The sociobiology of war

Abstract

Sociobiology is a recent outgrowth of ethology, the discipline concerned specifically with the study of animal behaviour. Its primary interest lies in the study of the evolution of behaviour. As such, it emphasizes a ‘gene's eye view’ of life that has often been misinterpreted as implying genetic determinism. Its primary concern, however, lies in the evolutionary consequences of behaviour and not with the developmental processes that underlie its ontogeny. Culture forms a key component of the human evolutionary strategy, so it can be studied quite legitimately from a sociobiological point of view. Sociobiology suggests that there is an inherent tension between the self‐interest of individuals and their willingness to conform to the wider interests of the society in which they live. While aggression (including organized war) can be viewed as a strategy that is often successful in ensuring a particular group's long‐term security, nonetheless the extent to which the group's members will be willing to sustain the often high personal costs of aggression is limited by their own self‐interest.

Key Words:

• Ethology
• Sociobiology
• Genes
• Aggression
• Society