Spreading order: religion, cooperative niche construction, and risky coordination problems
(2012) Biology and Philosophy, Vol. 27, No. 1. 1-27pp.
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It is easy to take human cooperation for granted until it breaks down. At an interpersonal level, once trust is lost, trust is hard to regain. Threats to cooperative confidence rise exponentially as social worlds grow larger. Strategies for restoring trust that are available to familiar partners – such as compensation, sincere contrition, and a track record of good behaviour – are not typically available to anonymous partners, because such strategies demand knowledge of personal reputations. Formal and experimental models agree that anonymous cooperation is terrifically fragile. Remarkably, however, human social worlds have extended to unfamiliar scales, yet without (straightforwardly) relying on personal reputations. What prevents the unravelling of the cooperative order in large societies?
This article defends an evolutionary model for large-scale cooperation in which religious cognition and cultures have played a vital, assuring role. The model explains puzzling properties of religious cognition and cultures -- such as their highly affective qualities and commitments to supernormal orders -- as systems that co-evolved to address the evolution of confidence among unfamiliar partners. The model explains how the resolution of two evolutionary puzzles – that of human ultra-sociality, and that of human religiosity – may be related within a common evolutionary framework. The model extends previous research on religious cooperation (such as the costly signalling model described below) by showing how religious cooperation may extend to partners who cannot personally signal their virtues.
This article defends an evolutionary model for large-scale cooperation in which religious cognition and cultures have played a vital, assuring role. The model explains puzzling properties of religious cognition and cultures -- such as their highly affective qualities and commitments to supernormal orders -- as systems that co-evolved to address the evolution of confidence among unfamiliar partners. The model explains how the resolution of two evolutionary puzzles – that of human ultra-sociality, and that of human religiosity – may be related within a common evolutionary framework. The model extends previous research on religious cooperation (such as the costly signalling model described below) by showing how religious cooperation may extend to partners who cannot personally signal their virtues.
