On the use of evolutionary mismatch theories in debating human prosociality

According to some evolutionary theorists human prosocial dispositions emerged in a context of inter-group competition and violence that made our psychology parochially prosocial, ie. cooperative towards in-groups and competitive towards strangers. This evolutionary hypothesis is sometimes employed i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medicine, health care, and philosophy health care, and philosophy, 2021-09, Vol.24 (3), p.305-314
Main Authors: Segovia-Cuéllar, Andrés, Del Savio, Lorenzo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bioethics
Cooperation
Debates
Education
Ethics
Human nature
Humans
Medical Law
Morality
Morals
Philosophers
Philosophy
Philosophy of Biology
Philosophy of Medicine
Psychology
Scientific Contribution
Theory of Medicine/Bioethics
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Summary:According to some evolutionary theorists human prosocial dispositions emerged in a context of inter-group competition and violence that made our psychology parochially prosocial, ie. cooperative towards in-groups and competitive towards strangers. This evolutionary hypothesis is sometimes employed in bioethical debates to argue that human nature and contemporary environments, and especially large-scale societies, are mismatched . In this article we caution against the use of mismatch theories in moral philosophy in general and discuss empirical evidence that puts into question mismatch theories based on parochial prosociality. Evolutionary mismatch theories play at best a rhetorical role in these moral debates and may misrepresent the status of relevant evolutionary research. We finally recommend that moral philosophers interested in the evolutionary literature also engage with dispositions such as xenophilia and social tolerance to counterbalance the focus on psychological mismatches adopted so far.
ISSN:1386-7423
1572-8633
1572-8633
DOI:10.1007/s11019-021-10025-4