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Origins of Altruism and Cooperation pp 41–61Cite as

Born to Cooperate? Altruism as Exaptation and the Evolution of Human Sociality

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Part of the book series: Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects ((DIPR,volume 36))

Abstract

In recent papers (e.g. Wilson and Wilson, 2007), it has been confirmed that the two standard solutions for the apparent paradox of the evolution of altruism and pro-social behaviours – ‘kin selection’, which leaves unsolved the question of population structure, and ‘group selection’ – can indeed be consistent with one other. The result is a possible explanation of the ambiguity between deeply entrenched attitudes to cooperation inside social groups and organized hostility among them (Bowles, 2008). Nevertheless, these models seem to undervalue the potential effects of ‘multilevel’ evolution and both notions remain strongly engaged with gene-centred interpretations of evolutionary dynamics – which lose their explanatory power when applied to group-living species that show unconditioned forms of altruism and pro-social feeling, especially when cultural evolution enters the process. In order to avoid ‘cultural discontinuity’ hypotheses at the other extreme, I emphasize the importance of ‘functional cooptation’, or ‘exaptation’ (Gould and Vrba, 1982; Gould, 2002) in arriving at a more satisfying explanation of the origins of free or reciprocal unselfishness, in group-living animals and in culture-bearing species.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the XIX century debate about the priority of the common ancestorship and the degree of relatedness between man and gorillas and between man and chimpanzees, Darwin – in this case against the opinion of T.H. Huxley – argued that chimpanzees, rather than gorillas, would have probably been closer to humans because of their more developed feelings of sympathy and love, the instincts of cooperation at the base of human sociality as well. See The Descent of Man, first part.

  2. 2.

    “If natural selection followed the classical models exclusively, species would not show any behaviour more positively social than the coming together of the sexes and the parental cares” (Hamilton, 1996, p. 31).

  3. 3.

    Inclusive fitness is not the sum of the direct individual fitness and the fitness of relatives (Grafen, 1982).

  4. 4.

    Edward O. Wilson dates his “paradigm shift” towards Hamilton’s approach at the spring of 1965 (Wilson, 1994, pp. 319–320).

  5. 5.

    Most of them, and Hamilton specifically, were nevertheless suspicious about the possibility that such ecological systems could really exist, maintaining a high degree (but not too high) of isolation, a low degree of migrations and flows of individuals between groups, high variability between groups, therefore strong systems of recognition and separation between egoists and altruists: features not necessarily adaptive and eventually an handicap for the range of choice of partners, degree of inbreeding, etc. So, the role of group selection remains hypothetical (Hamilton, 1996).

  6. 6.

    The explanatory role of the processes of exaptation is growing in recent literature of many evolutionary fields. Pre-adaptations and spandrels could be involved in the evolution of language according to Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch (2002), and more recently according to Lieberman (2006). Even some of the most important current faculties of the human brain, like reading, seem to be functional cooptations of evolutionarily older brain circuits, as in the interesting evolutionary reconstruction proposed by Stanislas Dehaene (2009).

  7. 7.

    Criticisms about the alleged irrelevant role of exaptation, or its reducibility to normal adaptation – advanced among others by Dawkins (1986) and Dennett (1995) – seem solved in Arnold (1994) and Gould (2002).

  8. 8.

    Williams and Williams (1957), from the point of view of an evolutionary biology of social behaviour based on the exclusive interest of Darwinian selfish individuals, proposed for this reason to use more neutral categories like “donors” and “non donors”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Sciences, University of Milan II, Milan, Italy

    Telmo Pievani

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Correspondence to Telmo Pievani .

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  1. , Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, 63130, Missouri, USA

    Robert W. Sussman

  2. School of Medicine, Dept. Psychiatry, University of Washington, S. Euclid Ave. 660, St. Louis, 63110, Missouri, USA

    C. Robert Cloninger

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Pievani, T. (2011). Born to Cooperate? Altruism as Exaptation and the Evolution of Human Sociality. In: Sussman, R., Cloninger, C. (eds) Origins of Altruism and Cooperation. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects, vol 36. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9520-9_4

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