Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind: Evolution and the Molecular Mind [Tapa dura]

"I" almost didn't purchase this book - what a serious mistake that would have been! Having read The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self by Philosopher Thomas Metzinger, I felt I was thoroughly acquainted with the notion that there is no self. Also, I have read: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Behavioral Economist Dan Ariely, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and How the Mind Works by Psychologist Steven Pinker (all three cited by Kurzban). Now, I don't mean to name drop, I simply say that to say this: Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite is better. Yes, better.

Kurzban states in the Prologue, "This book is...an attempt to explain why we act the way we act, and, perhaps partly in our defense, to show that if we are wrong a lot, well, being right isn't everything. My argument is going to be that much, or at least some, of what makes us ignorant, mind-numbingly stupid - and hypocritical - is that we evolved to play many different kinds of strategic games with others, and our brains are built to exploit the fact that being knowledgeable, right, or morally consistent is not always to our advantage. Because humans are such social creatures, while being right is still really important, it's very far from everything. In fact, being ignorant, wrong, irrational, and hypocritical can make you much better off than being knowledgeable, correct, reasonable, and consistent."

The amount of research that Dr. Kurzban utilizes in fulfilling this aim is staggering. There are many classic examples (i.e. Muller-Lyer Illusion, "Spandrels," "Framing Effects") but, also plenty that were new on me. Also, and more importantly, I loved the presentation. Kurzban's style is wry, witty, and always entertaining. I was laughing throughout. I loved the method, the material, and the message. As a long-time fan of evolutionary psychology, this certainly is a welcome addition; Dr. Kurzban is definitely one of my new favorite authors. Also, the new information dovetailed nicely with what I read in Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human by V.S. Ramachandran, and Your Brain Is (Almost) Perfect: How We Make Decisions by Read Montague; I just might have to re-read some of my favorites with this new modularity view in mind. In sum, this is a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in morality, Philosophy of Mind, psychology, economics, social policy...well, everyone really. Here is one more great quote, "Modularity explains why everyone is a hypocrite. Moral(istic) modules constrain others' behavior. The mob's moral sticks can be used to prevent an arbitrarily wide set of acts. At the same time, other modules advance our own fitness interests, often by doing the very same acts our moral modules condemn. In this sense, the explanation for hypocrisy lies in the rather quotidian notion of competition. Organisms are designed to advance their own fitness interests, which entails harming others and helping oneself and one's allies. Hypocrisy is, in its most abstract sense, no different from other kinds of competition."

We're living in a world in which social scientists are able to study human behavior in incredibly clever ways--not the least of which is their ability to take pictures of the brain as it implements mysterious patterns of neural finding that somehow eventuate in your getting up to get a sandwich, posting or reading a book review, or letting your dog outside one last time before you head off to bed. But even with all of the clever experiments and pretty pictures of brains in action, most scientists who study complex social behavior couldn't begin--even on their best day--to explain to you how the brain might be structured so as to create behavior.

No matter what else turns out to be true about how the brain gives rise to mind, there is one cardinal principle to remember: The force that creates brains is natural selection, and natural selection operates exclusively by rewarding genes that give rise to good designs with a singular prize: More copies of themselves in the world, courtesy of sexual reproduction. What that means, above all, is that the structures that genes produce are in response to selection pressures that ancestral humans faced while our species was evolving. And there's no such thing as a "general selection pressure;" only specific ones. As a result, the structures in your head can't be general solutions. Whatever you've got up in your brain, then, is bound to be a collection of information-processing mechanisms for solving specific jobs.

Few other books are as effective as Kurzban's fine book at sketching the implications of this cardinal principle for our understanding of human mental life, so on that count alone this is a book worth reading. But by viewing mental life as the result of modular computational entities, Kurzban also shows us completely imaginative ways of looking at some of human beings' most interesting foibles and follies--from why we fall prey to optical illusions that we've already seen hundreds of times, to self-deception, to the seeming absurdity of many of our moral stances. It is these creative new ways of thinking about the richness of our psychological and social lives that really makes this book shine.

The prose in "Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite" is crystal clear. Its argumentation is persuasive. The examples from the social science literature are interesting and fun, and Kurzban's personality comes through on every page. But most importantly, it's a book that will give you a brand new way of thinking about what you've got between your ears. Kurzban is one to watch, and "...Hypocrite" is one to read.

This is an excellent book. Kurzban explains, using plenty of humorous examples, how evolution designed our minds one piece at a time (a concept called modularity), and how this explains important mysteries of the universe like why people lock their refrigerator doors at night. Ever had the feeling that part of you wants to finish the giant slice of cheesecake on your plate, and part of you is shrieking "no! no!" Kurzban explains that, in a certain sense, there really are two parts of you who are arguing over dessert, and that whether you devour it depends on which part gains control. There is plenty to learn and Kurzban leads you through with style.

Read on!