A Darwinian Left

A Darwinian Left
Author(s)	Peter Singer
Publisher	Yale University Press
Publication date	2000
Pages	70
ISBN	0-300-08323-8
OCLC Number	42780773

A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation is a 2000 book by Peter Singer (Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-08323-8), which argues that the view of human nature provided by evolution (e.g., evolutionary psychology) is compatible with and should be incorporated into the ideological framework of the Left.

Singer's argument is that the Left will be better able to achieve its social and economic goals if it incorporates the more accurate view of human nature provided by evolution: "To be blind to the facts about human nature is to risk disaster". For example, Singer argues that the Left's view of human nature as highly malleable, which he identifies with Marxism and the standard social science model, is incorrect.

Singer argues that evolutionary psychology suggests that humans naturally tend to be self-interested. He further argues that the evidence that selfish tendencies are natural must not be taken as evidence that selfishness is right. He concludes that game theory (the mathematical study of strategy) and experiments in psychology offer hope that self-interested people will make short-term sacrifices for the good of others, if society provides the right conditions. Essentially Singer claims that although humans possess selfish, competitive tendencies naturally, they have a substantial capacity for cooperation that has also been selected for during human evolution.

External links

• A Darwinian Left for Today and Beyond Peter Singer Excerpted from A Darwinian Left, pp. 60-63.
• A Darwinian Left. By Leigh Van Valen. Scientific American.
• A Darwinian Left. Anonymous reviewer. The Complete Review.