13.04.2023

Control of Bullies and the Hominin Cooperation Expansion

Colloquium by Dr. Ronald Planer

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Time: Thursday, 13^th April 2023 at 1pm (sharp)

Location: Rümelinstraße 23, Room 602 or via Zoom

Speaker: Dr. Ronald Planer

Title: Control of Bullies and the Hominin Cooperation Expansion

Abstract:
The social lives of non-human great apes—and of chimpanzees, in particular—are pervasively shaped by bullying aggression. Imposing aggressors can and often do take what they want by sheer force. Such aggression is toxic for a variety of forms of cooperation and collaboration which have been plausibly seen as foundational to the evolution of hominin social and cognitive uniqueness. Thus, how our ancestors came to control physically powerful bullies is a major question in hominin social evolution. Despite this, the question has attracted relatively little attention by comparison with other forms of cooperation destabilizing, anti-social behavior. In this article, I explain the bully problem and its consequences for collaborative foraging and reproductive cooperation, in particular. I argue that there is good reason to think our ancestors must have been exercising increasing control over bullies by as early as the Pliocene. This early date clashes with the few anti-bullying models that have been offered. Accordingly, I present and argue for an alternative model which I call the “affordable killing model.” The main idea behind this model is that, as hominin intergroup conflict decreased, so did the costs of killing or ostracizing physically powerful bullies in our social groups. The benefits, however, remained fixed. This allowed greater social control over bullying to evolve, I suggest. The causal factors highlighted by the other anti-bullying models are still seen as important, but as relevant only later on.
 

We welcome you all to join us in-person or via Zoom.