ALBERT

All Library Books, journals and Electronic Records Telegrafenberg

Your email was sent successfully. Check your inbox.

An error occurred while sending the email. Please try again.

Proceed reservation?

Export
Filter
  • Articles  (16)
  • sociobiology
  • Springer  (16)
  • 2015-2019
  • 1990-1994  (16)
  • 1915-1919
  • Biology  (16)
  • Philosophy  (9)
  • Sociology
Collection
  • Articles  (16)
Publisher
  • Springer  (16)
Years
Year
Topic
  • Biology  (16)
  • Philosophy  (9)
  • Sociology
  • Psychology  (1)
  • 1
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Insectes sociaux 41 (1994), S. 335-338 
    ISSN: 1420-9098
    Keywords: Nestmate discrimination ; sociobiology ; Apis mellifera
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology
    Notes: Summary Discrimination of nestmates from non-nestmates has mainly been investigated in female social insects. Little is known about discrimination of males. Here we show that under natural conditions at the nest entrance, honeybee workers can discriminate nestmate drones from non-nestmate drones as effectively as they can discriminate nestmate workers from non-nestmate workers.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 2
    ISSN: 1573-3297
    Keywords: Child-rearing ; socialization ; coevolution ; sociobiology ; twin design ; Parental Bonding Instrument
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Psychology
    Notes: Abstract A large sample of adult twins (1117 pairs), who were concordant for having had children were asked to report on their child-rearing practices. A 14-item version of the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) was used to assess rearing practices of parent twins. The two factors of Care and Overprotection, commonly found in other studies, were recovered from this analysis of the PBI's parent form. Model-fitting analyses indicate that human parental behavior is under significant genetic influence. Findings further suggest that this influence is sex limited, with a higher heritability in mothers than in fathers and that it may result partly from the expression of dominant genes. For both PBI factors and both parents, the best-fitting models invariably assumed sex-limited genetic effects and unique environmental influences only. Broad heritability ranged from 19% (father overprotection) to 39% (mother care). These results are interpreted in the broader perspective of gene-culture theory.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 3
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 9 (1994), S. 75-84 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Altruism ; ethics ; ethology ; evolution ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Altruistic behavior is often regarded as sociobiology's most central theoretical problem, but is it? Altruism in biology, bioaltruism, has many meanings, which can be grouped into two categories. The first I will callcommon bioaltruism. It is primarily of ethological relevance. The second,evolutionary bioaltruism, is a special category in evolutionary respects in that it may indeed pose a problem for evolutionary theory. These categories are logically independent. Moreover, both of them are logically different from altruism in its everyday psychological or moral sense. Sociobiological examples of bioaltruistic behavior concern bioaltruism in the first sense only, so the theoretical problem ‘altruism’ is supposed to pose, is indeed nothing but a theoretical problem and the bioaltruism that actually occurs has no evolutionary relevance. Nevertheless, evolutionary theory is relevant to our understanding of the possibility of common bioaltruism, and that possibility — even though bioaltruism is conceptually different from ethical altruism — is relevant for ethicists: it sheds light on what we can ask people to do or not to do.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 4
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 8 (1993), S. 47-60 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Ethics ; morality ; naturalism ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract We propose an objective and justifiable ethics that is contingent on the truth of evolutionary theory. We do not argue for the truth of this position, which depends on the empirical question of whether moral functions form a natural class, but for its cogency and possibility. The position we propose combines the advantages of Kantian objectivity with the explanatory and motivational advantages of moral naturalism. It avoids problems with the epistemological inaccessibility of transcendent values, while avoiding the relativism or subjectivism often associated with moral naturalism. Our position emerges out of criticisms of the contemporary sociobiological views of morality found in the writings of Richard Alexander, Michael Ruse, and Robert Richards.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 5
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 8 (1993), S. 399-407 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: German anthropology ; Lysenko ; Marx ; sociobiology ; Stalin
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Sociobiology has not been well received in Eastern Europe. Reasons for this are listed and discussed. It is suggested that times are changing and that sociobiology will have more success in the future.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 6
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 77-88 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Morality ; Arthur Peacocke ; reductionism ; Michael Ruse ; science and religion ; sociobiology ; theology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Michael Ruse's writings explore what sociobiology says about morality. Further, he claims that sociobiology undermines the base for Christian morality. After responding to criticisms of Ruse, especially those of Arthur Peacocke, I lay a base for meeting his challenge.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 7
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 161-175 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Altruism ; evolution ; Prisoner's Dilemma ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract I first argue against Peter Singer's exciting thesis that the Prisoner's Dilemma explains why there could be an evolutionary advantage in making reciprocal exchanges that are ultimately motivated by genuine altruism over making such exchanges on the basis of enlightened long-term self-interest. I then show that an alternative to Singer's thesis — one that is also meant to corroborate the view that natural selection favors genuine altruism, recently defended by Gregory Kavka, fails as well. Finally, I show that even granting Singer's and Kavka's claim about the selective advantage of altruism proper, it is doubtful whether that type of claim can be used in a particular sort of sociobiological argument against psychological egoism.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 8
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 189-202 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Epigenetic rule ; ethics ; human behavioral ecology ; innate constraint ; morality ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Charles J. Lumsden and E.O. Wilson, in their writings together and individually, have proposed that human behaviors, whether moral or nonmoral, are governed by innate constraints (which they have termed “epigenetic rules”). I propose that if a genetic component of moral behavior is to be discovered, some sorting out of specifically moral from nonmoral innate constraints will be necessary. That some specifically moral innate constraits exist is evidenced by virtuous behaviors exhibited in nonhuman mammals, whose behavior is usually granted to be importantly governed by genetic factors. Propensities for such virtuous behaviors may have been passed to humans as highly conserved mammalian genes and continue to influence us. I propose that these constitute at least a “rudimentary morality” and may account in part for the moral intuitions. But other innate constraints which are nonmoral in nature interact with the specifically moral innate constraints and with culture to yield human moral decisions and actions. Any model which aims to identify the genetic component of moral behaviors or behaviors with moral import must provide not only a delineation of cultural causes but must also distinguish between those genetic causes which may have their origin in innate moral constraints from others which are fundamentally nonmoral because the critical faculty necessary to higher level human morality itself arises in part from innate constraints of a nonmoral type; i.e., the processes of inductive reasoning common to both ethics and science. Finally, humans who could bring the nonmoral evaluative capacities to bear upon whatever moral intuitions might be genetically conserved in mammalian heritage would have an advantage over similar beings who could not.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 9
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 6 (1991), S. 401-412 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Ants ; behavior ; culture ; Holism ; human ; meaning ; reduction ; sociobiology ; symbol
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Most research in the natural sciences passes through repeated cycles of a analytic reduction to the next lower level of organization, then resynthesis to the original level, then new analyticareduction, and so on. A residue of unexplained phenomena at the original level appears at first to require a “holistic” description independent of the lower level, but the residue shrinks as knowledge increases. This principle is well illustrated by recent studies from the social organization of insects, several examples of which are cited here. In theory it should also apply to human social organization. Culture is biological: meaning in culture can be approached as the outcome of mechanism-based causation, because culture stems from individual cognition, which has a biological basis. It would seem to follow that the most effective way to study culture is across all levels of organization from gene to society, passing repetitively through a cycle of reduction and synthesis in the manner of the natural sciences. Reductionistic analysis is favored by the tendency of semantic memory and culture to occur in discrete units that are arranged hierarchically.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 10
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 5 (1990), S. 149-173 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Darwinian ethics ; ethics ; evolution ; evolutionary ethics ; M. Ruse ; naturalistic fallacy ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Michael Ruse has proposed in his recent book Taking Darwin Seriously and elsewhere a new Darwinian ethics distinct from traditional evolutionary ethics, one that avoids the latter's inadequate accounts of the nature of morality and its failed attempts to provide a naturalistic justification of morality. Ruse argues for a sociobiologically based account of moral sentiments, and an evolutionary based casual explanation of their function, rejecting the possibility of ultimate ethical justification. We find that Ruse's proposal distorts, overextends and weakens both Darwinism and naturalism. So we propose an alternative Darwinian metaethics that both remedies the problems in Ruse's proposal and shows how a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness avoids the naturalistic fallacy and can provide genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive ethical claims. Thus, we propose to really take Darwin seriously.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 11
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 5 (1990), S. 401-415 
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Proximate cause ; ultimate cause ; function ; functionalism ; structuralism ; adaptation ; sociobiology ; behavioral ecology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Within evolutionary biology a distinction is frequently made between proximate and ultimate causes. One apparently plausible interpretation of this dichotomy is that proximate causes concern processes occurring during the life of an organism while ultimate causes refer to those processes (particularly natural selection) that shaped its genome. But “ultimate causes” are not sought through historical investigations of an organisms lineage. Rather, explanations referring to ultimate causes typically emerge from functional analyses. But these functional analyses do not identify causes of any kind, much less ultimate ones. So-called “ultimate explanations” are not about causes in any sense resembling those of proximate explanations. The attitude, implicit in the term “ultimate cause”, that these functional analyses are somehow superordinate to those involving “proximate causes” is unfounded. “Ultimate causes” are neither ultimate nor causes.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 12
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Human evolution 5 (1990), S. 167-176 
    ISSN: 1824-310X
    Keywords: Naturalism ; ethics ; sociobiology ; emotions ; cognitivism ; reason
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology
    Notes: Abstract Though there are good reasons for thinking that sociobiology is capable of contributing to the solution of one of the central problems of philosophical ethics, the problem of other-benefitting behaviour, philosophers have not welcomed the new discipline with open arms. This has been so for three reasons: it is said that sociobiology studies behaviour, and not its proximal causes, that sociobiology tells us about the evolutionary history of behaviour and not about its justification, and that sociobiology prescribes morally unacceptable ways of acting. I argue that the first of the objections is simply mistaken, and that when we realize this, the second loses some of its force. I also argue in favour of atwo-factor model of motivation with reason and the emotions engaged in a dialogue with each other concerning the morally relevant features of a given situation. This two-factor model helps us overcome the third objection above, namely to the morally unacceptable dictates of sociobiology, and also to weaken claims that sociobiology is committed to a lack of freedom of the will in human action. Broadly speaking, my argument suggest that the ethical framework most suited to accommodating sociobiological insights into human motivation is an Aristotelian structure.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 13
    ISSN: 1824-310X
    Keywords: Instructionism ; neural group selection ; neoteny ; neuroplasticity ; sociobiology ; ethics
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology
    Notes: Abstract The fact thatHomo sapiens have one of the longest childhoods in the animal kingdom is a most significant factor when considering the biological requirements for cultural evolution. The so-called long childhood is necessary for the intergenerational transmission of learned skills and behaviors that defined culture. It is important to distinguish between behavior motivated byinstinct and behavior that islearned as a result of having been reared in a culturally dependent environment. Our neotenic development occasions an ability to learn a variety of culturally dependent behaviors. Since we are born, quite literally, as human embryos, we must recognize that our brain undergoes the bulk of its development post-natally. It is significant that at the same time the brain develops its distinctive axon-neuron network structure, persons are learning culturally dependent accepted patterns of behavior that are related to (amongst many other things) language, altruism, aggression, rites, filial, proprieties, etc. The old reductionistic nature-nurture issue is best understood as a complex array of developmental processes in which environmental stimuli (nurture) may affect the physiological development (nature) of the brain. The early plasticity of human cognition may be, to a significant degree, shaped and physiologically constrained by environmental factors (especially in the early years of development). The presence of a diversity of environmental influences the world over suggests the possibility that a person's intolerance of foreign ethical belief systems may stem from a genuine inability to conceive of ethical relationships in a manner far removed from one's daily life and native environment. After consideration of the effects of neuroplasticity and human neotenic development, it is argued that a viable sociobiological research agenda must study not only those ethical behaviors that seem to beshared across cultures, but also those behaviors that stem from culturally distinctive attitudes that arenot shared across cultural boundaries.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 14
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Human evolution 5 (1990), S. 99-106 
    ISSN: 1824-310X
    Keywords: evolution ; sociobiology ; ethics
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology
    Notes: Abstract In this paper I argue that Darwinian evolutionary theory gives us the key to an adeguate understanding of morality. Althougt in the past the naturalistic fallacy has been thought to be a bar to the application of evolution to ethics I suggest that properly viewed evolutionary ethics can avoid this problems.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 15
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Human evolution 5 (1990), S. 107-118 
    ISSN: 1824-310X
    Keywords: Ethics ; meta-ethics ; sociobiology ; evolution ; justification ; naturalism ; human nature ; morality
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology
    Notes: Abstract Evolutionary biology is supposed to be relevant to ethics by a number of authors. Some of them believe that it may provide and justify basic moral values. Others argue that evolutionary biology is relevant only in a negative way. They assume that it reveals the illusory nature of any attempt to justify basic moral values. In this paper one example of either approach is criticized. An analysis of examples can hardly offer sufficient grounds for a general conclusion. Nevertheless I believe that evolutionary theory is of little help when we deal with the most basic ethical questions. Three themes which are often though to provide a link between evolutionary biology and (meta)ethics — altruism, sociality and human nature — do not in fact establish that link.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 16
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Springer
    Human evolution 5 (1990), S. 153-166 
    ISSN: 1824-310X
    Keywords: Culture ; sociobiology ; theory of games ; system ; altruism ; reliability ; moral norms ; educability
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology
    Notes: Abstract It is claimed that a social group of unrelated individuals specialized in performing different tasks is specifically human and has no analogy in the animal kingdom. Among animals only some insects of two orders, Isoptera (termites) and Hymenoptera (wasps, bees and ants) live in social groups of individuals performing specialized tasks, but those, individuals are related. For all social groups of individuals specialized in tasks, average fitness drops close to nil when the group disintegrates. It is not, however, a continuous decrease of fitness leading to smaller but still high values when the group disintegrates but rather a discrete switch of the average fitness; from a high value to close to nil. In groups consisting of related individuals maximization of inclusive fitness constitutes a mechanism sufficient to support the existence of such groups. Only in the case of the human (unrelated) group, to maintain the group and high fitness of its individuals, a non-reciprocal altruistic approach of an individual had to be displayed to all members of the group (regardless of relatedness). Since strategies resulting from the altruistic approach contradicted the genetically programmed strategies, moral codes were introduced to suppress the latter. This non-reciprocal altruism to any member of the group is in fact equivalent to the reciprocal “altruism” to an abstract entity called system group and is unique to the human. Altruism is considered here as a component of the meta-trait of culture.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
Close ⊗
This website uses cookies and the analysis tool Matomo. More information can be found here...