Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T07:13:18.609Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Self-sacrifice” as an accidental outcome of extreme within-group mutualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Antoine Marie
Antoine Marie*
Affiliation:
Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI), Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. [email protected]://antoinemariesci.wixsite.com/antoinemarie
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Whitehouse makes no room for evolutionary approaches to extreme behaviors based on partner choice and mutualism, which have been convincingly invoked to make sense of ordinary morality. Extended to intergroup warfare, these evolutionary mechanisms may play a pivotal role in explaining the existence of extreme – though not functionally sacrificial – behaviors, benefiting non-kin fellow fighters, together with the distinctive phenomenology those behaviors display.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e210
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, R. (1987) The biology of moral systems (foundations of human behavior). Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Atran, S. (2010) Talking to the enemy: Violent extremism, sacred values, and what it means to be human. Penguin.Google Scholar
Barclay, P. & Willer, R. (2007) Partner choice creates competitive altruism in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 274(1610):749–53.Google Scholar
Baumard, N. (2011) Punishment is not a group adaptation: Humans punish to restore fairness rather than to support group cooperation. Mind and Society 10(1):1–26.Google Scholar
Baumard, N., André, J.-B & Sperber, D. (2013) A mutualistic theory of morality: The evolution of fairness by partner choice. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36:59–122.Google Scholar
Baumard, N. & Boyer, P. (2013) Explaining moral religions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17(6):272–80.Google Scholar
Everett, J. A., Pizarro, D. A. & Crockett, M. J. (2016) Inference of trustworthiness from intuitive moral judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 145(6):772–87.Google Scholar
Frank, R. (1988) Passions within reason: The strategic role of the emotions, vol. 1. Norton.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2012) The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., McElreath, R., Alvard, M., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Hill, K., Gil-White, F., Gurven, M., Marlowe, F., Patton, J. Q., Smith, N. & Tracer, D. (2005) “Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):795–815.Google Scholar
LeBlanc, S. A. & Register, K. (2003) Constant battles: The myth of the peaceful, noble savage. St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Pradel, J., Euler, H. A. & Fetchenhauer, D. (2008) Spotting altruistic dictator game players and mingling with them: The elective assortation of classmates. Evolution and Human Behavior 30(2):103–13.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. & Baumard, N. (2012) Moral and reputation in an evolutionary perspective. Mind and Language 27(5):495–518.Google Scholar
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2010) Groups in mind: The coalitional roots of war and morality. In: Human morality and sociality: Evolutionary and comparative perspectives, ed. Høgh-Olesen, H., pp. 191–234. Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1971) The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46:35–57.Google Scholar