutionary psychologists and social determinists).

It is implied in the above question that current levels of harmony are insufficient. To answer this question vis a vis global society leads to the question -- why would harmony increase over current levels? Both the evolutionary psychology and social determinist schools each have a reason for an increase in any behavior. For the evolutionists, harmony would increase only if cooperative behavior increases the likelihood of the propagation of the organism. For the determinist, increased harmony would result from society increasing benefits (emotional, material, etc.) of such behavior or decreasing advantages to act in adversarial ways.

Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology boils motivations down to the level of instinct. Darwin's theory of evolution lies at the root of this school of thinking. If we are altruistic, harmonious, and mutualistic, it must be because these traits are necessary for our survival as a species, or at least a gene pool. Campbell offers the most basic of explanations for altruistic behavior. Like the sterile ants who sacrifice themselves for their fertile cousins, mutualistic behavior is not for the sake of protecting the self, but for protecting the family group and genetic code. This mechanism of survival is kin selection. Wright describes the process as "should a gene appear that happens to make its vehicle behave in a way that help the survival...of other vehicles likely to contain a copy of the gene, then the gene may thrive." Because there may be no outward indicators who carries the same genetic code, evolution should produce a general mutuality, or "benevolence" as Wright terms it.

Buss agrees genetics predetermine human decision-making . While on the surface a behavior seems to have a logical motive, in reality it is part of inclusive fitness. The behavior "exists in the form it does because it or other mechanisms that reliably produce it solved a specific problem of individual survival or reproduction recurrently over human evolutionary history." Thus, current levels of competitive behavior have come about because of a genetic disposition towards adversarialism -- survival requires adversarial behavior, thus those with the most adversarial tendencies were most likely to survival and pass on their genetic code. What altruism exists is due to the innate (as opposed to conscious) recognition that we need others for optimal survival, and the expectation that our exchanges will be reciprocated.

Dawkins believes that it is not solely the physical survival of genes that are at stake, but the survival and propagation of cultural ideas. Those ideas that are most likely to increase, enhance, or extend lives are most likely to inherited. These ideas transmitted through generations are "memes" as genes transmit physical attributes. Trivers, beyond asserting that society rewards reciprocal behavior, notes that society punishes non-reciprocal behavior. Each recurring generation does not relearn reciprocity, but receive it like Dawkins' "meme." From the viewpoint of all the evolutionists mutualistic and cooperative behaviors must enhance the lives who those who undertake these behaviors for social harmony to increase.

Social determinists

Most evolutionary psychologists acknowledge that instinctual motives for mutualistic behavior only go so far. Even de Waal admits that "social behavior is in all species a blend of inborn tendencies, experience, and intelligent decision making." However, the social determinists like Nisbet are less willing to see a crossover. "What is called, for thousands of years, 'human nature' is human normative nature. All efforts to derive human behavior and its modes of behavior directly from man's biological heritage are fallacious." According to the social determinists, behavior emanates not from instincts and drives, but the culture in which we are raised. While the capacity to act in certain ways is biological, the imperative for the behavior is cultural.

Blau attributes conscious decision-making in establishing a cooperative relationship. "By providing unilateral benefits to others, a person accumulates a capital of willing compliance on which he can draw whenever it is in his interest to impose his will upon others, with the limits of the significance is the continuing supply of his benefits has for them." To Boulding and Feldman, cooperative or adversarial behavior is learned and reinforced by whether it results in an increase or decrease of the actor's well being. Thus, according to Feldman, greater mutuality can be taught:

It is the person who seems unable to transcend the adversary compulsion whom all who work for peace in the world need to understand. The understanding is a prerequisite for figuring out how to suggest to the person so inclined that greater fulfillment might lie in learning to release oneself from the bonds of the compulsion.

In the logic of the social determinists, society needs to offer greater rewards for mutualistic behavior and lesser rewards for adversarial behavior than currently to increase social harmony.

Even the most hard core evolutionary psychologist, Dawkins, acknowledges that true altruism is possible. "Our conscious foresight - our capacity to simulate the future in imagination -- could save us from the worst selfish excess of the blind replicators.... We can see the long term benefits of participating in a "conspiracy of doves." Rewards for such behavior, even emotional or spiritual, must increase for our conscious foresight to predict that altruistic, harmonious behavior is worthwhile.

Is there an increase in these motives?

Although empirical evidence, through studies of chimpanzees and other primates, children, and everyday human interaction, clearly supports the biological basis of behavior, biology alone cannot explain the vast majority of human behavior. It certainly does not suffice to explain altruism or give the answer for how to encourage greater cooperative behavior. Obvious rewards must exist for mutualistic behavior. Furthermore, taking the evolutionary view, if these rewards are prestigious enough to enhance standing in society, it may increase the survivability of the genetic code of those acting most cooperatively.

Levels of adversarialism and mutuality vary from society to society. As Feldman notes, U.S. society is based on the adversarial conviction that one must dominate or be dominated. The U.S. exerts a great influence on global society by way of its military strength, political leadership, media transmissions, and multinational trade. Thus the likely source of an increase of harmony in global society would originate in the U.S. Movements coming from other regions or societies might be seen as hostile to the "American way."

Our culture is transforming. Compared to a hundred years ago, the driving forces are vastly different. The country is much more multicultural, our borders are more open to outside influences, and the average American receives many ideas via the media. A social harmony movement is much easier to transmit to a wide audience than ever in human history.

Women, although still insufficiently represented, exert a vastly larger amount of influence than in the earliest part of this century. Feldman may exaggerate and romanticize women's natural disposition towards mutuality, but women are generally more cooperative and empathetic. The emergence of true equality within the U.S. may be two steps forward, one step back, but it is moving forward. As it does, women may use greater and greater amount of cooperative behavior where adversarial behavior dominated before. While some women may swallow the propaganda that they must "compete with the big boys," many women find that they cannot do this and be true to themselves. From the social determinist view, women will hopefully find that interacting in with the outside world cooperatively will reward, and not hinder, their well-being. From an evolutionary standpoint, adversarial behavior poorly coexists with the instincts needed to raise children.

Additionally, the American population is growing older. Proud, individualistic men and women will find that they are more dependent on their families, caretakers, government, and communities to continue to live full lives. The social determinists would say that the reward for cooperative behavior, physical comfort and companionship, is the incentive for the mutualistic behavior. The evolutionist would have a harder time explaining why we care for our elderly, who no longer can reproduce. However, if there is a non-specific predisposition towards altruism, particularly towards family members, this will be exercised much more in the coming century. We will need to accommodate those who need us. In return an older, hopefully wiser population influences our culture.

Both evolutionary psychology and social determinism concur that the greater a need, the more common the behavior to accommodate this need. Our society is changing in such a way that it needs more cooperation, more altruism, and more social harmony.

Sources

Blau, Peter M. Exchange and Power in Social Life

Boulding, Kenneth E. Three Face of Power (London: Sage Publications, 1990)

Buss, David M. "Evolutionary Psychology: A New Paradigm for Psychological Science," in Psychological Inquiry 1995, Vol. 6., no. 1.1-30.

Campbell, Donald. "On the Conflict Between Biological and Social Evolution and Between Psychology and Moral Tradition."

Dawkins, Richard. "Memes: The New Replicators," in The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

de Waal, Frans. Peacemaking Among Primates (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Fellman, Gordon. Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival (Albany : State University of New York Press, 1998)

Nisbet, Robert A. The Social Bond: An Introduction to the Study of Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970).

Wright, Robert. The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology in Everyday Life (New York: Vintage Books, Random House, Inc.)