On the limited policy relevance of evolutionary explanations

IF 5.1 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, APPLIED Behavioural Public Policy Pub Date : 2022-02-28 DOI:10.1017/bpp.2022.4
C. Sunstein
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

Evolutionary explanations for behavioral findings are often both fascinating and plausible. But even so, they do not establish that people are acting rationally, that they are not making mistakes, or that their decisions are promoting their welfare. For example, present bias, optimistic overconfidence, and use of the availability heuristic can produce terrible mistakes and serious welfare losses, and this is so even if they have evolutionary foundations. There might well be evolutionary explanations for certain kinds of in-group favoritism, and also for certain male attitudes and actions toward women, and also for human mistreatment of and cruelty toward nonhuman animals. But those explanations would not justify anything at all. It is not clear that in Darwinia (a nation in which departures from perfect rationality have an evolutionary explanation), policymakers should behave very differently from Durkheimian policymakers (a nation in which departures from perfect rationality have a cultural explanation).
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论进化解释的有限政策相关性
对行为发现的进化解释往往既迷人又可信。但即便如此,它们也不能证明人们的行为是理性的,他们没有犯错误,或者他们的决定促进了他们的福利。例如,当前偏见、乐观过度自信和使用可用性启发式会产生可怕的错误和严重的福利损失,即使它们具有进化基础也是如此。对于某些群体内偏爱,男性对女性的某些态度和行为,以及人类虐待和残忍对待非人类动物,很可能有进化的解释。但这些解释根本无法为任何事情辩护。目前尚不清楚,在达尔文主义(一个背离完美理性的国家,有一个进化的解释)中,政策制定者的行为应该与迪尔凯姆主义的政策制定者(一个背离完美理性的国家,有一个文化的解释)截然不同。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
7.90
自引率
2.00%
发文量
0
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