| Abstrakt: |
Recent developments in social science approaches to solidarity include intriguing discussions of the nature of cooperation, altruism, and free-riders. One of the most notable, and most controversial, hypotheses has come from evolutionary psychology. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby (1989; 1992) have argued for the existence of an adaptive mental module that has evolved in humans to detect free-riders. Cosmides and Tooby argue that selection pressures on early humans facilitated the development of mental abilities to detect individuals who are likely to act in a purely egoistic manner and defect from reciprocal cooperative efforts. This paper will examine the possibility of cheater detectors from three perspectives. After a general discussion of the theory of modular mind, and a specific articulation of the hypothesized existence of a cheater detection module, I will explore the question from the point of view of evolutionary theory, neurology, and sociology. These discussions converge on the conclusion that cheater detectors are both empirically unsubstantiated and theoretical unjustifiable. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
