Genetyczne uwarunkowania religii w ujęciu radykalnej socjobiologii

Abstract

The paper deals with epistemological and ontological presuppositions underlying sociobiology in its most radical version developed by E. O. Wilson, M. Ruse and C. J. Lumsden. Sociobiologists are far from being a uniform group with respect to their metaphysical views. Authors as remote as Hume and Plato, Hegel and Kant are referred to as authorites in philosophical comments to sociobiological analysis of human culture. Many radical interpretations proposed in the language of analogies and metaphors by Wilson were later either made more precise by his colleagues or moderated by Wilson himself. Despite the revisions introduced, an invariably controversial issue remains ontological reductionism according to which the content of human culture, religious beliefs and mathematical theorems inculded, is to be generated by biological determinants. On the level of epistemology, this reductionism implies an iconclastic theory of knowledge in which the classic notion of objective truth must be called into question, because „true” is to mean nothing but „useful in the evolutionary struggle for survival.” It is impossible to question that our knowledge can really facilitate our struggle for survival. However, the main problem remains, whether a given fact is true because it is useful for human survival or rather is it valuable in the struggle for survival because it is true. Wilson and Ruse definitely chose the first alternative when they accentuate the role of illusions in our apparently rational convictions. The illusions resulting in new mythology are to be the essential element determining the content of our religious convictions. The human species functions better because of religiously motivated principles of altruism, detachment and self-sacrifice. As a matter of fact, the principles in question are to be nothing but „a shared illusion of the human race”, the illusion „produced by our genetic code to facilitate our social coexistence”. In this approach of radical sociobiology, human beings with their trust in science and rationality are to be ruled by myth and involved in mythopeietic activities. The myth assumes different forms in political-ideological debates and in mathematical discussions on the status of the axiom of choice. Its particular expression is found in religion where the sociobiological attempt to explain the „traditional religion by the mechanistic models of evolutionary biology” is to lead „to the crux of the role of mythology in modern life”. If the essence of sociobiological epistemology is restricted to the weak thesis claiming that our knowledge has important genetic determinants, only defenders of the naive theory of the theory of tabula rasa would object to such a standpoint. If, however, the examined epistemology implies a strong determinism in which the so called objective content of our culture is to be determined by genes, its acceptance would result in denial of rational heritage of our species. To notice groundless simplifications of such a procedure, one may refer to comparative analysis and take into consideration the status of corresponding generalizations practiced in 19th century science. There is an obvious analogy between the sociobiological explanation of culture and the optimistic belief of 19th century mechanists in possibility of physical explaining the cultural phenomena. This optimism is evident in bold extrapolations of Ludwig Boltzmann who claimed categorically: „The application of mechanics is extended to the area of what is spiritual. ... Not only human memory is mechanical in nature, but also beauty and truth. .. .The origin of the concepts of truth and beauty should be explained within the context of mechanics”. When in Boltzmann’s declaration one replaces „mechanics” by „sociobiology” and „mechanical” by „genetic”, we obtain the strong sociobiological thesis which already became the object of most ardent debates. One should not, nevertheless, expect future replacement of religion by science, because science itself is only an alternative mythology in which one may enjoy the epic of cosmic evolution. The romantic and poetical component of this epic is supposed to be particularly manifest in relativistic cosmology where the theory of the big bang and the billions of years of the cosmic evolution play for contemporary man the same psychological role as the Iliad played for ancient Greeks. The privileged position of sociobiology consists thus only in the fact that this discipline „can account for the very origin of mythology by the principle of natural selection acting on the genetically evolving material structure of the human brain”. After denying our intellectual privileges, Ruse treats both mathematical theorems and religious beliefs only in pragmatic-aesthetical categories and, consistently, considers basic principles of theoretical physics, for instance Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, merely as pragmatic devices introduced to bar „the asking of awkward... questions”. It is possible to examine empirically the evolution of religious beliefs and to determine the rate of the „growing awareness” of their genetic determinants. One is thus entitled to expect that Wilson will furnish references to empirical investigations that confirm the basic thesis of the evolutionary utility of religion. Instead of the expected references to empirical data, one finds, however, only self-referential arguments in which the „growing awareness” denotes the growing awareness of the champions of sociobiology. Many objections formulated against sociobiological explanation of the genesis of religious beliefs refer only to Wilson’s version of sociobiology and Ruse’s variant of sociobiological epistemology. The presented criticism does not justify radical rejection of moderate solutions in which some sociobiological assumptions would be combined with a version of epistemological realism. The same restriction refers to theological ramifications of sociobiology. As Arthur Peacocke rightly emphasizes, the anti-theistic declarations of leading representatives of sociobiology could be easily eliminated and the very emphasis on genetic aspects of evolution would pose no problem for the Christian philosopher who conceives God as the immanent Creator acting in the stuff of the universe. Analysis of possible mutual relationships between the sociobiological and Christian philosophy of nature remains practically impossible unless basic assumptions of sociobiology are precisely formulated.