The left must take human evolution seriously

Leftists often reject Darwinism when applied to humans, as it seems to imply our nature is fixed and flawed. But this is a mistake, as several prominent leftists have argued.

Written by Patrick Whittle.

It was chill dawn on Remembrance Day and a reverent hush had fallen across the crowd gathered to honor those who’d fallen in war. As the notes of the ‘Last Post’ rang out from a lone bugle, I gazed at the flag fluttering above the stone memorial, and felt a powerful surge of patriotic emotion that was shocking in its unexpectedness and intensity.

But why this reaction? Suspicious of the nationalistic trappings of these kinds of events, I’d come to the service more out of curiosity than some sense of duty or respect. Although I didn’t openly acknowledge it at the time, my respect was directed solely at a small group of women standing silently to one side. Others hurried past, eyes averted from the banner that they held. In bold black letters it read: “Women are raped in war. Women and children are killed by war.” 

And then the flag fluttered and the bugle sounded, and in that flood of primal feelings came a visceral understanding of why ordinary human beings could fight and kill and die for a country or a cause.

Politics and human nature

Theologians and philosophers have argued for millennia about what makes us human. Are the traits that define us innate or acquired, humanly universal or specific to each culture?

This is “the obvious question” (as philosophers Michael Rosen and Jonathan Wolff describe it) at the heart of all social and political inquiry. To answer it, contemporary political theorists turn to the arguments of the historical giants of their discipline — Thomas Hobbes, say, or John Locke from the 17th century or Jean-Jacques Rousseau from the 18th. We can trace two broad but conflicting concepts of humanity that are still widely accepted today: a constrained or “tragic” vision of human nature (most associated with Hobbes) and an unconstrained or “utopian” alternative (linked to Rousseau). 

The pessimistic, tragic (or, as its proponents would argue, ‘realistic’) view presents humans as innately self-interested and competitive. Given this inherent tragedy of the human condition, a peaceful and flourishing society requires a central authority that enforces order and security — a view that chimes well with the politically conservative belief that established custom and tradition are essential to constraining our flawed human nature. 

By contrast, the utopian vision sees our species’ natural state as one of innocence and cooperation. In this view, the constraints of organized society, far from ensuring peace and security, have in fact corrupted human nature and behavior. For Rousseau’s leftist heirs, established traditions and institutions are more the cause than the consequence of conflict and inequality — prompting the call for revolutionary reform of unfair social structures.

(These alternate visions of human nature are neatly illustrated by the recent ‘defund the police’ debate, with ‘utopian’ proponents and their ‘tragic’ opponents disagreeing on whether the police foster social discord or prevent it.)

These conflicting views of human nature, while mirroring widely-held political opinions, offer no empirical answer to the fundamental question: what are humans really like? They merely allow us to choose a theory that best matches our pre-existing beliefs.

According to Michael Rosen and Jonathan Wolff, for instance, “One way to avoid Hobbes’s pessimistic conclusions about the state of nature is to start from different premises. In particular, life without the state might seem a much more attractive possibility if we adopted a different theory of human nature and motivation.” But what if none of these centuries-old theories provides a realistic description of human nature and motivation? 

The issue is succinctly (and amusingly) illustrated in a comment by the late evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson. When he became acquainted with the tenets of Marxism, the world’s leading authority on ants, is said to have replied: “Wonderful theory; wrong species.” Any accurate account of human nature, Wilson believed, must be based on human evolutionary biology — on an understanding of the defining qualities our species that stem from the original insights of Charles Darwin. (Indeed, more than 20 years before he published On the Origin of Species, Darwin himself suggested that to understand human beings we’d be better off studying baboons than philosophers such as Locke.)

Distrust of Darwin

Most educated people now accept that humans share a common ancestry with other living beings. Despite this, there is still much reluctance to apply Darwinian theory to human society and politics. Why this resistance? And from a political perspective, why are both the mainstream left and right largely dismissive of evolutionary theory in human affairs? 

On the right, the distrust of Darwinism is strongly influenced by religious conservatives, especially anti-evolution fundamentalists in the US. Secular rightists are also suspicious of the way that biological explanations (appear to) diminish personal responsibility by portraying humans as “ruled not by reason but by instructions sent by our DNA”.

Leftists scorn what they see as the Darwinian vision of a fixed and flawed human psyche, preferring a moldable and perfectable vision of human nature. Even when evolutionary theory is accepted in general, for many on the left its application to human society is indelibly linked to its egregious past — to the cutthroat competition of Social Darwinism, or the eugenics and racial science of Nazi Germany. Given its association with right-wing ideology, it is hardly surprising that many on the left are vehemently opposed to evolutionary accounts of human nature.

Ironically, the political left itself appears to showcase the on-going influence of evolved human behavior. Witness the left’s infamous infighting or its recent ‘progressive’ lurch towards identity politics, where group identity takes precedence over individual needs or beliefs. To the evolutionary-minded, this is clear evidence of our species’ inherent tribal psychology, of our evolved tendency to form in-groups and out-groups.

Of course, leftists would claim that the reason we so readily form in-groups and out-groups is cultural conditioning — a social emphasis on memorial services, emblems and flags — rather than biology. They would argue that the sort of patriotic emotions I felt on Memorial Day come solely from culture, not from biology. From a Darwinian perspective, however, this simply pushes the question back to why such all-encompassing cultural forces originally came to be. Why do all modern human groups so readily adopt the symbols and behavior of tribal membership? Most plausibly, modern cultural behavior is built upon biological tendencies — the onus is therefore on the left to explain where else our cultural conditioning came from.

Accepting that human beings have inherent tribal tendencies does not endorse the worse aspects of in-group/out-group behavior, such as xenophobia or racism. But it could help us understand why nationalism, say, hold such powerful appeal, and in turn help us counter the worst aspects of ethnocentrism. It also cautions against openly dismissing or denigrating patriotic beliefs about a country or its symbols (as many cosmopolitan liberals often do). Yet this is merely one example of how the left ignores the fact that humans are evolved animals.

According to two similarly titled books, written a quarter of a century apart — A Darwinian Left (1999) and A (R)Evolutionary Left (2023) — leftists reject evolutionary theory at their peril. These books serve as a guide to where the left has gone wrong and, more importantly, to why dismissing Darwinism undermines the left’s traditional aspirations for building a truly just and equitable society.

Darwin for egalitarians

Philosopher Peter Singer begins A Darwinian Left: Politics, evolution and cooperation with what he sees as the major cause of the left’s rejection of Darwin: the lingering influence of Karl Marx. Singer takes particular aim at Marx’s unrealistic conception of an infinitely malleable human nature, an idealistic notion that still holds sway over large sections of the left. Briefly, this “blank slate” belief holds that humans are literally an unwritten book on which culture and environment writes each individual’s nature. Behavior merely mirrors the social environment; competition and the inequality that it breeds, for example, stems from competitive societies and not from inherent traits within individuals. According to this view, if society changes for the better, so too will people’s nature.

The political appeal of this view of human nature is obvious: more egalitarian societies will foster more egalitarian human beings whose deep-felt selflessness would embody the Marxist ideal, “From each according to ability, to each according to need”.

Singer pours cold water on this utopian belief. Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, plus the dismal history of failed ‘egalitarian’ revolutions the world over, prove the lie of the left’s blank slate position. “Ideological blinkers,” he suggests, render the idealistic left needlessly blind to a more nuanced understanding of human nature informed by modern evolutionary science.

This wilful ignorance of biological influences leaves the left ill-equipped to successfully address undesirable emotions that may persist regardless of social change. Latent xenophobia exemplifies this. As Singer points out, writing in the decade that witnessed the Rwanda genocide and the brutal Yugoslavian civil war, “racist demagogues hold their torches over highly flammable material”.

This does not mean egalitarians must abandon their hopes for just and harmonious societies. Rather, by adopting a Darwinian perspective on human behavior, the left could better spot potentially avoidable obstacles to its egalitarian goals.

“An understanding of human nature in the light of evolutionary theory,” Singer says, “can help us to identify the means by which we may achieve some of our social and political goals, including various ideas of equality, as well as assessing the possible costs and benefits of doing so.”

Facts versus values

Accepting evolved human nature does not mean we must blindly follow the dictates of our biology, Singer insists. As well as our inherent tribal tendencies, for example, social hierarchies appear near ubiquitous within human groups. This does not mean that we must therefore accept any resultant status inequalities. “The fact that humans may have an evolved tendency to form social hierarchies need not curtail our demands for a more equal society,” Singer argues, “rather we simply use our evolutionary understanding of these tendencies to design political policies that mitigate their non-egalitarian consequences.”

Singer places great emphasis on the distinction between evolutionary facts and moral or political values. He acknowledges that this ‘is/ought gap’ — we cannot deduce what we ought to do from what human nature is actually like — was often ignored when Darwin’s ideas were first applied to human society and behavior. For example, Social Darwinists in the late 19th and early 20th century believed that the evolutionary “struggle for existence” somehow legitimized dog-eat-dog capitalism as natural and inevitable or, conversely, that it delegitimised social welfare as unnatural and therefore wrong.

Yet just as deriving values from facts is a mistake, so too is drawing supposed ‘facts’ from values — for example, believing that because everyone should be treated the same, people therefore are the same. Dubbed the “moralistic fallacy,” this fallacious reasoning is common in the left’s often vehement rejection of Darwinian theory — for example, the implicit belief that because there shouldn’t be cognitive differences between genders or among racial groups then there are no differences (as this appears to undermine leftist ideals of equality). 

Being realistic might help bring discussions of human nature back down to earth. A recent example of fact/value conflation is provided by Jerry Coyne’s scathing critique research suggesting that a high proportion of hunters in early hunter-gatherer societies were women. The University of Chicago professor takes aim at the "misleading and distorted" claims in a Scientific American cover story claiming that in prehistoric times, “women were as physically good at hunting as men”. According to Coyne, this article is merely an attempt “to buttress the editors’ and authors’ feminism” by challenging the stereotype that women were ‘second class citizens’ in early societies. “Feminism doesn’t need buttressing with data on hunting,” Coyne argues. “Women’s equality is a moral proposition that doesn’t depend on observations about hunting. … If women never hunted, would we then be justified in treating them as second-class citizens? Hell no!”

Coyne draws attention to the key distinction between (evolutionary) facts and (moral or political) values. With gender equality, as he points out, “Women’s rights rest on morality, not on observations of nature”.

This matches Singer’s argument in a Darwinian Left, that evolutionary theory should inform but not determine our political ideas. Darwinian thinking, Singer suggests, “leaves the ethical decision up to us, merely offering to provide information relevant to that decision”. And by clearly maintaining the distinction between facts and values, leftists can accept that evolutionary theory does not inevitably lead to politically threatening conclusions.

Singer goes on to criticize the way political philosophers, revolutionaries and reformers “have all too often worked out their ideal society or their reforms, and sought to apply them without knowing much about the human beings who must carry out, and live with, their plans”. He argues that, instead of working out a theoretical plan for an ideal society without regard for the people who will inhabit it, “those seeking to reshape society must understand the tendencies inherent in human beings, and modify their abstract ideals in order to suit them”.

Alas, poor Darwin

Quarter of a century after Singer wrote A Darwinian Left, there is precious little sign that the mainstream left is heeding his call to arms. Today’s progressive left appears even more averse to biological thinking than it was 25 years ago. An obvious example is the belief, frequently given in support of transgender rights, that a newborn infant’s sex is not an observable fact but is simply “assigned” at birth — a claim that directly challenges the role of biology in determining male or female identity. 

What then of the more recent attempt to persuade the left of the importance and relevance of evolutionary theory — A (R)Evolutionary Left, by German sociologist Benjamin Lindt?

Lindt shares with Singer the belief that the left must seriously engage with the facts of human evolved biology. Without an evolutionary understanding of human nature, he argues, “you will never truly understand what motivates people to act as they do”. Lindt’s political argument neatly mirrors that of Singer. “Put very simply,” Lindt says, “anti-Darwinian blinkers will forever limit the ideological left to a partial or superficial understanding of human behavior and its social consequences.”

Unfortunately, while A (R)Evolutionary Left is an original and thought-provoking book, it is also needlessly ‘edgy’ and provocative, epitomized by its subtitle: Why the ‘woke’ must wake up to Darwin. Lindt’s confrontational approach is itself a self-defeating strategy; rather than persuading those who are suspicious of Darwinian theory to take human evolution seriously, he is more likely to antagonize them.   

These criticisms aside, A (R)Evolutionary Left covers much more ground, and in much greater detail, than Singer’s Darwinian Left. Lindt acknowledges the long-standing taboos surrounding subjects such as sex and gender, race, intelligence or eugenics — and the potential costs of venturing into such verboten territory: “Accusations of ‘biological determinism,’ ‘racism,’ ‘misogyny’ (and, of course, ‘hate’ and ‘violence’) are all too readily hurled at those with the temerity to apply biological reasoning to social questions.” Yet, as a self-proclaimed leftist, Lindt deems the risk to be worth it.

Take the chapter on eugenics (the idea of selectively breeding humans to improve their genetic quality). While history has shown how eugenic ideas “can quickly lead to practices that are not only horrible and traumatic for the individuals directly involved but which are utterly detrimental for the societies in which they are employed,” Lindt believes this is no reason to avoid open discussion of eugenics’ modern implications.

“Ignoring ‘eugenics’ would also be futile,” he suggests, “because the ideas and practices persist, only under different names and disguises.” The likes of preimplantation genetic screening and modern reproductive interventions, for example, all have eugenic implications that have not attracted “sufficient public understanding or discussion”. The bulk of the chapter therefore addresses various “nightmares” for the left about the possible future of eugenic or eugenic-like policies: birth control for the poor, designer babies for the rich, or a dystopian “brave new world of perfected humanity”. It is how Lindt ends the chapter, however, that would raise the most eyebrows.

Lindt outlines a thought experiment involving a “strictly voluntary” scheme where people who are unable or unfit to properly raise children of their own are paid “a sizable sum” to undergo “a medical procedure to reliably sterilize them for the rest of their lives”. The “natural candidates” that he envisages taking up this offer include people “with mental and psychological problems,” “those with a history of violence or drug abuse,” and “perhaps those who have had an abusive upbringing”. Those with inherited and inheritable medical conditions “should also be offered the incentive”.

In Lindt’s mind at least, if such a program “was successfully implemented in the near future, the repercussions would be tremendous” — for example, it would prevent the “misery and suffering” of children growing up in poor environments and remove “a new generation of bad parents a couple of years down the line”. “Crime rates will drop considerably,” he goes on to argue, “since those children not born to bad parents today will not commit the crimes of the future.” 

While Lindt sees this as a “win-win situation for all,” those with any knowledge of the history of eugenics would likely be far more skeptical. Due to its odious past, no politician of any ideological stripe would engage with policy proposals besmirched by the dread term ‘eugenic’ — Lindt’s proposal is therefore a non-starter.

A (R)Evolutionary Left’s discussions of other contentious issues — such as race and intelligence — are also a mix of the thought-provoking and the offense-inducing, the astute and the naive. Yet this is as much a strength as a weakness; the sort of sincere ignorance that may help us see through the Emperor’s new clothes. Lindt’s more sophisticated arguments illuminate important but neglected aspects of social and political policy (for example, the way that mainstream educational theory and practice largely ignores the influence of genes on cognitive ability). His weaker political/evolutionary arguments, meanwhile, force readers to explain exactly where he goes wrong and, more importantly, what would be a better alternative.

Thinking the wrong thoughts

Lindt is on firmer ground with a telling personal anecdote (or “‘lived experience’ as the trendy left would call it”) of the standard leftist rejection of evolutionary argument. While studying for his PhD, he recounts, he attended a Gender Studies lecture “about discrimination facing romantic couples with significant age differences”. The lecturer’s main argument was that Western society seems to frown upon large age gaps between sexual partners, with this discrimination much stronger if the (significantly) older partner is a woman. Why, though, are older men with younger women less frowned upon than older women with younger men? “From a Gender Studies perspective,” Lindt says, “the answer is clear: entrenched sexist attitudes.” 

After the talk, however, Lindt asked the lecturer about an alternative possibility: that an old man/young woman combination is a biologically fertile couple, whereas this is not likely the case when the age gap is reversed.

The lecturer was genuinely surprised and admitted she’d never actually thought about it that way. But after only a few seconds' consideration, thelecturer rejected the notion. “She called my idea simplistic and finished with a (rhetorical) question designed to stop any further discussion: ‘Where would this way of thinking lead us?’ I will never forget this response: Where would this way of thinking lead us?”

The lecturer, in other words, was more concerned about the moral consequences of the ‘wrong’ kind of thinking than about genuinely exploring the answers to social problems.

The moment we stop asking questions for fear of the answers, we consciously blind ourselves and destroy one of the greatest assets we have as a species: our intellectual curiosity. What’s worse, this self-inflicted damage is so often counter-productive; social issues such as these need more scrutiny not less.

A (R)Evolutionary Left is an example of where ‘wrong’ thinking could lead us — flaws and all, it highlights that persistent elephant in the room: how do we accommodate the facts of our evolved biology into our political theories?

When biology and politics collide

For a clear example of how human biology intersects with modern politics, look no further than the never-ending abortion debate in the United States. Both sides believe the other’s views are profoundly immoral. Yet even our deepest moral intuitions have an evolutionary backstory, one that A (R)Evolutionary Left addresses in a chapter on the evolved “foundations” of our moral beliefs. (Conservative attitudes towards the ‘sanctity’ of marriage or the ‘unnaturalness’ of abortion, for example, are mirrored in environmentalists’ beliefs about the ‘sacredness’ of Mother Earth or the ‘unnaturalness’ of human interference in nature — with both sharing common psychological tendencies). 

The heated arguments over abortion provide a good illustration of how human evolution still influences our modern political behavior. Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy discusses this issue in the introduction to her ground-breaking evolutionary analysis of maternal instincts, Mother Nature (published in the same year as Singer’s A Darwinian Left). Writing at the close of the 20th century, Hrdy noted how young women in developed countries often regard the anti-abortion movement “as too irrational to take seriously”, naively unaware that the freedoms that they enjoy are, in fact, historically unique. 

She instead cautions against dismissing the deep psychological basis of human, and especially male, preoccupation with reproduction. Pointing to the fiery political arguments about abortion (and the significant fact that disagreements are never about intervening in the bodily functions of men), she comments: “Passionate debates about abortion derive from motivations to control female reproduction that are far older than any particular system of government, older than patriarchy, older even than recorded history. Male fascination with the reproductive affairs of female group members predates our species.” She concludes: “If age-old pressures are allowed to erode hard-won laws and protections, it is far from certain that the unique experiment we have embarked upon can persist.”

Given the US Supreme Court’s recent rejection of the constitutional right to abortion, Hrdy’s quarter-century-old warning appears remarkably prescient. And while abortion has long been a partisan issue dividing Republicans and Democrats, the widespread Democratic outrage at the Supreme Court’s decision may make it the defining issue of this year's presidential election.

Linking this back to the arguments of Lindt and Singer, a Darwinian perspective on the abortion debate adds nuance to standard leftist/feminist claims about patriarchal oppression. It suggests the relevant attitudes and behaviors that may also have deep-rooted psychological underpinnings. This in no way excuses female subjugation; the point is how such insights could provide additional means to challenge unjust male dominance more effectively.

Abortion is an extreme and obvious illustration of how human biology, culture and politics collide. War, rape, violence, status inequalities and social hierarchies are other examples. As Lindt and Singer both argue, if leftists genuinely want to address the problems that prevent the less well-off leading fulfilling lives, we cannot afford to ignore the role that human evolution has played. 

Both A Darwinian Left and A (R)Evolutionary Left underscore the need for egalitarians to incorporate evolutionary theory into their political thinking and policymaking. What they lack, however, is a convincing and comprehensive programme for progressive change, one offering practical solutions to social problems informed by rigorous evolutionary insights. Lacking such a compelling manifesto, the left will likely remain tethered to ‘woke’ beliefs that, however well-meaning, simply threaten to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Patrick Whittle is a freelance writer with a particular interest in the political and ethical implications of evolutionary biology.

---

Consider supporting Aporia with a paid subscription:

To chat with fellow Aporia readers and attend meet-ups, join our Telegram. You can also follow us on Twitter.