Sunday, March 10, 2013

L-DOEPs, Where Art Thou?


Tyler Cowen put this under the heading of questions that are rarely asked:
So, my libertarian devotees of evolutionary psychology, you can’t have it both ways. If feminism is wrong to think we can and/or should resist the dispositions that evolution has given us, then why is it wrong for defenders of the classical liberal order to think we can and/or should resist those dispositions when it comes to our evolved instincts toward the morality of socialism? Or put the other way around: if resisting our evolved moral instincts and obeying the rules of just conduct work to generate a civilized, cooperative economic order, why should gender issues be any different?

This raised even more questions in my mind.

1) Is it true that feminism thinks we should resist evolutionary dispositions? I mean, feminism is a big complicated movement, but I can't recall any feminists saying "resist evolution." As far as feminists go, the default rhetorical position on evolution seems to be: more, please.

2) Or is he just saying that his envisioned opponents construe feminism to be a call to resist natural dispositions?

3) Are our "evolved instincts" geared toward the "morality of socialism" exactly? That seems like a giant stretch of the research. If  you tell me that the research shows some natural tendencies toward fairness and sharing and caring, especially for family and neighbors, well, I'll believe that. But that's quite different.

4) My biggest question is where are these envisioned opponents of his, these L-DOEPs, these libertarian devotees of Ev. Psych. who think that relations between the sexes need to be conducted strictly according to instinct with no regard for a civilized cooperative order? Libertarians are mostly individualists and tend to come at interpersonal relationships from a "let's make a contract" perspective, rather than a "you Jane, me Tarzan" perspective.

Personally, I'm wary of over-reliance on evolutionary psychology. I think there's something to it, in theory, but a lot of what is presented under its rubric is just a narrative about the Way We Were without solid study of What We Are.

I do think ev. psych. is a useful and necessary counterbalance to the "human nature is infinitely malleable" school of thought.

Human nature
defies erasure.

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