How niceness evolves

Though this interview of biologist David Sloan Wilson, may seem a hundred miles from Northern Ireland, it does throw up some interesting questions on groups and co-operation.

Whilst he is clearly talking about micro-organisms here, much of his work has been self consciously looking for analogies with human social behaviour:

The fundamental problem of social life is that selfishness beats altruism within a group. But altruistic groups trump selfish groups. It’s amazing that you can take such a controversial theory and describe it in two sentences.

Now shifted into the human world, he goes on to suggest that the altrustic groups survive not simply on warm feelings of association:

Moralistic aggression – the punishment of antisocial behaviour – is just as important in keeping groups together as are warm fuzzy feelings of belonging. “If a group is going to be a corporate unit then moral decisions must apply to all members,” says Wilson. This explains why we instinctively feel that moral norms are absolute, so if they don’t apply to everyone, they are not properly moral.

And athough he springs from an athiest background he ascribes some lasting value to religion in building and shaping altruistic groupings:

The important thing about religion, he thinks, is that it encourages collective action. The emotions that religions build on, and the conduct they encourage, tend to bind groups and build cooperation. The worship of a common god, he believes, is really the worship of a common good, to whom everyone in the tribe or religion must defer.

His view of religion is heavily contrasted with Richard Dawkin’s conviction that ‘religion is a matter of false and perhaps malevolent beliefs’:

The one thing religions take seriously is not their theories of creation. Or even of the after-life – many religions don’t involve any coherent belief in heaven. It is their rules about how believers must treat one another, and outsiders. If these are got right, the religion will flourish, even if its doctrines are absurd.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty