Term "Hyper-Cooperative" used by Richard Alexander

[Dick Mathisen]

I am trying to locate a use of the term "hyper-cooperative" by Richard D. Alexander. I recall the term being used by him in "Human Social Evolution," but I have so far been unable to locate it. Can anyone help me? Thanks!


The context, as I remember it, was a biologist looking at all the different species of animals and wondering what makes Homo Sapiens different from all the others. His answer, as I recall it, was that Homo Sapiens is extraordinarily cooperative, far beyond any other species. The only species that might be compared to Homo Sapiens are the social insects - ants, termites, bees, wasps. Therefore, Homo Sapiens might be called "hyper-cooperative." Any help is appreciated!


Dick Mathisen

[David Lahti]

Hi Dick,

Sorry for the delay. I do not think RDA has used that term "hyper-cooperative" (with or without the hyphen) in any of his published works. He does use it once in an unpublished critique of Stephen Jay Gould that he used to distribute among his students and colleagues, which I have not yet posted on the site; the relevant quote is "Childhood players can grow up to do brutal killing and nasty scheming, just as hyper-cooperative peoples who are ultimately kind and tolerant within their groups may also be the most pernicious of xenophobes." But I'm sure you're not referring to that. In his original paper in Human Social Evolution ("Religion, evolution, and the quest for global harmony") he uses the terms "hyper-competitive" and "hyper-patriotic", terms he had previously introduced in his paper "Evolution and Human Society" to describe extreme traits typical of humans. But of course these don't nail what you're looking for either-- you're looking for the flip side of human nature.

The word RDA used most often in the exact context you describe is "ultrasociality". In Human Social Evolution it appears in his 1982 paper "Biology and the moral paradoxes", the paper associated with my own introductory essay in that volume. He uses the term most extensively in his 1987 book Biology of Moral Systems-- see the section entitled "The pinnacles of ultrasociality: how they evolved". He seems to credit Don Campbell with the term, but it's not in the paper he cites for it, although it is in several other Campbell papers from at least 1980. It's actually an old word, but perhaps its modern use in evolutionary biology was initiated by Campbell, or else E. O. Wilson (to which Campbell himself seems to attribute it). I don't have the 1971 Insect Societies book so I can't easily check. Certainly, though, the opinion of all three-- Campbell, Wilson, and Alexander-- is that, just as you say, the social insects are the other group of animals that are most closely comparable to humans in the extremity of their cooperation. And for what it's worth, "hyper-cooperative" seems to me a fine word for that. Of course, RDA would be quick to remind us that we need to recognize that "hyper-competitive" evolved in lock step with that; in fact, even made hyper-cooperation possible. RDA's final unanswered question at the end of his career was whether we would ever be able to preserve the cooperation without the nasty aspects of the competitiveness.

Cheers,

David