The red-beard evolutionary explanation of human sociality

Vaios Koliofotis

doi:10.1007/s40656-021-00471-x

Abstract

Recent evolutionary studies on cooperation devote specific attention to non-verbal expressions of emotions. In this paper, I examine Robert Frank’s popular attempt to explain emotions, non-verbal markers and social behaviours. Following this line of work, I focus on the green-beard explanation of social behaviours. In response to the criticisms raised against this controversial ultimate explanation, based on resources found in Frank’s work, I propose an alternative red-beard explanation of human sociality. The red-beard explanation explains the emergence and evolution of emotions, a proximate cause, rather than patterns of behaviour. In contrast to simple evolutionary models that invoke a green-beard mechanism, I demonstrate that the red-beard explanation can be evolutionary stable. Social emotions are a common cause of a social behaviour and a phenotypic marker and therefore cooperative behaviour cannot be suppressed without also changing the marker.

Highlights

Emotion-based communication is a key feature of our daily life, with human interactions being replete with many forms of verbal and non-verbal emotional expressions
Social emotions are a common cause of a social behaviour and a phenotypic marker and cooperative behaviour cannot be suppressed without changing the marker
A red-beard explanation is could be stable because a mutation will change both the marker and the social behaviour. This brief examination of Robert Frank’s work has been, I think, adequate to establish the following: There are good reasons to focus on the evolution proximate causes since they often make an important difference in the stability or

Summary

Introduction

Emotion-based communication is a key feature of our daily life, with human interactions being replete with many forms of verbal and non-verbal emotional expressions. Philosophical research in evolutionary ethics often relies on Robert Frank’s older theorizing on social emotions like love, anger, sympathy or jealousy and social behaviours (e.g. Heath & Rioux, 2018; James, 2011; Joyce, 2006). Following this line of work, I discuss recent attempts to explain the evolution of emotional markers and social behaviours. In the red-beard explanation there a causal link between human emotions, social behaviour and phenotypic markers and this makes a substantial difference in the way one addresses the stability problem.

The inclusive fitness analysis of human sociality

Robert Frank’s evolutionary model and social behaviours

The red‐beard evolutionary explanation and stability

Conclusion