Evolutionary Social Theory The Current State of Knowledge

The evolution of human sociality is a field in ferment, with writers struggling to isolate elementary causal forces and organize them systematically. The elements of a usable model for evolved human sociality have become available only within the past few years. Those elements are scattered throughout the books here under review and a small set of articles. None of the books or articles fully exemplifies the whole model. After laying out the model, I use it to evaluate the books, describing how each contributes to it, and measuring each against it. The central idea in a usable model of human sociality is that the identity of the social group is integral to individual identity. In addition to that one central idea, a minimum of seven concepts is necessary to construct a model of sociality that includes the complex forms of organization in post-agricultural societies: (1) dominance, (2) egalitarianism or reverse dominance, (3) leadership, (4) internalized norms, (5) strong reciprocity or third-party enforcement of norms, (6) legal institutions, and (7) legitimacy in the exercise of power. These seven concepts can be reduced to four components: power, values, individuals, and groups. This model of evolved human sociality moves beyond the inconclusive debate between proponents of inclusive fitness and proponents of group selection. It also offers a distinct alternative to the identity politics that currently pervade literary and cultural study.