Title: Evolutionary Psychology [The Human Condition]
Headings: Evolutionary Psychology
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Table of Contents
Evolutionary Psychology
What We Think
So it's all about Sex?
Selfishness, Violence and Prejudice
Internal Controversies
Discussion
The Development of Consciousness

Content: Evolutionary psychologists reply that: Many apparently unproductive activities either do advance our reproductive success (in ways that are either subtle or politically incorrect), or were adaptive up until recently, or can be regarded as an incidental side-effect of important adaptive behaviors, and
That we behave as though reproductive success were our intention even though this is not an intention that we are conscious of (see Intentional Opacity ). Evolutionary psychologists are particularly interested in explaining why we have the emotions and motivations that we do. Selfishness, Violence and Prejudice
Another objection to evolutionary psychology is that it paints such a bleak picture of the human condition. Why are evolutionary psychologists so interested in unpleasant behaviors such as competitiveness, selfishness, deception, self-promotion, cheating and violence? Most people are kind, decent, peaceful and law-abiding, yet evolutionary psychologists explain self-serving and violent behavior as just another strategy for reproductive success. Furthermore, evolutionary psychology has had big problems with altruism, and at time seems to say that everything we do either has some hidden selfish motive (such as favoring relatives) or is basically a mistake. The convergence of evolutionary psychology with anthropology and social psychology has resulted a tentative solution to the “problem of altruism”, but only by pushing the violence and competition up a level, so that it is now between social groups. Paradoxically, one of the clearest examples of altruistic behavior is risking death in battle to defend the community. Furthermore, evolutionary social psychology argues that humans are not only innately selfish, but also innately groupish, tending to favor whatever group we find ourselves part of.