The Moral Animal by Robert Wright

Part 1: Sex, romance, and love

Chapter 2: Male and Female

• Due to reproductive organ asymmetries, it’s in the male’s advantage to pretend to be highly fit, and in the female’s advantage to spot false advertising
• Females of most species are coy, somewhat resistant to mating with males, whereas men are more liberal with sexual partners. Coyness is rewarding in the Darwinian sense, because the males that surpass that resistance, either verbally or physically, are more likely to have more fit offspring

  Chapter 3: Men and Women

• Flowers and other tokens of affection are more prized by women as it signals generosity, trustworthiness, and most importantly an enduring commitment
• High male parental investment has made males evolve to compete for scarce female eggs, but females have also evolved to compete for scarce male investment
• 85% (~900/1100) societies around the world have been polygamous—that is, they have permitted men to have multiple wives. The majority of men, however, were likely monogamous as they couldn’t afford multiple wives, but the high-status males are allowed to if they can provide for the families

  Chapter 4: The marriage market

• Marriage favours lower class men. Women, who would otherwise marry up the hierarchy and split resources of a high-status male with other women, are forced to stick with a male mate at a similar spot in the hierarchy
• Institutionalized marriage thus doesn’t serve women near the bottom of the hierarchy. They may have to stay with a bum rather than obtain resources from a well-off man. Low status males in this case may have more to benefit from marriage
• Without institutionalized marriage, many low status males will be alone, upset, and likely become violent. Married men are less likely to commit crime—this could be because men who wouldn’t commit crime in the first place tend to get married, but marriage also settles the man down
• Western culture now has a serial monogamous nature, where divorce is prevalent. This leaves children without their natural parents, and step-parents often care little for step-children, hindering development and lowering the quality of guidance for children from broken families
• Unstratification of social status could help curb the decrease in monogamy; if resources are allocated more equally, women are less likely to have their eye on men up the echelon, as the echelon will be more balanced. Political and social inequality leads to allocation of multiple women to a high-status man, and more upset, low status males as a result

  Chapter 6: The Darwin plan for marital bliss

• Male sexual fantasies tend to be mostly visual in nature, whereas females tend to include tender touching, soft murmurs, and other hints of future investment
• Some approach divorce with the mindset that they married the “wrong” person and next time they’ll get it right, but divorce statistics say otherwise. “The triumph of hope over experience”
• How moral codes arise: people tend to pass moral judgements that help move their genes to the next generation. Thus, a moral code is a compromise among competing spheres of self-interest, each acting to mold the code to its own ends

  Part 2: Social cement

  Chapter 7: Families

• Some parent-offspring conflict arises since children share 50% of genes with siblings, so put simply its in their best interest to favour themselves at 2-to-1 odds than their siblings. Whereas parents share genes equally with all offspring, so it could be in their best interest to treat each child equally. These broad differences in self interest could be the source of some child-parent conflict
• Parents may have reasons to prefer some offspring over others, a pretty daughter in a poor family likely has a better chance of moving up socioeconomically than a handsome boy, whereas in an already rich family a man is more likely to maintain the resources and attract an attractive female, converting those resources into genetic proliferation
• Studies on rats have shown that mothers starved of resources are more likely to provide milk to daughters, and wean off sons
• In the middle-east/Asia as well as medieval Europe, infanticide of females was most common upon upper class families
• In a study done in America, it was found that sons of high-class families were more likely to be breast fed, and less likely in low class families, i.e., breast-feeding frequency of boys changed with socio-economic status. Women who had a female child in low-class families were more likely to wait to have another child than if they had first had a male. The opposite trend was found for high class families
• Magnitude of grief of a parent from a lost child seems to correlate near perfectly with fertility metrics of hunter-gatherer societies. That is, parents tend to grieve more for a child that is closer to their peak fertility potential. Grievance for an adolescent will be much stronger than that of an infant or older relative
• First born siblings tend to be less exceptional. Studies of academics and political greats are found to rarely be first born amongst their siblings. Younger siblings tend to have to compete with older siblings for parental affection or attention, and the older sibling has had more time to develop a relationship with the parent, and likely wins favour through sacrifice of taking care of younger siblings. Thus, the younger sibling seeks another niche, say excellence in school, to gain parental favor

  Chapter 9: Friends

• In game theory, the TIT FOR TAT strategy wins out. Cooperate on the first go, and match the other player’s move from there on
• If everyone at the start doesn’t cooperate, the TIT FOR TAT strategy doesn’t work. It’s likely cooperation started out due to kin-selection and gradually spread out, allowing TIT FOR TAT to dominate, and thus society to grow
• Reciprocal altruism thus likely evolved selfishly, since unlike with kin-selection where genes are shared, altruism with outside-kin is likely just an optimal strategy for personal benefit—everybody wins. It also isn’t a surprise that betrayals are common as well, if people can cheat without repercussion, they will. Gossip and punishment deter this behaviour.

  Chapter 10: Darwin’s conscience

• In the Victorian environment, in which there were small quaint towns, it paid to be good, act with integrity, and be altruistic, as the towns were small, and it was the optimal strategy for small groups
• However, in todays large cities, where nobody really knows anybody, it can pay to be dishonest and to be a cheat, hence the societal shift in norms from the Victorian times from having a strong “character” to having a nice “personality”
• Those who lack a secure environment when growing up, either without parents to instill values of integrity and kindness, or in a disparate environment where these values aren’t necessary, often grow up to be criminals. They are generally not evil people, just products of their environment

  Part 3: Social strife

  Chapter 12: Social Status

• In the Ache, though skillful hunters share their food with the tribe, they in turn enjoy more extramarital affairs, have more illegitimate children, and their children get special treatment
• As more and more societies are re-evaluated in a Darwinian light, it becomes doubtful that any truly egalitarian society has ever existed
• In a study, those given artificially low test scores to lower self esteem, were more likely to subsequently cheat in a game of cards. Another study found that people with lower serotonin levels are more likely to commit impulsive crimes
• The common stereotype of a wife complaining that a husband can’t bring himself to admit he’s wrong may be because males who too readily sought reconciliation after a fight, or needlessly submitted to others, saw their status drop and thus their inclusive fitness
  • Women fall prey to this as well, but if folk wisdom can be trusted, the average woman is less reluctant than the average man—which makes sense as the fitness of females depend less on status maintenance than does males
• The ultimate aim for politicians is status, and thus they will say things that appeal to the group of voters most likely to get them into power or keep them there

  Chapter 13: Deception and self-deception

• “The best liar is the one who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.” Lies that are slight, and hard to discredit, are more difficult to get tangled up in, making them easy to hide behind
• It may be in the genetic interest of someone at the low rungs of the status hierarchy to display their low status, as to advertise that they aren’t a threat to those above them. This is one possible explanation for individuals with low self-esteem
• We could have a built-in tendency to refrain from bestowing status enhancement benefits on people whose status threatens our own. Darwin would often acknowledge minor researchers whose empirical observations aided him, but not those who’s ideas had influenced his thought (i.e., competitors near-above him in the status hierarchy)
• When in a negotiation, say when buying a car, the first person to make a voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice is that who governs the negotiation. If a dealer believes you’re walking away for good, he’ll cave. If the dealer says he can’t accept less than X and appears as if his pride wouldn’t let him go lower, then he wins.
• Studies show that when shown plausible/implausible arguments to a social issue you care about, people were most likely to remember the plausible arguments that supported their views, and implausible arguments of the opposition. The net effect drives home the correctness of our position, and the silliest of the alternative

  Chapter 14: Darwin’s triumph

• When dealing with non-kin, natural selection wants us to look like we’re being nice; the perception of altruism, not altruism itself, is what brings reciprocation. One aim of the conscience is to cultivate a reputation of generosity and decency, whatever the underlying motives of those actions are

  Part 4: Morals of the story

  Chapter 15: Darwinian (and Freudian) cynicism

• Freud’s basic insight of the mind: it is a place of conflict between animal impulses and social reality

  Chapter 16: Evolutionary ethics

• A utilitarian mandate, in which behaviour that increases people’s happiness is considered good and thus encouraged, and behaviour that leads to peoples suffering is bad and thus discouraged, is thought to lead to a better off society (via non-zero sumness)
  • In essence, considering the welfare of others as importantly as you would your own
• Utilitarianism strives for maximum societal happiness: the greatest good for the greatest number
• Some underlying reasons as to why we don’t like someone: liking them won’t elevate our social status, aid our acquisition of material or sexual resources, help our kin, or do any of the other things that during evolution had made our genes proliferate

  Chapter 17: Blaming the victim

• Determinism view: it seems likely that behaviour is determined in part due to genetic factors and environmental factors—our next move is decided by genetic interest and environmental circumstance
• Robust moral codes rest not only on norms but on “metanorms”: society disapproves not only of the code’s violators but also on those who tolerate violators by failing to disapprove

  Chapter 18: Darwin gets religion

• Like how religions preach for brotherly love, politicians self-servingly preach for nationalism, i.e., brotherly love on a national scale