The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (57 page)

Another thing Martin Luther said is that chronic moral torment is a sign of God's grace. If so, Darwin was a walking grace repository. Here was a man who could lie guiltily awake at night because he hadn't yet answered some bothersome piece of fan mail.
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We might ask what is so gracious about filling someone with anguish. One answer is that other people can benefit from it. Perhaps what Luther should have said is that a morally tormented person is a medium for God's grace. And this (metaphorically speaking, at least) Darwin sometimes was: he was a utilitarian magnifier. Through the magic of non-zero-sumness, he turned his minor sacrifices into other people's major gains. By spending a few minutes writing a letter, he could markedly brighten the day, and perhaps the week, of some unknown soul. This is not what the conscience was designed for, since these people were usually in no position to reciprocate, and were often too remote to help Darwin's moral reputation. As we've seen, a good conscience, in the most demanding, most moral sense of the term, is one that doesn't work only as natural selection "intended."

Some people worry that the new Darwinian paradigm will strip their lives of all nobility. If love of children is just defense of our DNA, if helping a friend is just payment for services rendered, if compassion for the downtrodden is just bargain-hunting — then what is there to be proud of? One answer is: Darwin-like behavior. Go above and beyond the call of a smoothly functioning conscience; help those who aren't likely to help you in return, and do so when nobody's watching. This is one way to be a truly moral animal. Now, in the light of the new paradigm, we can see how hard this is, how right Samuel Smiles was to say that the good life is a battle against "moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice"; these are indeed the enemies, and they are tenacious by design.

Another antidote to despair over the ultimate baseness of human motivation is, oddly enough, gratitude. If you don't feel thankful for the somewhat twisted moral infrastructure of our species, then consider the alternative. Given the way natural selection works, there were only two possibilities at the dawn of evolution: (a) that
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eventually there would be a species with conscience and sympathy and even love, all grounded ultimately in genetic self-interest; (b) that no species possessing these things would ever exist. Well, a happened. We do have a foundation of decency to build on. An animal likr Darwin can spend lots of time worrying about other animals — not just his wife, children, and high-status friends, but distant slaves, unknown fans, even horses and sheep. Given that self-interest was the overriding criterion of our design, we are a reasonably considerate group of organisms. Indeed, if you ponder the utter ruthlessness of evolutionary logic long enough, you may start to find our morality such as it is, nearly miraculous.

Darwin himself would have been among the last to see God's grace in his anguish, or in anything else. He reported, near the end of his life, that his typical frame of mind was agnostic. When he declared, the day before he died, "I am not the least afraid of death," it was almost surely in anticipation of relief from his earthly suffering, not in hope of anything better to come.
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Darwin had pondered the meaning of life for "a man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward." He believed such a man would find "in accordance with the verdict of all the wisest men that the highest satisfaction is derived from following certain impulses, namely the social instincts. If he acts for the good of others, he will receive the approbation of his fellow men and gain the love of those with whom he lives; and this latter gain undoubtedly is the highest pleasure on this earth." Still, "his reason may occa sionally tell him to act in opposition to the opinion of others, whose approbation he will then not receive; but he will still have the solid satisfaction of knowing that he has followed his innermost guide of conscience."
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Maybe this last sentence was a loophole, designed for a man who had spent his life building a theory that lacked the universal "appro bation of his fellow men," a theory that, though true, might not tend toward "the good of others." Certainly it is a theory with which our species has yet to make its peace.
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Having crafted a moral measuring stick, Darwin gave his life a passing grade. "I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to science." Still, while feeling "no remorse from having committed any great sin," he had "often regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures. My sole and poor excuse is much ill-health and my mental constitution, which makes it extremely difficult for me to turn from one subject or occupation to another. I can imagine with high satisfaction giving up my whole time to philanthropy, but not a portion of it; though this should have been a far better line of conduct."
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It's true that Darwin didn't live the optimally utilitarian life. No one ever has. Still, as he prepared to die, he could rightly have reflected on a life decently and compassionately lived, a string of duties faithfully discharged, a painful, if only partial, struggle against the currents of selfishness whose source he was the first man to see. It wasn't a perfect life; but human beings are capable of worse.
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A number of people were nice enough to read and comment on drafts of parts of this book: Leda Cosmides, Martin Daly, Marianne Eismann, William Hamilton, John Hartung, Philip Hefner, Ann Hulbert, Karen Lehrman, Peter Singer, Donald Symons, John Tooby, Frans de Waal, and Glenn Weisfeld. I know all of them had better things to do, and I'm grateful.

A few people actually summoned enough grim self-discipline to read a draft of the whole book: Laura Betzig, Jane Epstein, John Pearce, Mickey Kaus (who has also improved many of my other writings over the years), Mike Kinsley (who, while editor of
The New Republic
and since, has improved even more of them), and Frank Sulloway (who was also kind enough to lend various other aid, including the use of his photo archives). Gary Krist gave me trustworthy feedback on an even earlier, messier version of the whole book, and also provided sound advice and vital moral support later in the game. Each of these people deserves a medal.

Marty Peretz gave me an extended leave of absence from The New Republic, in keeping with his general, and rare, policy of letting people explore things that interest them. I am lucky to work for someone who genuinely respects ideas. During that leave, Henry and Eleanor O'Neill provided a winter's free lodging in Nantucket, allowing me to write a part of this book under some of the most beautiful conditions imaginable.
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Edward O. Wilson, by writing
Sociobiology
and
On Human Nature
, got me interested in this stuff, and has been helpful since then. John Tyler Bonner, James Beniger, and Henry Horn, who cotaught a seminar on sociobiology while I was in college, sustained my interest. While an editor at
The Sciences
magazine in the mid-1980s, I had the privilege of editing Mel Konner's column, "On Human Nature." I learned a lot from the column, and from my conversations with Mel, about this view of life.

Thanks to Bill Strobridge (for encouraging me to become a writer), Ric Aylor (for steering me toward B. F. Skinner's writings while I was still in high school), Bill Newlin (for early advice), Jon Weiner, Steve Lagerfeld, and Jay Tolson (for later advice), Sarah O'Neill (for timely babysitting and other acts of altruism), and my brother, Mike Wright (for fueling my fascination with this book's subject in ways he doesn't know, including being such a moral animal himself). Several colleagues at
The New Republic
whom I've already mentioned — Ann Hulbert, Mickey Kaus, and Mike Kinsley — deserve a curtain call for providing advice and commiseration on a day-to-day basis. I feel privileged to have known and worked with them over the past few years. John McPhee, who as my college tr.uher did much to shape the direction of my life, also gave me valued advice during this project. This isn't a very McPheeesque book, but it is guided by some of his values (e.g., it's all true, so far as I know, and I didn't choose the subject with income maximization in mind).

Various scholars (including many of those mentioned above, especially in the first paragraph) have let me interrogate them, formally or informally: Michael Bailey, Jack Beckstrom, David Buss, Mildred Dickemann, Bruce Ellis, William Irons, Elizabeth Lloyd, Kevin Mac Donald, Michael McGuire, Randolph Nesse, Craig Palmer, Matt Radley, Peter Strahlendorf, Lionel Tiger, Robert Trivers, PaulTurke, George Williams, David Sloan Wilson, and Margo Wilson. A number of people provided me with reprints of their papers, the answers to nagging questions, etcetera: Kim Buehlman, Elizabeth Cashdan, Sieve Gangestad, Mart Gross, Elizabeth Hill, Kim Hill, Gary Johnson, Debra Judge, Bobbi Low, Richard Marius, and Michael Raleigh. I'm sure I'm forgetting people, including a lot of members of the
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Human Behavior and Evolution Society
whom I've buttonholed at their meetings.

My editor, Dan Frank, is rare among contemporary editors in the amount and quality of attention he gives to manuscripts. A number of other people at Pantheon, including Marge Anderson, Altie Karper, Jeanne Morton, and Claudine O'Hearn, have also been helpful. My agent, Rafe Sagalyn, has been genetous with his time and sound in his advice.

Finally, to my wife, Lisa, I owe the largest debt. I still remember when she first read the first draft of the first part of this book and explained to me — yet without using this word — that it was bad. She has read the manuscript in various forms since then and often presented similarly penetrating judgments in similarly diplomatic fashion. Often, when I was faced with conflicting advice, or otherwise befuddled, her reaction served as my guiding light. In addition, she has done all kinds of other things that allowed me to write this book without going totally crazy. I could not have asked for more (although, as I recall, I did on a few occasions).

Lisa disagrees with parts of this book. I'm sure that everyone else I've mentioned does too. That's the way things are in a young science that is morally and politically charged.
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In 1859, after Darwin sent his brother Erasmus a copy of
The Origin of Species
, Erasmus replied with a letter of praise. The theory of natural selection was so logically compelling, he said, that the fossil record's failure to document incremental evolutionary change didn't much bother him. "In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling."

This sentiment is more widely shared by evolutionists than some of them would admit. The theory of natural selection is so elegant and powerful as to inspire a kind of faith in it — not blind faith, really, since the faith rests on the theory's demonstrated ability to explain so much about life. But faith nonetheless; there is a point after which one no longer entertains the possibility of encountering some fact that would call the whole theory into question.

I must admit to having reached this point. Natural selection has now been shown to plausibly account for so much about life in general and the human mind in particular that I have little doubt that it can account for the rest. Still, "the rest" is no trivial chunk of terrain. There is much about human thought, feeling, and behavior that still puzzles and challenges a Darwinian — and much else that may not strike a confirmed Darwinian as so puzzling but does strike the layperson that way. It would be quite un-Darwinesque of me not to mention a few prominent examples. Darwin was nearly preoccupied
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with his theory's real and apparent shortcomings, and his insistence on confronting them is one thing that makes the
Origin
so persuasive. The shortcoming that Erasmus alluded to came from the chapter Darwin called "Difficulties on Theory." In later editions, Darwin added another chapter called "Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection."

What follows is hardly an exhaustive list of the puzzles and apparent puzzles that surround the new Darwinian paradigm as applied to the human mind. But it conveys their nature and suggests some prospects for solving them. It also addresses some of the most commonly asked questions about evolutionary psychology and, I hope, helps dispel some common misconceptions.

1. What about homosexuals?
One wouldn't expect natural selection to create people who are disinclined to do the things (for example, heterosexual intercourse) that get their genes transported into the next generation. At the dawn of sociobiology, some evolutionists thought that the theory of kin selection might solve this paradox. Homosexuals, perhaps, were like sterile ants: rather than spend their energy trying to get their genes sent directly to the next generation, they use oblique conduits; rather than invest in children of their own, they invest in siblings, nieces, nephews.

In principle this explanation could work, but reality doesn't seem to favor it. First of all, how many homosexuals spend an inordinate amount of time helping siblings, nephews, and nieces? Second, look at what many of them do spend their time doing: pursuing homosexual union about as ardently as heterosexuals seek heterosexual union. What's the evolutionary logic in that? Sterile ants don't spend lots of time caressing other sterile ants, and if they did it would constitute a puzzle.

It is notable that bonobos, our near kin, exhibit bisexuality (though apparently not exclusive homosexuality). They engage in genital rubbing, for example, as a sign of friendliness, a way to defuse tension. This points to a general principle: once natural selection has created a form of gratification — genital stimulation, in this case — that form can come to serve other functions; it can either be adapted to these other functions via genetic evolution or can come to serve
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them via sheerly cultural change. Thus, ancient Greece developed a cultural tradition whereby boys sometimes pleased men with sexual stimulation. (And, in sheerly Darwinian terms, it's quite debatable who was exploiting whom; boys who used this technique to cultivate mentors were at least getting their status raised in the process; the men — again, in sheerly Darwinian terms — seem to have been wasting their time.)