Evolution's republic
Groundwork for a biosocial contract
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3073353 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alex Schulman (Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 518-541 |
| Publication date | 2014-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science Information (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0539-0184 • E-ISSN: 1461-7412 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0539018414540819 |
| OpenAlex | W2152034454 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 98 |
Are the concepts of the state of nature and the social contract still relevant for contemporary political theory? I argue that these ideas from early modern and Enlightenment political theory can be fruitfully reapplied via the data and methods of evolutionary biology. Alignment of evolutionary theory with social contract theory can answer the charge that Darwinism, however accurate its picture of the natural world or natural history, provides no defensible grounding for ethics or politics. The implications of the biosocial contract for political economy are far-reaching, with Rousseau's insistence that 'all have something and none has too much of anything' gaining biological and evolutionary confirmation. Republicanism refracted through Darwinism telescopes freedom as non-domination back to the very biological origins of human politics. Such naturalization suggests translating the Rawlsian imperative to reconcile self-interest and social cooperation into the related Darwinian imperative to use the public sphere to end irrational and destructive arms races
Biosocial theory · Darwinism · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Naturalization · Political science · Politics · Social contract · Social Darwinism · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Social Psychology
Darwin, Sex, and Status
Demonic Males
Ethics
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
Justice, gender, and the family
Happiness Around the World
Evolution of the Social Contract
Social Determinants of Health
Happiness
Darwin Sex Status
Good Natured
Sour Grapes
The Politics of Happiness
Evolutionary Psychology
Happiness, Growth, and Public Policy †
The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change
Status Syndrome
Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?
The Spirit Level
The Woman That Never Evolved
The Origins of Happiness
The Fatal Conceit
Equality, Priority, and Positional Goods
Civil Passions
Robert Nozick and Wilt Chamberlain
A Theory of Justice
Rationality and Freedom
Sovereign Virtue
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
Darwinian Natural Right
Reason and Agreement in Social Contract Views
Natural Selection and Social Theory
The Fair Society
Second Nature
Mismeasuring Our Lives
The Nature of Politics
The Better Angels of Our Nature
Peacemaking among Primates
The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure
The past explains the present
Evolution of the Social Contract
Hierarchy in the Forest
The Sexual Contract
The Biology of Moral Systems
The Nature of Rationality
Inequality Reexamined
The Triumph of Sociobiology
Stuck in the Pleistocene
Biopolitical science
Sociobiology and Human Politics
Meditations On Modern Political Thought
Justice and the Human Good
The Sense of Justice
The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies
Income and Happiness
The economics of happiness
The Enlightenment of Sympathy
The Social Cage
Rawls’s political ontology
Freedom in the market
Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy [and Comments and Reply]
Why Sex Matters
Spheres of Justice
Reason, Self-Legislation and Legitimacy
The Politics of Happiness
Citizenship and Property Rights
John Rawls
Bodies in Action
From Primary Goods to Capabilities
Lockean Self-Ownership
A Sociobiological Defense of Aristotle's Sexual Politics
The Darwinian Biology of Aristotle's Political Animals
Women and Human Development
The evolutionary origins of patriarchy
Politics as a biological phenomenon
Rousseau's Moral Realism
Politics, Markets, and Life Satisfaction
The New Darwinian Naturalism in Political Theory
Evolutionary Biology and Political Theory
Darwin, Aristotle and the biology of human rights
Evolution's republic
Aristotle, chimpanzees and other political animals
The moral consequences of economic growth
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,08 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2014 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |