These topics are incredibly interesting to an absolute amateur in social sciences like me. I remember years ago when I was telling my wife about a math and game theory reading. Since my wife is a lawyer, to try to explain the idea, as an example I gave her the basic Tit for Tat case. At this, she said to me:
-But in International Law this you tell me is nothing more than the Principle of Reciprocity! And in the History of Law the Golden Law is in the oldest civil and penal codes!
Jokingly I always told my wife that, if we talk about laws, for me only Newton's laws are laws and in the courts there are no laws, but clearly (as almost always) I was wrong.
It seems evident to me that both genes and culture transform human evolution, on a different time scale but as strongly one as the other. The coevolution is so important that all we can do is provide us the best possible environment, expand culture and transmit good example to the new generations. Easy to say, but not so easy to accomplish “natural” good.
It seems like an attempt to justify Rousseau's myth of the noble savage through neuroscience. But I agree with you, human behavior is much more complex.
Among other things, because even the prosocial behaviors that we have culturally favored at certain points in history can seem like deviations at other times. For example, the reciprocity of "an eye for an eye" may seem barbaric to us now because we have progressed in understanding that proportionality in punishment doesn't mean equivalence. However, that law of retaliation was once a significant moral achievement as it set limits on reprisals and vengeance: no greater pain could be inflicted than what was suffered.
Similarly, nepotism seems like corrupt abuse today when viewed from a universalist perspective. But it was once a significant achievement directly connected to kin altruism.
These topics are incredibly interesting to an absolute amateur in social sciences like me. I remember years ago when I was telling my wife about a math and game theory reading. Since my wife is a lawyer, to try to explain the idea, as an example I gave her the basic Tit for Tat case. At this, she said to me:
-But in International Law this you tell me is nothing more than the Principle of Reciprocity! And in the History of Law the Golden Law is in the oldest civil and penal codes!
Jokingly I always told my wife that, if we talk about laws, for me only Newton's laws are laws and in the courts there are no laws, but clearly (as almost always) I was wrong.
It seems evident to me that both genes and culture transform human evolution, on a different time scale but as strongly one as the other. The coevolution is so important that all we can do is provide us the best possible environment, expand culture and transmit good example to the new generations. Easy to say, but not so easy to accomplish “natural” good.
It seems like an attempt to justify Rousseau's myth of the noble savage through neuroscience. But I agree with you, human behavior is much more complex.
Among other things, because even the prosocial behaviors that we have culturally favored at certain points in history can seem like deviations at other times. For example, the reciprocity of "an eye for an eye" may seem barbaric to us now because we have progressed in understanding that proportionality in punishment doesn't mean equivalence. However, that law of retaliation was once a significant moral achievement as it set limits on reprisals and vengeance: no greater pain could be inflicted than what was suffered.
Similarly, nepotism seems like corrupt abuse today when viewed from a universalist perspective. But it was once a significant achievement directly connected to kin altruism.