I’ve just started reading philosopher Roger Scruton’s new book The Soul of the World, in which he defends the transcendent against the scientific conception of reality. Chapter 3 contains an interesting but wrong-headed argument to the effect that evolutionary explanations of human altruism are superfluous, because altruism can be explained perfectly well in moral terms. It’s particularly interesting in light of our discussions on the Critique of Naturalism thread, so I thought I’d share it:
An organism acts altruistically, they tell us, if it benefits another organism at a cost to itself. The concept applies equally to the soldier ant that marches into the flames that threaten the anthill, and to the officer who throws himself onto the live grenade that threatens his platoon. The concept of altruism, so understood, cannot explain, or even recognize, the distinction between those two cases. Yet surely there is all the difference in the world between the ant that marches instinctively toward the flames, unable either to understand what it is doing or to fear the results of it, and the officer who consciously lays down his life for his troops.
If Kant is right, a rational being has a motive to obey the moral law, regardless of genetic advantage. This motive would arise, even if the normal result of following it were that which the Greeks observed with awe at Thermopylae, or the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Maldon. In such instances an entire community is observed to embrace death, in full consciousness of what it is doing, because death is the honorable option. Even if you don’t think Kant’s account of this is the right one, the fact is that this motive is universally observed in human beings, and is entirely different from that of the soldier ant, in being founded on a consciousness of the predicament, of the cost of doing right, and of the call to renounce life for the sake of others who depend on you or to whom your life is owed.
To put it in another way, on the approach of the evolutionary psychologists, the conduct of the Spartans at Thermopylae is overdetermined. The “dominant reproductive strategy” explanation and the “honorable sacrifice” explanation are both sufficient to account for this conduct. So which is the real explanation? Or is the “honorable sacrifice” explanation just a story that we tell ourselves, in order to pin medals on the chest of the ruined “survival machine” that died in obedience to its genes?
But suppose that the moral explanation is genuine and sufficient. It would follow that the genetic explanation is trivial. If rational beings are motivated to behave in this way, regardless of any genetic strategy, then that is sufficient to explain the fact that they do behave in this way. And being disposed to behave in this way is an adaptation — for all this means is that people who were disposed by nature to behave in any other way would by now have died out, regardless of the reasons they might have had for behaving as they did.
…it illustrates the way in which evolutionary explanations reduce to triviality, when the thing to be explained contains its own principles of persuasion.
There are lots of interesting and intertwined errors here. Dissect away!
Following your link, I read:
which I take to mean a confirmation of Hamilton’s rule of kin selection, unless I’m misreading.
Okay, let’s read through it for a bit.
Good call.
I’m all for it. But that does not necessarily follow. We would all agree that our taste for sweet stuff (well, most of us anyway – I personally’d rather have a piece of dead animal than a piece of cake) evolved in response to a requirement to obtain food with good energy content, and yet we would oppose the statement that we evolved to eat too much of the stuff – and yet that is exactly what we do, when we get the chance (and are not too strong in the self-discipline department).
It’s a misfiring evolved instinct.
So I’m all for genuine disinterested altruism. Everybody should be nicer and stuff. But that doesn’t exclude
biology“gene selfishness” from being at least part of the explanation for why human altruism exists.Alan,
That’s right, and the advantage of using robots for this experiment is that the “generation” times are short and the r, c, and b parameters of Hamilton’s rule can be reprogrammed at will.
Otherwise referred to as inclusive fitness theory. Note there are quite a few signatories to the paper (including Samir Okasha). Stuart West (also a signatory) has some interesting publications on inclusive fitness.
Well, indeed, genuine disinterested altruism (as Gandhi remarked with British civilisation) would be a very good thing.
Prof Samir Okasha from the University of Bristol talks about “Individuals versus Groups in Evolutionary Biology”.
Gives a wide-ranging overview without going into much detail on real examples.
I think this is Scruton’s most interesting error:
It’s a fascinating juxtaposition. He accepts that the behavior is an adapation, shaped by natural selection, but then he denies that it has a genetic basis!
Alan:
Sure it does, but I’ll honor your request anyway. This is getting repetitious, though.
One mistake was to deny that the self-sacrificing behavior of soldier ants has a genetic explanation. Another was the faulty reason you gave for the denial:
keiths, paraphrasing Scruton:
Alan:
Then you incorrectly denied that there was feedback from the behavior of the soldier ants to the reproductive success of the queen:
keiths:
Alan:
And since you asked, there was also another mistake:
Alan:
As I pointed out, Scruton was not making a “facile analogy” between ants and humans. He was doing exactly the opposite, so your criticism was unfounded.
Your own comments show that you made some mistakes, Alan. That’s all. No big deal.
[Already withdrawn.]
Do you suggest it is a mistake to say “Sterile workers are not the carriers of the genome The queen is?” Of course the workers have genes. But they are not inherited. And what is wrong with “So loss of sterile caste members is of no consequence, genetically.”? Worker genes are not passed on so a worker dying is of no consequence the colony genome. Whether that genome remains in the population gene pool is dependent on the survival of the queen and the opportunity of her daughter queens to establish new colonies. One could make a germ/soma distinction between queen and worker.
Looking back, I see this:
Yes, but this is semantic. Do you at least understand that I am making a germ/soma distinction?
This is simplistic and possibly a semantic misunderstanding again. Selection is feedback is environmental design. Ants as social insects have adapted to control their environment so that created further feedback. The nest becomes part of the extended phenotype. The heritable genes are in the queen’s ovaries, not in the somatic workers. One for regard the fungus “gardens” of leafcutter ants as an external gut.
Please be specific in identifying this error because, for the life of me, I can’t see what is mistaken in what I have written.
I’ve lost the will to live on this one. I really don’t care what Roger Scruton says. He probably feels the same way about my writings. I was just saying that to mention worker ants and soldiers in warfare as if they had anything to do with one another is facile. If he wasn’t doing this then I misunderstood. Sorry.
Alan,
Of course he wasn’t doing that. From the passage I quoted in the OP:
I’m not sure how he could have made it any clearer. He was contrasting ants and people — “there is all the difference in the world”, he said — not drawing a “facile analogy” between them.
Alan,
You don’t seem to be reading my comments very carefully, because I have explained your mistakes several times now. Will it help if I actually number them?
Mistake #1 — You disagreed that the behavior of soldier ants requires a genetic explanation. I pointed out your mistake, and a week later you finally withdrew your statement.
Mistake #2 — You cited the sterility of the workers and soldiers as a reason that the soldier ants’ behavior doesn’t require a genetic explanation.
Mistake #3 — You claimed that there was no feedback from the genes in a worker or soldier ant to the reproductive success of the queen. Later you added an ETA to your comment acknowledging that there is feedback.
Mistake #4 — See this comment.
Do you think that any of those wasn’t a mistake?
I still stand by what I wrote. You choose to interpret it as you wish. Your objections are semantic. Semantically speaking, I may be wrong on the biology (I don’t think I am and would be interested if anyone else thinks I am -including Keith) but I am not mistaken. Now I really must go.
Alan,
No, Alan, they are not semantic.You misunderstood the actual biology.
The correct answers are:
1. Yes, the behavior of soldier ants requires a genetic explanation. (How could it not?)
2. No, the sterility of soldier and worker ants does not mean that their behavior doesn’t require a genetic explanation.
3. Yes, there is feedback from the genes in a worker or soldier ant to the reproductive success of the queen.
4. Scruton was not drawing a facile analogy between ants and humans.
It’s odd that you’re disagreeing with me, since you actually withdrew your claim regarding #1 and corrected your claim regarding #3 by adding an ETA to your comment.
Are you now saying that your corrections were a mistake?
Alan,
The death of workers or soldiers does have consequences for the survival of the queen.
Suppose a mutation occurs that has no effect on the queen, but makes her workers subject to a fatal fungal infection. The colony is infected and almost all of the workers die. This will have enormous consequences for the survival of the queen and the prospects of her daughter queens. How could it not?
keiths:
Alan:
No, it’s biological reality. The sterile caste members carry and express their genes. The expression of those genes influences their behavior (and many other things), and this influences the survival and reproductive success of the queen.
The sterile caste members may not transmit their genes, but those genes are profoundly important to the success of the colony. Think of the fungal infection example I gave above.
Sure, but your mistake is in thinking that since somatic genes aren’t inherited, that means that they aren’t important. They’re hugely important, since they affect the likelihood that the organism will reproduce.
Well, let’s see. 😉
🙂
Requires?
Genetic?
We look for explanations. Am I disputing that?
What do you add to a statement by appending “genetic”? Sterile caste worker genes don’t survive their carriers. This is so simple a five year old child could understand.
And who disputed this? Phenotype/genotype. You need to get this squared away.
Scruton mentions ants and humans as if there were some general point to be drawn. I disagree. It’s a matter of opinion. Scruton values my opinion as much as I value his.
Minutiae. I am trying to communicate with you. I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve.
You’ve lost me on this.
Jesus Christ on a bike.
I don’t understand the argument between you two. Surely you’re not disputing that the behaviour of sterile workers has “evolutionary significance”?
That’s rather a general issue. As far as I can ascertain, Keith thinks that the genes located in sterile workers play a “genetic” rôle. I think worker genes are a dead end and that “worker fitness” is an aspect of “inclusive fitness”. It is the queen in an ant colony that is the sole vehicle of the germ line. Keith seems to think that my acknowledging the obvious fact that workers contribute “somatically” to the extended phenotype of the colony is some sort of admission or mistake. Can you make sense of it?
As I understand Dawkins’ telling of it in TSG, Keith and I have a similar understanding of this: the workers are the queen’s “arms” and “legs”, so to speak, so queen-genes that dictate the behaviour of those “arms” and “legs” contribute to her own survival. As I understand it, inclusive fitness is about the relations between fertile kin – genetic “channels”; the definition doesn’t fit the relation between queen and worker-ants.
But I
may beam probably wrong about that. Time to buy some new books.Still, even if the definition of inclusive fitness applies, the “arms and legs” analogy holds, to some degree. Queen genes in workers’ bodies do affect the queen’s reproductive success.
I’m agreeing that sterile workers can be regarded as analogous to parts of a body called “the colony”. I’m extending the phenotype to the nest and,say, the fungus garden in leafcutter ants.
Well, indeed.
I’d be cautious on such anthropomorphisms. Who has the upper hand in an ant colony is a whole issue on its own. Pheromones and how ants interact is another fascinating issue.
Sorry, fixed that in my earlier reaction: I probably am wrong about that. Inclusive fitness is a term often used in discussing eusocial animals. But I think you’re still in agreement about the effect on queen reproductive success of queen-genes in worker bodies.
I’m assuming that ant-colony behaviour is an emergent phenomenon. I was talking about queen-genes in worker-bodies.
keiths:
Alan:
It’s simple. Your initial claims were erroneous. You corrected them by retracting one and adding a contradictory ETA to the other. Do you now believe that your initial statements were wrong, or do you believe that the modified statements are wrong?
Gralgrathor,
Believe it or not, Alan really is disputing that.
I say that the self-sacrificing behavior of soldier ants requires a genetic explanation, and Alan disagrees:
keiths, paraphrasing Scruton:
Alan:
I have no idea what non-genetic explanation Alan has in mind. Cultural? Older ants teaching their younger siblings to be good workers and soldiers?
He also disputes that the behavior of workers and soldiers directly influences the queen’s reproductive success:
keiths:
Alan:
Not quite sure what you mean here. Reproductive success is a key element in evolutionary theory. You breed or your genes are gone for good. When looking at haplodiploid social insects there are particular points that are important, such as 0.75 relatedness amongst the founder queens progeny and the level at which selection is happening. One can’t escape the simple point that it’s the queen’s genes that are the heritable element that is subject to selection.
A provisionally correct explanation for a phenomenon is a start.
Workers are closely related to the queen. They share much of their genome. The chances more than good are that the genes that determine worker behaviour are present in the queen. Queen genes in worker bodies. Workers therefore can affect the spread of their own genes by using the queen as a child-factory. The queen genes (in worker bodies) that dictate worker behaviour can be said to be responsible for queen reproductive success, and thus the reproductive success of their own genes.
Not true. I point out the queen is the sole vehicle for the heritable genes. The genes residing in the worker bodies go nowhere.
In this context, “a gene” usually means all copies of that gene, whether it resides in a queen or in a worker body.
Yes, indeed.
Only the queen lays eggs. Only the queen carries a sperm store from a single mating. Only the queen carries the germ line. Only the germ line is under selective pressure.
Alan,
It’s right there in the quote, Alan. You said there was no feedback.
The genetic explanation fits the bill perfectly. What non-genetic alternative(s) do you have in mind? I can’t think of any workable non-genetic explanations, but if you can come up with one, it might win you a Nobel.
That doesn’t change the fact that workers affect the reproductive success of their own genes if they assist the queen in reproducing – after all, it’s their genes (in her body) she is propagating, and it’s her genes (in their bodies) that allow them to
do thatassist.I’m not disputing that the soma contributes fundamentally to the survival of the germ line.
I think you’re understating the important point: that it’s worker genes that are getting propagated as well. From the gene’s point of view, it’s using workers to assist the queen in replicating it.
Not really. I’m suggesting regarding an ant colony as an ur-organism works quite well as a model if you want to explain what you observe in evolutionary terms.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. You agree with Dawkins’ view on haplodiploid eusocial ants, that genes that manipulate worker bodies can affect their replication rate through the medium of the queen?
I think E. O. Wilson is a better source for eusociality. I agree with Dawkins, and Samir Okasha that it is important to identify the level at which selection is taking place if you wish to formulate a meaningful evolutionary model in a particular case.
I’d say that this is an exemplary case for demonstrating the utility of the gene-centric view of evolution: the level at which selection is taking place is not the worker or the queen. The colony as a whole might be considered candidate, but the gene as target for selection is probably the most elegant view.
I’m not arguing with that. 🙂
Then I still don’t understand what the argument was about 😐
But that’s okay; you and Keith get back at it. I’m gonna bed; long day tomorrow 😉
Gralgrathor:
It’s about these four mistakes of Alan’s. From an earlier exchange:
Alan:
keiths:
@ Keith
Attempting to communicate with you seems fruitless and so I can see a couple of alternatives.
1.We agree to disagree. (Though I still have no idea what this mistake is that has you posting increasingly strident comments.)
2.We ask for other readers to venture an opinion on whether I’ve “made a mistake” on the germ line in ant populations.
Let me be clear. I resent the implication that I am avoiding admitting some error. I tell you in all good faith, I do not consider I have made a mistake with regard to ant biology in the many preceding comments. So before any admitting can happen, it would be helpful if a third party could comment, and it would be most welcome if it were someone with expertise in the field, whether they consider I have made some mistake about ant biology.
@ All readers and commenters:
Apologies for continuing with this but Keith seems impervious to this simple point. I’m reminded of sock gnomes.
I think an arm-wrestling match would be best. Or a pie-eating contest. Although my favourite would probably be the sparerib-eating contest, where you have to build a model Ark from the bits of bone.
I will only say that in my experience, keiths is hyper-literal and refuses to consider the intended meaning of statements.
That simply doesn’t work when you are using metaphorical language, and such terms as feedback are metaphorical.
If I read Keith well, it’s no longer about biology. From the little I got yesterday, you two seem to have pretty much the same ideas about where the fiddly bits go and what they do. This is about the follow up; about who dotted his i’s with the wrong colour and crossed his t’s left to right in stead of right to left, no?
Tell you what; why don’t I make a big whoop, insult the both of you, so that you can shake hands and tell me off, and afterwards combine forces against the Dim Side once more?
The bummer in this for me is I’m losing my sense of humour. Spare ribs and chewing the fat with a cold bière de garde is what I shall be doing later tonight though it’s too damn hot to do anything at the moment.
Neil said something that made sense, though perhaps it was a bit ad hominem (Sorry Neil) and maybe we should be making allowances for Keith’s behaviour.