|
 Building
a home philosophy library
The
twenty-fifth in a series of articles advising on how to build your
own home philosophy library.
No.
25 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
Richard
Dawkins's The Selfish Gene is the kind of book that changes the
way that people see the world. It articulates a gene's-eye view
of evolution in which all organisms, human beings included, are
"survival machines" that have been "blindly programmed"
in order to preserve their genes. All existing organisms have been
built according to the instructions of successful genes; that is,
genes whose replicas in previous generations have managed to get
themselves copied.
Dawkins
shows how the whole gamut of behaviours exhibited by living creatures
can be analysed and understood in terms of selfish gene theory.
For example, if an animal displays altruistic behaviour - as, for
instance, many small birds do when they alert their flocks to the
presence of a predator by means of an "alarm-call" - it
is likely that it has been programmed to do so by genes that increase
their own welfare by means of such behaviour.
At
the level of genes things are competitive. All long-lived genes
are "selfish", concerned only with their own survival,
and the world is full of genes that have successfully looked after
their own interests. But the message of the book is not that the
behaviour of individual organisms will necessarily be self-interested.
Selfish genes can be served via a myriad of different behaviours
- of which selfishness is only one possibility. And for human beings
there is even less reason to believe that we are condemned to a
life of Hobbesian conflict, for we alone "can rebel against
the tyranny of the selfish replicators".
The
Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (Oxford University Press) £8.99/$13.95
A
new book will be featured early February 2003.
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