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Chargement... A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution (édition 2011)par Samuel Bowles (Auteur), Herbert Gintis (Auteur)
Information sur l'oeuvreA Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution par Samuel Bowles
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. A technical book, full of equations, but not altogether inaccessible. The authors systematically review a solid line of research on the evolution of cooperative behavior. A strength of this volume, and what sets it apart from similar works by equally serious researchers, is that they resist the temptation to splash around like dilettantes in disciplines other than their own. They take what they need, but only what they've already vetted for prior publications. No cursory summaries of the literature for the sake of filling a chapter will be found here, and thank goodness for that. They stick to what they know, and where their contributions arise. This also means that they don't wrap it up in quite as nice a conversational bow as one might wish as a big payoff for all the work to reach the end, one full of brazen predictions and facile conclusions, but that's the price for such an excellent book that I am willing to pay. ( )
In sum, results from experimental economics games can be highly illuminating and useful for many purposes, but just like any kind of behavioral data, they have limitations. It is doubtful that experimental economic results actually reveal much of anything about how people are adapted for one-shot anonymous interactions, and they should not be regarded as evidence about the relevance of the individual as a vehicle of selection in ancestral environments. I also found myself a little distracted by what seemed like moralistic overtones in the book’s prose style. For instance: “The moral, generous, and civic-minded predispositions documented… in the pages that follow show that evolution can not only foster self-interest but also promote the generous and ethical behaviors that help us escape the prisoner’s dilemma and avert the tragedy of the commons, and that permit us to sustain the hope for a society committed to freedom and justice for all” (p. 7). The message seems to be that “self-interest” (or more accurately, adaptations designed to promote individual fitness) could never lead to such desirable outcomes as generosity, ethical behavior, freedom, and justice; therefore, unless we want to claim that such great things are impossible or illusory, we had better accept a group selectionist view. One problem here is that all such virtues are in fact entirely compatible with individual-level theories of cooperation (e.g., reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity, n-person reciprocity, partner choice and positive assortment, costly signaling), and there’s no good reason for suggesting otherwise. Another problem is that the language used by Bowles and Gintis seems to imply, inappropriately, a kind of moral obligation on the part of the reader to accept the group selectionist view. In summary, the book is valuable both as a review of the anthropological and economic literatures on cooperative behavior, and as an impressive collection of formal models for how such behavior may in theory have evolved. But we have to remind ourselves that formal models are just as theoretical as verbal models. People sometimes seem to treat the output of formal models as data in and of itself, and to overlook that the data we are actually trying to predict are those describing the cooperative psychology of real humans. To the extent that any formal model allows us to make unique, accurate predictions about this psychology—under ecologically valid circumstances—it should be regarded as indispensible. For the time being, however, individual-level theories seem to outshine group selection when it comes to illuminating human biological adaptations for cooperation.
Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin. In A Cooperative Species, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis--pioneers in the new experimental and evolutionary science of human behavior--show that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers. The authors describe how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment. Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, A Cooperative Species provides a compelling and novel account of how humans came to be moral and cooperative. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)302.1Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Social Interaction General topics of social interactionClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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