Précis of Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature

Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (1):61-71 (1987)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The debate about the credentials of sociobiology has persisted because scholars have failed to distinguish the varieties of sociobiology and because too little attention has been paid to the details of the arguments that are supposed to support the provocative claims about human social behavior. I seek to remedy both deficiencies. After analysis of the relationships among different kinds of sociobiology and contemporary evolutionary theory, I attempt to show how some of the studies of the behavior of nonhuman animals meet the methodological standards appropriate to evolutionary research. I contend that the efforts of E. O. Wilson, Richard Alexander, Charles Lumsden, and others to generate conclusions about human nature are flawed, both because they apply evolutionary ideas in an unrigorous fashion and because they use dubious assumptions to connect their evolutionary analyses with their conclusions. This contention rests on analyses of many of the major sociobiological proposals about human social behavior, including: differences in sex roles, racial hostility, homosexuality, conflict between parents and adolescent offspring, incest avoidance, the avunculate, alliances in combat, female infanticide, and gene–culture coevolution.Vaulting Ambitionthus seeks to identify what is good in sociobiology, to expose the errors of premature speculations about human nature, and to prepare the way for serious study of the evolution of human social behavior.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,449

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Sociobiology.Harmon Holcomb & Jason M. Byron - 2005 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Darwinizing Human Nature: Methodological Issues in Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology.Catherine Mary Driscoll - 2003 - Dissertation, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick
The Transformation of Human Sociobiology.Philip Kitcher - 1986 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986:63-74.
A Logical Structure for Human Sociobiology.Steven J. C. Gaulin - 1986 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986:75 - 86.
Human Nature: An Overview.Stephen M. Downes - 2016 - In Richard Joyce, The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy. New York: Routledge. pp. 155-166.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-20

Downloads
128 (#175,542)

6 months
11 (#246,005)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Philip Kitcher
Columbia University

References found in this work

A Theory of Justice.John Rawls - 1971 - Oxford,: Harvard University Press. Edited by Steven M. Cahn.
Criticism and the growth of knowledge.Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave (eds.) - 1970 - Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press.

View all 66 references / Add more references