"Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die." Charles Darwin
"As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. The point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races" Darwin 1882
"Darwin, on grounds such as this, believed that the human species is a moral one-that is, in fact, we are the only moral animal. "A moral being is one who is capable of comparing his past or future actions or motives, and of approving or disproving them," he wrote. "We have no reason to suppose any of the lower animals have this ability."
"Deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as to not betray-by the subtle signs of self-knowledge-the deception being practised." Richard Dawkins
"The conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view" Robert Trivers
"We spend our lives desperately seeking status; we are addicted to social esteem in a fairly literal sense, dependent on the neurotransmitters we get upon impressing people...we are all self-promoters and social climbers. The people known as such are either so effective as to arouse envy or so graceless as to make their effort obvious, or both.
"The young, plastic mind is shaped by cues that, in the environment of our evolution, suggested what behavioral strategies were most likely to get genes spread. The cues presumably tend to mirror two things: the sort of social environment you find yourself in [Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness]; and the sorts of assets and liabilities you bring into that environment [Parental Investment]."
"Our generosity and affection have a narrow underlying purpose. They're aimed either at kin, who share our genes, at nonkin of the opposite sex who can help package our genes for shipment to the next generation, or at nonkin of either sex who seem likely to return the favor. What's more, the favor often entails dishonesty or malice...Affection is a tool of hostility. We form bonds to deepen fissures.
"The basic paradox here-the intellectual groundlessness of blame, and the practical need for it.
"The shift from nineteenth century earnestness to twentieth century cynicism has been traced, in part, to Sigmund Freud. Like the new Darwinism, Freudian thought finds sly unconscious aims in the most innocent acts. And like the new Darwinism, it sees an animal essence at the core of the unconscious.
"Nor are those the only things Freudian and Darwinian thought have in common. For all the criticism it has drawn in recent decades, Freudian remains the most influential behavioral paradigm-academically, morally, spiritually-of our time. And to this proposition the new Darwinian paradigm aspires.
"Freud was right to sense that relatives-parents, in particular, have a lot to say about the shape of the emerging psyche. Freud was also right to sense that parents are not wholly benign, and that deep conflicts between parents and offspring are possible.
"All told, Freud's scorecard is not bad: he (and his followers) have identified lots of mental dynamics that may have deep evolutionary roots. He rightly saw the mind as a place of turbulence, much of it subterranean. And, in a general way, he saw the source of the turbulence: an animal of ultimately complete ruthlessness is born into a complex and inescapable social web.
"If present-day Freudians start taking these hints and recast their ideas accordingly, maybe they can save Freud's name from the eclipse it will probably suffer if the task is left to Darwinians."
¨If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one to the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals...If Nature and Man are both the works of a Being of perfect goodness, that Being intended nature as a scheme to be amended, not initiated, by Man." John Stuart Mill
"The practice of that which is ethically best-what we call goddess or virtue-involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for success. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive."-Thomas Henry Huxley
"Huxley viewed the cosmic process as an enemy that must be combated. I take a similar but more extreme position, based both on the more extreme contemporary view of natural selection as a process for maximizing selfishness, and on the longer list of vices now assignable to the enemy. If this enemy is worse than Huxley thought, there is a more urgent need for biological understanding." George Williams
"The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice." Samuel Smiles
"Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do." Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene
(All quotations by Robert Wright unless otherwise noted.)
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