| Physical description |
pages cm. |
| Series |
Darwinism today. |
|
Darwinism today (New Haven, Conn.)
|
| Notes |
Originally published: London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
1 Politics and Darwinism 10 -- Right-wing takeover 10 -- Facts and values 12 -- How the left got Darwin wrong 19 -- Dream of perfectibility 24 -- Old tunes keep coming back 28 -- 2 Can the Left Accept a Darwinian View of Human Nature? 31 -- Unpopular ideas 31 -- What is fixed and what is variable in human nature? 35 -- How can reformers learn from Darwin? 40 -- 3 Competition or Cooperation? 44 -- Building a more cooperative society 44 -- Prisoner's dilemma 47 -- Learning from Tit for Tat 51 -- 4 From Cooperation to Altruism? 54 -- Puzzle of the evolution of altruism 54 -- Status for what? 58 -- 5 A Darwinian Left for Today and Beyond 60. |
| Summary |
In this book, a renowned bioethicist argues that the political left must radically revise its outdated view of human nature. He shows how the insights of modern evolutionary theory, particularly on the evolution of cooperation, can help the left attain its social and political goals. |
|
Singer explains why the left originally rejected Darwinian thought and why these reasons are no longer viable. He discusses how twentieth-century thinking has transformed our understanding of Darwinian evolution, showing that it is compatible with cooperation as well as competition, and that the left can draw on this modern understanding to foster cooperation for socially desirable ends. A Darwinian left, says Singer, would still be on the side of the weak, poor, and oppressed, but it would have a better understanding of what social and economic changes would really work to benefit them. It would also work toward a higher moral status for nonhuman animals and a less anthropocentric view of our dominance over nature. |
| Subject |
Social Darwinism.
|
|
Right and left (Political science)
|
|
Socialism.
|
|
Human evolution.
|
| ISBN |
0300083238 (cloth : alkaline paper) |
|
