On Aug 25, 2004, at 6:05 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Rape is "favored" in some sense in that males who have little or no chance
of non-coercive copulation can procreate through rape.
This is similar to what Dan mentioned about Ghengis Khan -- but it's still disseminating genes, not actually changing a species. At best rape might be *neutral* evolutionarily -- neither favored nor selected against -- but I'm still unconvinced that it can be said to actually be selected for in the evolutionary scheme.
But there are other
natural forces that mitgate against rape. One of these evolved atributes is
guilt.
That's not evolved; the only reason one would have guilt after rape would be if one believed it to be a bad thing. Guilt is a socially-created phenomenon.
Morality is in fact an evolved feature, Self-sacrifice is an evolved
trait, It is really not sacrifice but rather either kin selection or recipricol
altruism.
The two things are discrete, though -- morality (whatever that is) is not equivalent to self-sacrifice or vice-versa. Self-sacrifice, as you suggest, can be selected for.
Both of these behaviors increase the reproductive success of a social animal. Morality is the way we keep score in recipricol altruism.
That's an interesting take on it that I hadn't considered before.
-- WthmO
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