Online research in philosophy

This paper compares human diversity with biological diversity generally. Drawing on the pluralistic perspective on biological species defended in earlier work (2002, chs. 3 and 4), I argue that there are useful parallels to be drawn between human and animal kinds, as there are between their respective sources in cultural evolution and evolution generally. This view is developed in opposition to the insistence by sociobiologists and their successors on minimizing the significance of culture. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relation between cultural difference and individual difference, and the relation of the latter to conceptions of human freedom.

A common worry about the genetic engineering of human beings is that it will reduce human genetic diversity, creating a biological monoculture that could not only increase our susceptibility to disease but also hasten the extinction of our species. Thus far, however, the evolutionary implications of human genetic modification remain largely unexplored. In this paper, I consider whether the widespread use of genetic engineering technology is likely to narrow the present range of genetic variation, and if so, whether this would in fact lead to the evolutionary harms that some authors envision. By examining the nature of biological variation and its relation to population immunity and evolvability, I show that not only will genetic engineering have a negligible impact on human genetic diversity, but also that it will be more likely to ensure rather than undermine the health and longevity of the human species.

Sexual selection theory provides interesting tools to address the evolution of human art behavior as it contains models that explain the evolution of elaborate male display traits and these traits exhibit conspicuous similarities with human art behavior. In sexual selection theory, it is recently suggested sensory exploitation hypothesis offers a valuable alternative to good genes and Fisherian runaway. Because, one, it can explain the origins of male display traits while good genes and Fisherian runaway cannot, and two, it can even explain how these traits are maintained, namely without the need of any selection on female preferences in the sexual context, thus solely by female sensory biases maintained by selection in another context. Good genes and Fisherian runaway were previously applied to model the evolution of human art and aesthetics. The above implies application of sensory exploitation to model human art could offer a valuable addition to these models. I use some of the concepts (like dual inheritance) developed by the authors of the cultural runaway hypothesis, Boyd and Richerson, to develop a model for the evolution of art based on sensory exploitation hypothesis applied to the cultural level, which I call cultural sensory exploitation hypothesis. Boyd and Richerson's model suggest human aesthetic and artistic expression evolve as a consequence of a cultural runaway process, but in my proposed model they can originate even without this process. Finally, I use this hypothesis to address the conundrum of the creative explosion, a burst of elaborate art some 50,000 years ago and the sudden emergence of cave paintings. I conclude that some evidence indicates that the creative explosion was a consequence of a change in effective population size (i.e. interacting pool of social learners), which made maintenance of innovations necessary for the production of elaborate art possible. These innovations were maintained and selected because they offered the ability to (self)exploit preexisting sensory biases through art. In this view it does not matter whether art initially served any function in human evolution as it readily evolves as a mere consequence of sensory biases. In other words I suggest that the incidental exploitability of sensory biases through art may be the most fundamental driving force behind the origin of art and that it may play an important role in its subsequent maintenance and evolution as well.

If one views humans’ creation and appreciation of art as grounded in our biological nature, it might be tempting to see art as a spandrel, as an adventitious by-product of some adaptation without adaptive significance in itself. Such a position connects art to our evolved human nature yet apparently avoids the demands of demonstrating how art behaviours enhanced the fitness of our ancestors in the Upper Paleolithic. In this paper I explore two arguments that count against the view that art is a spandrel. The first rejects the idea that the spandrel option is somehow less demanding or controversial than the alternative view according to which art is an adaptation. The second argues that if art behaviours came to us as spandrels, they would not remain so; their occurrence in the usual manner would become normative because they would come to provide honest signals of fitness.

Introduction -- Landscape and longing -- Art and human nature -- What is art? -- But they don't have our concept of art -- Art and natural selection -- The uses of fiction -- Art and human self-domestication -- Intention, forgery, dada : three aesthetic problems -- The contingency of aesthetic values -- Greatness in the arts.

Many writers claim that human kinds are significantly different from biological and natural kinds. Some suggest that humans kinds are unique because social structures are essential for the etiology of human kinds. Others argue that human cultural evolution is decidedly different from other forms of evolution. In this paper I suggest that the gulf between humans and our biological relatives is not as wide as some argue. There is a taxonomic difference between human and nonhuman organisms, but such factors as social structure and cultural evolution do not distinguish us from many other organisms.

Analogies between biological and cultural evolution may be illuminating and suggest methods to pursue in the quest for a unified science of cultural evolution. Significant progress, however, is unlikely to be made by trying to fit cultural evolution neatly into a biological evolution schema. A key element defining and differentiating cultural evolution may be the role of conscious human choices. (Published Online November 9 2006).

Denis Dutton’s The Art Instinct succeeds admirably in showing that it is possible to think about art from a biological point of view, and this is a significant achievement, given that resistance to the idea that cultural phenomena have biological underpinnings remains widespread in many academic disciplines. However, his account of the origins of our artistic impulses and the far-reaching conclusions he draws from that account are not persuasive. This article points out a number of problems: in particular, problems with Dutton’s appeal to sexual selection, with his discussion of the adaptation/by-product distinction and its significance, and with drawing normative conclusions from evolutionary hypotheses.

Art history cannot be sealed off in cultural isolation: given our innate forms of life, language, and human nature, cultural diversity is only skin deep. The identification of art by historical recursion could not be restricted to the fixed art history of one hermetically sealed cultural tradition because there is no such thing. Attempts to define artworks recursively thus lead to the absurdity that everything in the present might be art because of unknown art antecedents in earlier human cultures that we in a contemporary culture would not call art. Making the lack of a theory the theoretical point of a practice leads to chaos.

Dissanayake argues that art behaviors – which she characterizes first as patterns or syndromes of creation and response and later as rhythms and modes of mutuality – are universal, innate, old, and a source of intrinsic pleasure, these being hallmarks of biological adaptation. Art behaviors proved to enhance survival by reinforcing cooperation, interdependence, and community, and, hence, became selected for at the genetic level. Indeed, she claims that art is essential to the fullest realization of our human nature. I make three criticisms: Dissanayake’s theory cannot account adequately for differences in the aesthetic value of artworks; the connections drawn between art and reproductive success are too stretched to account for art's production, nature, and reception; indeed, art enters the picture only because it is so thinly characterized that it remains in doubt that her topic is art as we understand it.