Abstract

Sober and Wilson's enthusiasm for a multi-level perspective in evolutionary biology leads to conceptualizations which appropriate all sources of bio-altruistic traits as products of ‘group’ selection. The key biological issue is whether genes enhancing one sub-population's viability in competition with others can thrive, despite inducing some members to lose fitness in intra-group terms. The case for such selection amongst primates remains unproven. Flexible social loyalties required prior evolution of subjective self-definition and self-identification with others. But normative readiness for truly group-serving sacrifices of ego-interests presupposes entitative conceptions of in-groups as collective social units -- only made possible with the emergence of human symbolic language