Darwinian politics : the evolutionary origin of freedom /
Paul H. Rubin.
- New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2002.
- xv, 223 p. ; 24 cm.
- The Rutgers series in human evolution .
Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-214) and index.
Background: Evolution and politics -- Groups: membership and conflict -- Altruism, cooperation, and sharing -- Envy -- Political power -- Religion and the regulation of behavior -- How humans make political decisions -- Relevance of the Pleistocene for today.
Publisher description: Darwinian Politics is the first book to examine political behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. Paul H. Rubin demonstrates why certain political-moral philosophies succeed or fail in modern Western culture. He begins by showing relationships between biology and natural selection and the history of political philosophy and explains why desirable policies must treat each person as an individual. He considers the notion of group identity and conflict, observing a human propensity to form in-groups, a behavior that does not necessitate but often leads to deviancies such as racism. In discussing altruism, Rubin shows that people are willing to aid the poor if they are convinced that the recipients are not shirkers or freeloaders. This explains why recent welfare reforms are widely viewed as successful. Rubin illustrates evolutionary premises for religious belief and for desires to regulate the behavior of others, and how in today's world such regulation may not serve any useful purpose. Ultimately, the author argues that humans naturally seek political freedom, and modern Western society provides more freedom than any previous one. Paul H. Rubin is a professor of economics and law at Emory University. He is the author of Managing Business Transactions: Controlling the Costs of Coordinating, Communicating, and Decision Making and Privacy and the Commercial Use of Personal Information.