Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA11298 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 26 May 2000 08:12:23 +0100 Message-ID: <20000526070957.79596.qmail@hotmail.com> X-Originating-IP: [62.6.117.136] From: "Paul marsden" <paulsmarsden@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Suicide - not Cui Bono but who puts up with it Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 00:09:57 PDT Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Because he's next going to ask you how drunk driving, chain smoking, and
>suicide benefit the individual.
>
>Wrong again. I only want to know how it benefits YOU! :)
One way that I think is useful to look at this is NOT as a question of
benefiting individuals, groups of even theoretical clusters of information
on genes (there is no direct feedback from behaviour to genes) - its how
evolutionary processes TOLERATE over evolutionary time such traits
For example in the case of suicide it follows from Hamilton’s Rule that
negative selection pressures would only act upon traits that had a
detrimental effect on inclusive fitness. Put differently, self-preservation
is only adaptive in cases where there is some residual capacity to promote
inclusive fitness. This means that selection would tolerate underlying
suicide-enabling structures that were contingent upon being cued in
circumstances where there was a positive or neutral effect on inclusive
fitness. Specifically, deCatanzaro, myself and others (e.g. Buss 1999,
Wright 1996) have suggested that suicide is coherent with selection under
one or more of several specific circumstances.
1. In individuals who have a direct reproductive potential (“residual
evolutionary fitness”) of zero or less than zero, i.e. those who are past
reproductive age. This is essentially an extension of the evolutionary
conceptualisation of senescence (Medawar Williams 1957) which states that
aging and death occur because of a build up of lethal or sub-lethal genes
whose nefarious effects only manifest themselves after reproductive
potential is exhausted, thereby having no effect on that potential. For
suicide this means that a contingent trait enabling suicidality but
manifesting itself only late in life would be tolerated by selection
mechanisms. Thus, from a selectionist stance, one would expect suicide to
be particularly and differentially prevalent in older age groups.
2. In individuals whose continued existence would have a negative or
neutral effect on inclusive fitness, i.e. those who have no dependent kin
(e.g. are single and/or isolated) or are a burden to kin, (e.g. the infirm
and/or elderly). More generally, the general rationale is that the
probability of suicide should increase as the possibility of promoting
welfare of kin wanes. This argument may be extended to deliberately risking
one’s life insofar long as the probability of inclusive fitness enhancement
of suicide multiplied by the relative increase in inclusive fitness is
greater than the probability of fitness loss multiplied by the relative loss
in fitness, then selection would tolerate and indeed favour suicide .
Now of course for memeticists the callenge is to gain insights into a
working hypothesis to account for *culturally* sepecified suicide
Specifically, applying this selectionist rationale we might expect the
ecology of suicide to be patterned by an increased likelihood of suicide in
the following cases:
1. In individuals who have a direct potential of reproducing the norms
that describe the culture or sub culture in which they are embedded of zero
or less than zero, i.e. those who are disenfranchised, socially isolated,
and labelled as deviants; essentially those who own no means of
sociocultural reproduction .
2. In individuals whose continued existence would have a negative or
neutral effect on inclusive sociocultural fitness, i.e. those who have no
cultural offspring, or those that are a burden to their cultural relatives
manifested perhaps in feelings of shame. The idea that the probability of
suicide should increase as the possibility of promoting the welfare of
cultural relatives wanes may be extended to risk taking behaviour that may
enhance sociocultural fitness, such as suicide attempts resulting in
increased attention and influence, or on the other hand, may result in
death. As long as the probability of inclusive cultural fitness enhancement
of death multiplied by the relative increase in inclusive fitness is greater
than the probability of fitness loss multiplied by the relative loss in
fitness, then selection would tolerate and indeed favour suicide. This
provides a social logic for self-sacrifice, such as the case of war. From
this perspective, it makes sense to risk my life for going into battle for
the sake of in-group norms as long as the probability of my death has no
nefarious consequences on the likelihood that the norms will be reproduced
(cf. du Preez 1996).
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