John Gray
Life’s Greatest Achievement?
The Social Conquest of Earth
By Edward O Wilson
W W Norton 330pp £18.99
‘The dilemma of good and evil was created by multilevel selection, in which individual selection and group selection act together on the same individual but largely in opposition to each other.’ Combining an aura of scientific rigour with magisterial obscurity, this dictum conveys the flavour of much of what Edward O Wilson’s publisher describes as ‘the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition’. Wilson’s thesis is easily articulated, and not unfamiliar: morality is a product of evolution, emerging as a result of the interaction of two kinds of natural selection. Individual selection ‘shapes instincts in each member that are fundamentally selfish’, while group selection ‘shapes instincts that tend to make individuals altruistic toward one another’. The moral conflicts with which philosophers and dramatists have struggled for millennia can at last be resolved by science. ‘Individual selection is responsible for much of what we call sin, while group selection is responsible for the greater part of virtue. Together they have created the conflict between the poorer and the better angels of our nature.’
Stupendous in its ambition, Wilson’s formulation does come with some problems. As anyone who has read Aristotle’s Ethics will know, morality has not always been equated with altruism. The good life for Aristotle was one in which individuals – leisured, property-owning male individuals, at any rate – realised their distinctively
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945 has long been regarded as a historical watershed – but did it mark the start of a new era or the culmination of longer-term trends?
Philip Snow examines the question.
Philip Snow - Death from the Clouds
Philip Snow: Death from the Clouds - Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan by Richard Overy
literaryreview.co.uk
Coleridge was fifty-four lines into ‘Kubla Khan’ before a knock on the door disturbed him. He blamed his unfinished poem on ‘a person on business from Porlock’.
Who was this arch-interrupter? Joanna Kavenna goes looking for the person from Porlock.
Joanna Kavenna - Do Not Disturb
Joanna Kavenna: Do Not Disturb
literaryreview.co.uk
Russia’s recent efforts to destabilise the Baltic states have increased enthusiasm for the EU in these places. With Euroscepticism growing in countries like France and Germany, @owenmatth wonders whether Europe’s salvation will come from its periphery.
Owen Matthews - Sea of Troubles
Owen Matthews: Sea of Troubles - Baltic: The Future of Europe by Oliver Moody
literaryreview.co.uk