John Popadic

Moral Psychology

Prof. Horst

All parenthetical references are in: Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene.

Dawkins’ view of life can be summarized as the interaction of replicators. A replicator is anything that is able to reproduce itself (15). Before replicators, the universe was populated with randomly colliding particles (13). Once random chance formed a single replicator, it used the other particles as raw material to build copies of itself. These copies made other copies that made other copies, and so on. Errors in the copying process produced mutant replicators (17) which, assuming the mutation did not damage the replicator’s ability to reproduce itself, reproduced themselves, propagating the mutation. At some point, the raw materials of replication became scarce and competition among replicators for these resources produced the criteria for a natural selection process to take place (19).

Some of these replicators, through the mutation process described above, proved to be better replicators than the others and consequently propagated more effectively. As replication continued new mutations produced more varieties of replicators. Some of these proved to be worse replicators than others. These replicators eventually disappeared, pushed out of competition by more effective replicators (18). Other replicators, however, chanced upon better and better strategies for replication and proliferated. This, according to Dawkins, is the basis for all life.

The success of any one version of replicator depends both on its strategy for replication and the outside environment. At some point, the effect of one replicator on the environment and the strategy of another replicator created a situation that was beneficial for the survival of both replicators. These mutually compatible replicators propagated more effectively and began to dominate the environment. As life on this world evolved, mutually beneficial replicators began to organize into packages or vehicles we have come to call cells, then into bodies composed of many cells (19).

At some point in the reproduction of multi-celled bodies, replication ‘bottlenecked’ into the production of one single cell which would grow (replicate itself into a body) (264). This had the effect of consolidating the evolutionary status of all the body’s cells into one unit, which would ‘seed’ the growth of the new body. This made the body into a discreet organism and consolidated the phenotypic expression of gene material into one body, with the effect of speeding the evolutionary process.

The development of brains (specifically the human brain, though the following may prove applicable to other living things. Perhaps some sort of non-genetic memory is all that is necessary) and communication between them created an arena for another type of replicator: culture. Dawkins names the basic replicator of culture "meme" which could loosely be defined as an idea (192). Memes are to culture as genes are to the gene pool. Meme replication is constrained differently than that of genes. While genes must pass the bottleneck of reproduction through a single cell, humans have developed symbolic systems (probably also memetic in construction) such as language and pictorial representation for the exchange of memes, independent of the body’s physical reproduction. Otherwise, memes replicate by a process of selection similar to that of genes, but with a selection criterion like ‘catchiness’ (194).

Dawkins’ view of life [link to synopsis] is evolutionary in nature. In this view, the composition of our genetic material predisposes us to behave in certain ways. Through the process of meiosis in sexual reproduction, the genes of one parent are combined with those of the other so that roughly half the genes in the resulting embryo come from each parent. In this way, the genetic material of the parents is passed to their offspring, preserving some of the genes of each parent.

Dawkins’ view differs from the conventional interpretation of Darwin in an important sense. Namely, the ‘point of view’ from which he views evolutionary selection. Dawkins sees genes, the primary replicators [link to synopsis, replicator description ¶], as the true participants in the process of selection (46). The bodies and brains of all life forms are coded for in their genetic material. In a sense, the genes ‘build’ the bodies of living things in the interest of their own survival (47). Dawkins calls animals and plants ‘survival machines’ (19) [link to synopsis, bottleneck ¶] to make this distinction clearer. Survival machines are the agents of the replicators that build them. The human being is one such survival machine. Understanding ‘human nature’ should therefore require an understanding of the replicators that create and depend on us.

The ‘nature’ of replicators, simply put, is to survive. This is self-evident from the definition of a replicator (13). In the process of Darwinian selection, replicators that fail to meet the criteria for survival are eliminated and consequently fail to reproduce themselves. Thus, selfishness, the act of being interested exclusively in one’s own survival, is an evolutionarily beneficial trait. While the genetic material of an organism is the sum of many individual selfish genes, they have undergone such extensive co-evolution that their collective influence is difficult to distinguish from a unified drive.

In Dawkins’ view, a human being (any organism for that matter) is the phenotypic expression of a collection of genes. The primary purpose of the organism, from the gene’s point of view, is to survive and reproduce, as this would propagate the genes. Consequently, instinctual behavior of individuals (including humans) serves the end of propagating their genes.

If an organism’s instincts are dictated by its genes, and genes are fundamentally selfish, then one would suppose that an organism’s instincts would be selfish in nature. Dawkins shows that this is both true and false. Straightforward altruism is out of the question by definition. Altruism is aiding another at the expense of oneself. A gene for unqualified altruism would never survive in the gene pool. Two (probably more) situations allow for a sort of altruism while remaining fundamentally selfish. Dawkins calls them ‘reciprocal altruism’ and ‘kin selection.’

Kin selection a form of ‘selfish altruism.’ Due to the process of reproduction in organisms, meiosis [link to reproduction/meiosis ¶] ensures that any organism shares fifty percent of its genes with each of it’s parents, siblings, and children (90). The web of relatedness spreads to more distant relatives following the same principle (92). Each individual shares the fifty percent relatedness outlined above, so one can multiply the percentage of common genes through each layer of immediate relation to calculate the proportion of shared genes for any two related individuals (92). Dawkins shows that the level of altruism shown to kin is proportional to this degree of genetic relatedness (105). This shows that, while the individual may be displaying altruism, from a genetic standpoint it is pure selfishness.

Reciprocal altruism is really just another complicated sort of selfishness. The mechanism of reciprocal altruism is essentially that of cooperative evolution [link to synopsis, co-evolution ¶]. At the individual or species level of organization, reciprocal altruism is cooperation to the mutual advantage of those involved (206). The sticky point of reciprocal altruism lies in the fact that it must be reciprocated. There is an advantage to one party to receive the altruism of the other party, then refuse to reciprocate. By ‘cheating’ or ‘defecting’ (to use game theory terms), the defector gains the advantage of the cooperator’s help while avoiding the cost (time, resources, whatever) of cooperating (207). So, why cooperate at all? What keeps everyone from cheating all the time?

Game theory sheds a little light on this question. Dawkins examines the ‘prisoner’s dilemma,’ a common game theory puzzle, for clues. The prisoner’s dilemma is a situation where two players have the option of to cooperate or defect individually. If both cooperate, they each receive a reward. However, if one of the players defects, he receives a bigger reward than he would have in the mutual cooperation scenario. The cooperating player, who was ‘stood up’ by the defector, pays a penalty. In the third scenario, if both players defect, they both pay a small penalty. The mutual cooperation scenario produces the greatest collective reward for the two players, but to cooperate involves risking being ‘stood up’ and paying the fine. It becomes clear that the only rational strategy for playing the prisoner’s dilemma (discounting belief in the goodwill of your partner) is to defect (205).

When the game is played more than once in succession (iterated), these relationships change slightly. It then becomes possible to play a strategy that will increase individual advantage through limited cooperation. Computer simulation has determined the most successful strategy for the iterated prisoner’s dilemma to be one which begins by cooperating, only defecting in retaliation to defection by the other player (213). Defection is purely retaliatory, and the strategy does not ‘hold a grudge’ past a single retaliatory round. This strategy, if placed in a tournament (on a computer) where strategies compete ‘round robin’ fashion and winning a sequence results in more copies of that strategy, will eventually come to dominate the pool of strategies (214). It plays well against itself and is therefore an ‘evolutionarily stable strategy’ (269) Incidentally, the strategy of ‘always defect is also evolutionarily stable, but only if it begins in the majority (it also has the unpleasant drawback of self-destructing once it has replaced all other participants with consistent defectors) (219).

While Dawkins never delivers an explicit statement on human or animal nature, the implications of "selfish gene" theory are apparent. Altruism is feasible but only in a limited selfish context, either in the interest of reciprocation or in the interests of kin. Both, from the point of view of the gene, are entirely selfish. Reciprocal altruism [link to reciprocal altruism ¶] is a way to ‘beat the system’ through cooperative selfishness, taking advantage of the ‘non-zero sum’ nature of the immediate environment (though one might argue that modern humans are discovering that in terms of ecology, the world is a zero-sum environment, with serious repercussions following taking more than our share.). Kin selection [link to kin selection ¶] is self selection as the previous paragraph has shown: The degree of altruism shown towards related individuals varies with the relative proportion of shared genetic content. Of the two evolutionarily stable strategies concerning aggression versus cooperation, there is but one which will not quickly destroy the population. This, as Dawkins description of the iterated prisoner’s dilemma [link to game theory ¶] shows, is a strategy which is fundamentally cooperative, but which deals swiftly with defectors. This places human nature just to the cooperative side of the fence. This would be reflected nicely in human behavior were genes the only replicator operating within the human survival machine.

The introduction of the meme concept [link to synopsis, meme ¶] complicates Dawkins’ understanding of human nature further. Because the means of replication for the meme is independent of physical bodily reproduction, this replicator operates largely independent of gene selection. Dawkins states that a replicator that does not depend on the same vehicle of replication as another, as in the case of memes and genes, will only tend to be cooperative with the other insofar as it assists in the longevity of the organism. He uses the examples of several parasitic/symbiotic animal relationships to make this evident. <insert the actual evidence here> Assuming that memes have an effect upon human behavior (we behave differently on account of culture), it would seem that memetics (insert ‘culture’ if you like) also determines human nature.

Dawkins does not offer an explicit description of the good life for human beings, however one can be inferred from the individual best interests of each level of organization. Human beings are simultaneously a phenotypic manifestation of a gene complex, individual organisms, members of a family (and extended genetic grouping), part of a species, and participants in a culture (meme complex). The best interest of the gene, as we have seen, is propagation through selfishness. Genes survive which code for circumstances that ensure their survival. An individual organism’s best interest lies in longevity. A species best interest is the maintenance of maximum fitness in its gene pool, which requires healthy competition between organisms of differing genetic material. The best interest of a meme, as a replicator like a gene, is also propagation. The best interest of a culture is a popular arena of debate into which I will not step.

Being composed of all these things, a human being’s ‘good life’ must necessarily be a balance between the best interests of each component, as a failure of any of these pieces will result in the end of the human. This view of life presents specific difficulties for human ethics.

At first glance, it would seem that we should use our consciousness or culture to ‘beat the game’ with genes, removing the need for gene selfishness. With the conscious understanding that one person’s gain is not necessarily our loss (think back to the game theory section [link to good life, non-zero sum ¶], it becomes possible to organize cooperation for mutual benefit. Remember that in the prisoner’s dilemma, the sum of payoffs when the players cooperate is greater than when one or both defect. In fact, game theory studies have shown that in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma situation [link to human nature, game theory ¶] where the participants are acquainted with one another, instances of cooperation increase significantly. Furthermore, in games where the participants can speak with one another during the course of the game, instances of defection are brought to bare minimum (in the previous example the participants had spoken, but not discussed strategy). While, from an individual standpoint this is a viable strategy, there may be unfavorable genetic and ecological ramifications to this approach.

The success of cooperative strategies depends on the perception of a non-zero sum game [link to human nature, game theory ¶]. While for most intents and purposes, the immediate environment of any individual presents this sort of situation (read: is exploitable), human beings have learned to exploit the world with such proficiency that serious effects of our development are becoming apparent on this planet. The planet as a whole appears to be zero-sum, as conservation of mass and energy would suggest. This suggests an addition to the numerous interests that make up the ‘good life’ for humans. The impact we make as ‘world citizens’ must be calculated and proportional.

Along a similar vein, culture (the whole complex of cooperation [link to synopsis, meme ¶]) insofar as it has an effect on our behavior, has the potential to seriously alter genetic selection. While human beings will continue to reproduce and shuffle genes, a widespread cooperative strategy changes the criteria of selection drastically. The effect of this may be the resurgence of detrimental or potentially fatal genetic conditions that would have otherwise been removed in the selection process.

While it is unclear where to go from here, what is apparent is that human existence is a delicate balance between the interests of the many groups that compose us. From the primary gene replicators that code for our bodies, up through the entire planet of which we are citizens, we need to be conscious of the effects of these interactions. While a balance may not be possible (and recent ecological concerns make dire predictions) an effort to preserve this balance is suggested (indirectly) by Dawkins’ work.