Is cultural evolution needed to explain altruistic selfsacrifice? Some contend that cultural traits (e.g. beliefs, behaviors, and for some “memes”) replicate according to selection processes that have “floated free” from biology. One test case is the example of suicide kamikaze attacks in wartime Japan. Standard biological mechanisms—such as reciprocal altruism and kin selection—might not seem to apply here: The suicide pilots did not act on the expectation that others would reciprocate, and they were supposedly sacrificing themselves for country and emperor, not close relatives. Yet an examination of both the historical record and the demands of evolutionary theory suggest the kamikaze phenomenon does not cry out for explanation in terms of a special non-biological selection process. This weakens the case for cultural evolution, and has interesting implications for our understanding of altruistic self-sacrifice.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Seok-Won Lee;
(2020)
Japan’s Pan-Asian Empire: Wartime Intellectuals and the Korea Question, 1931–1945
(/isis/citation/CBB330563116/)
Article
Angner, Erik;
(2002)
The History of Hayek's Theory of Cultural Evolution
(/isis/citation/CBB000770680/)
Article
Jeffrey S. Adler;
(2021)
“I’m at My Rope’s End”: Suicide in New Orleans, 1920–1940
(/isis/citation/CBB997404519/)
Article
Christine Clavien;
Michel Chapuisat;
(2016)
The evolution of utility functions and psychological altruism
(/isis/citation/CBB212304865/)
Chapter
Segerstrale, Ullica;
(2008)
Against the Grain: The Science and Life of William D. Hamilton
(/isis/citation/CBB000960103/)
Article
Lisboa, Karen Macknow;
(2013)
Insalubridade, doenças e imigração: visões alemãs sobre o Brasil
(/isis/citation/CBB001420635/)
Article
Jean-Baptiste Grodwohl;
(2017)
Modeling Social Evolution, 1964–1973: Inclusive Fitness Meets Population Structure
(/isis/citation/CBB740085092/)
Article
Armin W. Schulz;
(2016)
Altruism, egoism, or neither: A cognitive-efficiency-based evolutionary biological perspective on helping behavior
(/isis/citation/CBB460292144/)
Book
Kim, Hoi-Eun;
(2014)
Doctors of Empire: Medical and Cultural Encounters between Imperial Germany and Meiji Japan
(/isis/citation/CBB001422439/)
Article
McDonald, Kate;
(January 2015)
Asymmetrical Integration: Lessons from a Railway Empire
(/isis/citation/CBB001550723/)
Article
Kang, Jin-Yeon;
(2015)
Forging the Colonial State as an Arbiter of Internal Boundaries: Japanese Colonial Rule and the Agrarian Relational Shift in Korea
(/isis/citation/CBB001422237/)
Book
Yang, Daqing;
(2010)
Technology of Empire: Telecommunications and Japanese Expansion in Asia, 1883--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001250900/)
Article
Tsukahara, Togo;
(2007)
Introduction to Feature Issue: Colonial Science in Former Japanese Imperial Universities
(/isis/citation/CBB000760592/)
Book
Steven K. Bailey;
(2019)
Bold Venture: The American Bombing of Japanese-Occupied Hong Kong, 1942–1945
(/isis/citation/CBB521114387/)
Article
Ito, Kenji;
(2002)
Values of “Pure Science”: Nishina Yoshio's Wartime Discourse between Nationalism and Physics, 1940-1945
(/isis/citation/CBB000340907/)
Thesis
Sakura Marcelle Christmas;
(2016)
The Cartographic Steppe: Mapping Environment and Ethnicity in Japan's Imperial Borderlands
(/isis/citation/CBB827878446/)
Thesis
Wei-ti Chen;
(2016)
Cosmopolitan Medicine Nationalized: The Making of Japanese State-Empire and Overseas Physicians in a Global World
(/isis/citation/CBB480022221/)
Book
Kobayashi, Shigeru;
(2011)
Pictures of Foreign Countries: Japanese Empire's Maps on Asia
(/isis/citation/CBB001550705/)
Book
Timothy M. Yang;
(2021)
A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan
(/isis/citation/CBB110485402/)
Article
Reut Harari;
(2020)
Between trust and violence: Medical encounters under Japanese military occupation during the War in China (1937–1945)
(/isis/citation/CBB562919694/)
Technology and Culture
Medical History
Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
História, Ciências, Saúde---Manguinhos
Be the first to comment!