Cooperation and the Evolution of Social Living: Moving Beyond the Constraints and Implications of Misleading Dogma: Introduction Part II

Abstract

The chapters in this section offer fascinating insights into the social behavior and social organization of various primates. They emphasize the importance of long-term fieldwork on identified individuals for learning about the evolution and ecology of social behavior. As such, these essays are extremely valuable not only because they review current information but also because they go beyond mere paradigm and often lazy-thinking about the factors that influence group-living in free-ranging animals. To wit, and in the spirit of the other chapters in this forward-looking and very important book, the authors show that cooperation even among non-kin is very important in structuring the social organization of different species living in different environments. They emphasize that cooperation has not merely evolved to reduce aggression or as a reaction to competition but serves a significant, perhaps a leading role, in the evolution of social behavior and social organization. To simply put it, cooperation is normal behavior.

“Evolution has produced a mind that evolves toward an appreciation of the vastness of our collective design, and emotions that enable us to enact these loftier notions. We are wired for good.” (Dacher Keltner, 2009. p. 269)