A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution

by Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis

Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin.

In A Cooperative Species, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis--pioneers in the new experimental and evolutionary science of human behavior--show that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers.

The authors describe how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment.

Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, A Cooperative Species provides a compelling and novel account of how humans came to be moral and cooperative.

Genres: Economics, Science, Psychology, Sociology, Evolution, Anthropology, Philosophy

275 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Samuel Bowles is Research Professor and Director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute and Professor of Economics at the University of Siena. He is coauthor of Notes and Problems in Microeconomic Theory (North Holland Texts in Mathematical Economics) and Schooling in Capitalist America (Basic Books), and has published articles, most recently, in the American Economic Review, Nature, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal, and the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

Reviews

[Usfromdk · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Conclusive evidence about the origins of human cooperation will remain elusive given the paucity of the empirical record and the complexity of the dynamical processes involved. As in many problems of historical explanation, perhaps the best that one can hope for is a plausible explanation consistent with the known facts. This is what we have attempted to provide."

The authors did a good job. These guys really know their stuff. If you know and/or are interested in the works of people like Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson, Joseph Henrich, Cavalli-Sforza, Feldman, etc., this is definitely the book for you - the authors have read them all, and many others, and they have spent a lot of time thinking about questions and problems related to the field of cultural evolution.

Some reviewers of this work have complained about the book being too technical/math heavy; I would say that the book is not an easy read, but I would strongly disagree with people claiming that it is not well written. In my opinion they use the mathematical tools which are needed to address and elucidate problems and questions to which they desire answers, but in my opinion no-one with a decent scientific/mathematical background should have difficulties reading and understanding most of the coverage provided in the book. My own assumption would probably be that people complaining about the mathematical aspects making the book 'unreadable' were never really in the target group anyway. Some of the mathematical tools used in the book which might cause problems to the uninitiated are incidentally covered in some detail in the book's appendix.

[Ilari Mäkelä · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very ambitious book, which seeks to explain the evolutionary origins of human prosociality.

For such a daunting topic, the book is very, very comprehensive. In this aspect, it has very few rivals. I can only think of Tomasello’s "Natural History of Human Morality" and Krebs’ "Origins of Morality". Even in this company, this is a unique book in its strong footing in game theory and economics. Indeed, I could recommend this book to most readers trained in mathematical subjects – especially economists who still feels some affinity with the myth of a purely self-interested Homo economicus.

Personally, I will return to the book many times to come. However, the heavily mathematical argumentation makes the prospects of returning to this beast somewhat agonizing.

I think the authors should have published the formal modelling in appropriate journals, and then used to book to explain the conclusions to a wider readership. The decision to include all modelling in the book makes it very challenging for those, like me, who don’t have a background in economics or population genetics. For casual readers, this makes the book downright unreadable. At some points, I almost get the impression that the authors are more interested in showcasing their scholarly capabilities, rather than in making their work accessible to the wider intellectual culture. Everyone to their taste, I guess, but the outcome is a tragically diminished readership.

As for their argument:

Bowles and Gintis explore three claims. (1) Humans are not only driven by self-interest, (2) Group selection explains the evolution of human altruism, and (3) Group selection for altruism was made possible by high levels of warfare.

The first claim tries to purge the topic from the many hangovers of 20th Century biology and economics. For the authors claim, rightly I think, that these hangovers are pernicious – and most probably false. Contra Dawkins, selfish genes do not mean that humans are “born selfish”. Contra the tragedy of commons, humans do not always exploit common resources in the absence of sanctions. And contra naive interpretations of game theory, even the prisoner’s dilemma does not always ask for defection. The authors amass a convincing array of data to support this thesis.

The second claim is controversial but the authors make an excellent case for it. Their formal models are some of the best evidence to date that group selection is a strong hypothesis for the evolution of human sociality.

The third claim is the weakest point in the book. But if you read the models carefully, you realize that this assumption is not less important than it appears. For example, they explain that only 3,6% mortality from war is required for some of their models to work. And they explicitly work on models that are unrealistically hostile to the evolution of altruism, but not taking into account climate changes, mate-choice etc.

Overall, the book contributes to the field in two important ways. It collects heaps of interesting data into one neat package, and it presents strong modelling in favour of group selection -theories of human altruism. Therefore, it's is an essential contribution to the science of human sociality. Its heavy betting on wartorn prehistory remains controversial. But we should remember that this assumption is as critical as it appears.

For a more detailed analysis of the argument, as well as links and references, see the original post in:
https://psycho-philosophy.org/2021/09...)

[Clarence Williams]

An outstanding book on the evolution of altruism. Most notably, Bowles & Gintis help us understand the role of punishment and inter-group competition, two necessary elements that many other theorists omit.

[J.D. Steens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book challenges kin selection theory as a basis for various forms of reciprocity and cooperation. The authors almost start with the fact that we cooperate for mutual benefit, that we will even extend benefits to non-related others at a cost to ourselves (true altruism), and that such other-regardedness can and does extend to strangers. Importantly - it seems to be seldom noted in the sociobiological literature - the authors note Darwin's observation (Descent, 1871) about in-group cooperation versus out-group distrust and hostility, thereby highlighting Darwin's observation about tribalism and its implicit relevance to today. The authors then take that insight to formulate a main thesis in this book: We promote in-group solidarity through cooperation and enforcement against those who violate cooperation norms and this enables us to outcompete other groups, leading to the evolutionary development of cooperation (albeit, even for aggressive purposes). In addition to citing numerous studies to bolster their argument, the authors present extensive and complicated looking mathematical and logical formulas to lay a foundation for their arguments. Whether those citations and formulas are credible I can't say.

On the surface there are a few issues with this book. First, the authors take a cue from Darwin and say that this in-group norm enforcement and out-group hostility lead to "differential group success" so that the more cooperative groups prevailed over groups that were not so good at internal group solidarity. Over time, this has led to the propagation of altruism (various forms) and our development as a cooperative species. No doubt, we have the capacity for cooperation and employ it for both the good within our group and toward aggressive and war-like behavior toward non-group members. But this line of argument more or less wipes out the possibility that relatively selfish (i.e., non-cooperative, non-altruistic) behavior itself promotes self-survival and is likely propagated as much as cooperative behavior. Enforcement and reinforcement of group norms are far from being 100% successful. Self-oriented people survive and thrive within a group through deception, manipulation and overpowering, particularly when cultural norms or institutions are weak or tolerate inequality. Moreover, self-oriented individuals can also promote group success relative to other groups through raw power and dominance alone, without relying on what we typically view as cooperative norms. Think of the various dictators throughout history. In other words, rather than the development of cooperation and the disappearance of selfish behavior, might there not be two innate character poles (self-oriented and cooperative/other-oriented) that constitute equally viable survival strategies and that have persisted over evolutionary time? How else is the age-old tension between selfishness and otherness, between children of light and children of darkness, between good and evil, explained?

Regarding the genetic mechanism for genetic transfer of non-cooperative behavior, the implicit premise of the authors' argument is that the minimization or elimination of selfish behavior occurs before sexual reproduction, but this asks a lot of evolutionary theory. Assuming some degree of "like parent, like child" genetic propensity transfer, it seems plausible enough to speculate that "selfish genes" had ample opportunity, especially when combined with deception and dominance, to propagate (i.e., this propensity was not eliminated before an individual sexually reproduced) and perpetuate themselves through time. Interestingly, the same phenomenom could also help to explain tribalistic distrust of the non-group. Over time, suspicion and hostility to "non-kind" could easily have proved to be advantageous for survival because those who viewed non-kind with a jaundiced eye were more likely to have survived and propagated these genetic propensities.

Second, the authors comment that reciprocal altruism is a misnomer (reciprocity provides mutual benefit whereas altruism provides a net loss without a benefit). While this suggests that altruism is not self-interested, it can be argued that altruism, like love and compassion, is not inconsistant with the selfish-gene theory. Not all or even most acts of altruism result in death before reproduction. If through random genetic factors altruistic traits arise and strengthen the group then altruism can also be seen to provide benefits for the individuals within the group (i.e., it's in the individual's interest to remain in good standing with the group).

Third, while the authors do a good job clarifying the various forms that reciprocity takes, they do not explain its evolutionary logic. If self-interesed seeking is our primary motivation, then reciprocity is the only way collectives of self-interested individuals can survive together. Reciprocity is a balancing principle between self and other so that each may derive benefit. Evolution may have ended up with this implicit principle because it is the only way collective self-seeking could have occurred throughout evolutionary time without destroying group cohesion. In ethical theory, such as the various formulations of the golden rule, that principle is then abstracted from nature to become a conscious principle that prospectively guides action and, as fairness, forms the essence of justice.

Fourth, in an almost incidental way, the authors state that "Pain is one of the six so-called basic emotions, the others being pleasure, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust." Such a sweeping statement is yet another indication that emotion theory is fairly incoherent. As an alternative, it could be that need/don't need are the basic emotions that result in action/reaction, with pain being need (a la Schopenhauer) and the satisfaction of need being pleasure. The authors go on to say that "Shame is one of the so-called social emotions of which the others are love, guilt, embarrassment, pride, envy, and jealousy." Here again, what is the basis for classifying social emotions this way? Envy seems to be more the product of self-orientation and jealousy seems to be more related to sexual possivssivenss than either is to what is involved with group cohesion. The authors also quote Damasio to say that emotion is a somatic marker that "'focuses attention on the negative outcome to which a given action may lead'" that prompts corrective action, and then uses shame and guilt to illustrate this dynamic. While shame and guilt work here, it is hard to understand how the somatic markers of pleasure and love, which the authors also characterize as emotions, might involve "negative outcomes." Again, as an alternative perspective, if we need to be part of a group (and need not to be excluded), love, shame, guilt, embarassment and so forth all contribute to group cohesion as social emotions, and the satisfaction of the need to be part of the group brings pleasure.

[Managing my virtual footprint · Rating 2 out of 5]

Main Ideas:
Humans are naturally cooperative. The best explanation for this cooperation is the presence of "social preferences" (the natural inclination to feel pleasure from cooperation, the desire to punish free-riders and shame from defecting).

Cooperation spreads evolutionarily (genetically or culturally) by providing groups with comparative advantages.

History of theories of gene-culture coevolution (page 14)

Genetic basis for cooperation (if they exists) will not have a one-to-one mapping.

Punishment of defectors sustains cooperation (interestingly, so does face-to-face interaction, even without punishment). In hunter0gatherer societies, punishment is decided by consensus.

In-group favoritism may be due to the expectation of reciprocity, not because of an inherent love for other group members.

"the evidence available to date suggests that the brain processes the punishment of defectors and the achievement of mutual cooperation much as it processes other pleasurable behaviors. If this view is correct, altruistic cooperation and the altruistic punishment of defectors need not be explained by constraints on behavior but rather by their status as objectives, pursued by reward-seeking individuals and thus an aspect of individual preferences."

The conception of man as evolutionarily designed to be selfish was never based on any empirical data, but an abstract, highly problematic extrapolation from evolutionary theory.

Hamilton's rule for the evolutionary success of altruism (kin-based altruism). Page 48
This model does not fit empirical data at all for humans and most animals. Immigration (very common in primates) also undermines the development of this form of altruism. (extra genetic proof on page 95)

There is little evidence of reciprocal altruism in non-human animals, because of their tendency to heavily discount future benefits and the limits to their cognition and systems of interaction. Reciprocal altruism plays a minor (if any) role in human interactions. (extra genetic proof on page 95)

Due to the importance of reputation, institutions that make information public (e.g. communal eating, judicial systems) will be evolutionarily favored.

Warfare (or major climatic disasters) may have exerted the selection pressure necessary for the evolutionary development of altruism.

"Across a range of biological entities, from multi-cellular organisms to groups of ancestral humans, evolutionary processes are strongly influenced by reproductive leveling because it suppresses competition and reduces differences in behavior or other phenotypic variance within entities." (reproductive leveling: A set of rules that limits the rate of reproduction of the most successful members to the benefit of less successful ones)
Reproductive leveling allows for group selection (e.g. a whole organism instead of individual cells, a whole tribe instead of a single person).

Models seem to indicate that altruism and parochialism are not fitness-maximizing on their own, which means they probably evolved together from the same proximal cause (genetic or cultural). Experiments with oxytocin (which heightens both attributes) seem to confirm that.

Systems of information sharing are necessary for the development of the institution of punishment.

IMPORTANT: altruism may have hitchhiked from the ability to learn (i.e. docility).

"shame, guilt, and other social emotions may function like pain, in providing personally beneficial guides". These social emotions also serve the role of modulating the tendency to discount for the future.

Although large-game hunting is a very important driver for altruism, both probably evolved in tandem.

People in explicit institution operate by them, but the lack of institutions leads to fall back on a basic morality, not a Hobbesian state of nature.

Problems:

Inter-deme competition is deemed crucial in the evolutionary development of altruism, but other authors argue that current archeological and ethnographical evidence favors the need for cooperation in order to survive harsh environments as a better selection pressure.

As mentioned by the authors on page 17, "an explanation of the evolution of human cooperation must hinge on the empirical evidence. The question is not “Which model works?” They all work, if mathematical coherence is the bar". They then proceed to spend 6 chapters going over the minutiae of all the models considered throughout history. Although there is a lot of comment on ethnographic and archeological evidence and how they affect our evaluation of the models, it always comes late in the chapter, after spending pages upon pages explaining the models. This is an amazing academic endeavor, but a pretty futile one in my opinion.

Structure and writing:
This book is the epitome of academic writing in many ways, both good and bad. The subject is extremely interesting and the authors approach is thorough and coherent. At the same time, the book is a mix of incredibly interesting paragraphs with pages of equations to back them up. I highly recommend a book summary of the book, but only read it if you want to replicate their results.

[Mark Plutowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about many things, but I was most interested in the lessons it has regarding (a) cooperative games, (b) how people behave in small teamwork settings, and (c) what it can teach us about decentralized cooperation.

This ambitious book covers many areas including policy, society, economics, game theory, sociology, neurobiology, evolution, and group dynamics, just to name a few.

In cooperative games it is possible to make a binding agreement. In non-cooperative games it is not (directly) possible to cooperate through agreements or enforcement. Cooperation is possible but is achieved only by players playing rational strategies based on self-interest, only. Much of the book is devoted to comparing and contrasting these two models.

What makes it possible to bind agreements is some mechanism outside the game that enforces the agreement, such as being enforced by a third party. Alternatively the group may abide by a code of conduct that is respected by each participant. This could be achieved by each group member following their own “conscience.” Where that conscience comes from is a key theme of the book. Further, some members of the group may take it on themselves to enforce the code in ways ranging from expressing indignation, to gossip, on to increasingly shall we say "stricter" forms of punishment.

The book devotes a great deal of text demonstrating how in real life, cooperative game theory does a better job than non-cooperative game theory at predicting how human players will behave in typical games that are studied in game theory. Several of these games have problematic scenarios, apparent paradoxes, or types of information unraveling where (assuming that everyone is a self-regarding strategic player) leads to a worse (and sometimes even the worst) outcome for all players. These are known as game theory dilemmas. Many of the key results in classical economics rely upon every player being a perfectly rational, omniscient, and strategic player. Many apparent paradoxes arise where classical game theory is not just unwieldy but gives a worse outcome than what we would expect to be the case when played in real life by human players.

A key theme of the book is that a social norm is readily modeled as a "correlating device", a key component of cooperative game theory. If so, then social norms can be modeled using cooperative game theory. Social norms are an important organizing principle in groups of people; therefore, cooperative game theory is suitable for modeling group behavior.

Why this matters (to me) :

Correlated equilibria are computationally less expensive to find than the more well-known and much celebrated Nash equilibrium that dominate non-cooperative game theory. The book demonstrates many ways that cooperative games in human groups are decentralized using social norms and social emotions.

If you're interested in the intersection of behavioral economics, evolutionary game theory, sociology, and teamwork dynamics, you should read this book.

A more verbose expounding of my own opinions regarding the book can be found here:
https://medium.com/the-internationali...

[Per Kraulis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis bring together a wide range of evidence in their discussion on the origin and nature of human cooperation and society. Humans are cooperative, not only for mutual gain, but also altruistically. We care for one another. This entails not only the welfare of each other, but also in the upholding of norms that are part of the particular culture we live in. How did the peculiar behavior evolve?

The most common explanations invoke kin and reciprocity. Kin relationships can and do underlie altruistic behavior among many species. Reciprocity is rare among animals, but could in principle be invoked for some types of altruism. But Bowles and Gintis conclude that these do not sufficiently explain human cooperative behavior. Social preferences such as cooperating with unrelated people even in cases when reciprocity is unlikely, and the propensity to punish free-riders and cheats even when doing so is costly, require other explanations.

The discussion is exhaustive, and in parts exhausting. The authors recapitulate very technical treatments of models and simulations, primarily relating to evolutionary theory and game theory approaches to cooperation. However, the reason is that they wish to show that the effects of kin and reciprocity cannot quantitatively account for the full extent of human cooperation. It is one thing to argue the qualitative effects, but another to show that the numbers add up. Bowles and Gintis goes through the formulae and numbers in detail, which is necessary, but heavy going for an amateur.

The authors argue that more is required to explain the evolution of human cooperation. Their answer is the co-evolution of institutions and group-mindedness, where culture and group competition act as critical factors. The driving force was the between-group competition that operated during Homo sapiens early evolution. This included the survival (or not) of groups of people in the harsh environment by inventing and maintaining the appropriate tools (in a wide sense) to deal with the challenges. It also included the inter-group competition and conflicts that could determine which one survived and which not.

Bowles and Gintis write that the "individual motives and group-level institutions that account for cooperation among humans include not only the most elevated, including a concern for others, fair-mindedness, and democratic accountability of leaders, but also the most wicked, such as vengeance, racism. religious bigotry and hostility towards outsiders." The ability to be good as well as evil has been our blessing and curse since our species evolved. It is our heritage.

[Heather Browning · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think there were some good ideas here, but they were not well packaged. I found myself constantly confused throughout as to what work particular sections were supposed to be doing, as well as what was even being said (I'm not a mathematician, and there was just so much formal modelling). I'm not even sure there was much particularly new here - the underlying ideas regarding potential selective advantages for altruism seem fairly common, so perhaps it was only the models which were doing the new work. Probably a useful book for those in the field, but not an easy read for others.

[Bart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many assumptions to be compelling. Too much math to be readable.

[Ragdoll Metaphysics · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative enough I suppose - when one peels back the layers of the anthropological experiments and equations I have to say much of this amounts to truisms. Much time is spent, for example, deriving classic formulas in evolutionary biology like the price equation and kin selection such formalisms more or less represent however arguments as straightforward as people are kinder to those within their families. There is innovation here, of course, Bowles and Gintis (RIP) are legends for a reason and they move the ball forward on the study of strong reciprocity - an important task as I know I personally bristle at the notion altruism is entirely downstream selfishness. And to be fair some results that we now deem intuitive weren’t necessarily seen as so prior to conducting the experiments. All in all I enjoyed it but whether or not making Tanzanian villagers playing the dictator game or what have you closes the book on the issues they discuss I think is an open question.

[Dan Gibbons · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it is quite mathematical and thus partly inaccessible to the lay reader (for whom I would recommend The Company of Strangers, which treads much of the same ground in a more accessible format), this book is an incredibly important work. The central thesis is twofold: that humans have social preferences as well as self-regarding ones (including punishing defectors even when this lowers their own payoff, maintaining reputation even in one-shot games and parochial attitudes to in-group members) and that human altruism evolved as a survival tool for the more violent pre-agricultural period. It is a fascinating book with broader consequences for how we perceive altruism (it helps to show the clear limits to the Folk Theorem, economic signalling and other explanations for altruistic endeavours).

[Jukka Aakula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread the book after 8 years.

I think this is the most realistic picture of "how the human species developed into an ultrasocial species with social preferences (not only self-regarding ones)". But not only that - it also analyzes many economic and social issues like why incomplete contacts - e.g. between employee and employer - work. Bowles has studied not only economics and mathematics. He also knows evolutionary science and anthropology deeply - and makes a well-reasoned conclusion on how everything happened and what kind of economic agent we are.

An excellent book on the alternative model - more in line with the Homo Economicus idea - is "the Calculus of Selfishness" by Karl Siegmund https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1....

The book is not an easy one.