Manvir Singh must be commended for contributing to an evolutionary perspective that gives pride of place to individuals’ interests and motivations in adopting or modifying “cultural” representations. This stands in contrast to traditional descriptions of cultural evolution processes in terms of consumption (André, Baumard, & Boyer, Reference André, Baumard and Boyer2023). Explaining the “cultural manifold” in terms of “subjective selection,” however, comes with various difficulties.
A first point is that Singh describes the main process involved in shaping cultures in terms of “selection” among alternatives proposed. But most cultural materials are not selected in that sense, as they are re-constructed by individuals on the basis of fragmentary cues taken from other individuals’ public representations (Sperber & Hirschfeld, Reference Sperber and Hirschfeld2004).
More important is a central ambiguity as concerns the role of natural selection. Singh of course assumes that the cognitive equipment relevant to cultural transmission is an outcome of natural selection, but also suggests that fitness has no specific impact on the “subjective selection” process itself.
That is clear in passages where Singh contrasts his “subjective selection” account of cultural traits with what he calls “biological” explanations, which he describes as based on the assumption that a cultural practice occurs because it maximizes fitness. For instance, discussing aesthetics (sect. 4.1, para. 2), Singh criticizes a “biological” interpretation “which posits that humans have been shaped by natural selection to produce […] songs and lullabies.” In a similar manner, Singh contrasts his own account of the formation of groups with a “biological” one, following which forming groups brings increased fitness (sect. 5.2, p. 11). In these two domains, then, what Singh calls “biological” explanations would proceed along the lines of a [natural selection → behaviors] explanatory frame.
But that is not how current evolutionary accounts of behavior work. Indeed, the whole enterprise of evolutionary psychology started from rejecting the assumption that organisms behave in ways that directly maximize fitness (Cosmides & Tooby, Reference Cosmides, Tooby and Dupré1987). Rather, the major assumption of that research program is that organisms behave in ways that minimize the distance between their current state and some goal states defined by evolved cognitive systems – which themselves were selected because they motivate behaviors that increased fitness, on average, in ancestral environments. So the explanatory frame is [natural selection → cognitive adaptations → behaviors].
That is why section 2.1, for instance, is (at best) too concise and possibly misleading, in stating that natural selection makes us “pursue higher-level outcomes, such as food, sex, status, and information, as well as lower-level goals that aid in their pursuit.” Crucially, natural selection does not just result in organisms that follow these goals and sub-goals, but in organisms that pursue them in extremely specific ways, and that is crucial to understanding culture.
For instance, it is insufficient to state that humans are motivated for a desire to “woo potential mates” (2.1). Human females for example do much more than that. They try to find and retain mates that maximize proximity to a target along multiple dimensions that include stable personality, disposition to provide, willingness to protect, as well as intelligence, formidability, and many other equally precise, naturally and sexually selected traits (Buss & Schmitt, Reference Buss and Schmitt2019; Conroy-Beam, Walter, & Duarte, Reference Conroy-Beam, Walter and Duarte2022; Conroy-Beam, Reference Conroy-Beam2024). Women’s behavior is optimized, not toward some general goal, but towards a number of very specific ones.
The same point applies to the formation of social groups (section 5.2). It is at least incomplete to describe people’s goal as “deliberately creat[ing] closed groups to promote mutual benefits.” Our coalitional psychology does much more than that. It orchestrates a whole series of capacities and motivations to monitor people’s commitment, to evaluate different individuals’ contributions, to assess their contributions against their resources, to evaluate the size and cohesiveness of one’s own and of other coalitions, and much more (Tooby, Cosmides, & Price, Reference Tooby, Cosmides and Price2006; Tooby & Cosmides, Reference Tooby, Cosmides and Høgh-Olesen2010). Here, again, natural selection provides not a generic goal (create groups) but very specific targets.
Because of this problem – glossing over the details of the evolved, domain-specific psychological adaptations activated – Singh’s description of the “selective” process in various domains relies mostly on commonsense criteria that do not provide a solid basis for fundamental assumptions about human psychology.
For instance, it is perhaps true that some aspects of musical capacities evolved from interactions with infants (section 4.1.). The subjective selection account posits that the happened because parents had the goal to pacify their infants. But, why do we assume that they have that goal? Mostly because the parents themselves tell us so, and because our folk-psychology tells us that it must be their motivation. But that is not an explanation of their behavior, let alone an evolutionary explanation.
In a similar way, one may agree that shamans behave the way they do because that behavior provides others with cues of exceptional and essential qualities (Singh, Reference Singh2018). But it seems at least incomplete to suggest that shamanism is subjectively selected because shamans convince their audience that “they have some control over uncertain events” (sect . 3.1, para. 4). Why would people want their shamans, or indeed anyone, to control uncertain events? How do we know that they have that goal? Again, this alleged goal is inferred from people’s own reports and from our interpretation of their behavior. But people’s own reasons for their behavior, like our inferences to their best reasons, are not the same as a psychological explanation of that behavior.
A more complete “subjective selection” perspective would, first, leave aside the misleading language of selection, to take into account the fact that cultural transmission implies inferences from fragmentary cues rather than inheritance and selection; second, it would include a description of people’s motivations that is anchored in independent psychological evidence and explains the relevant cognitive processes themselves in terms of fitness.
Addressing these problems would help preserve the essential merit of Singh’s proposal – to encourage us to focus on the production of cultural materials and on individual motivations engaged in their production.
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Manvir Singh must be commended for contributing to an evolutionary perspective that gives pride of place to individuals’ interests and motivations in adopting or modifying “cultural” representations. This stands in contrast to traditional descriptions of cultural evolution processes in terms of consumption (André, Baumard, & Boyer, Reference André, Baumard and Boyer2023). Explaining the “cultural manifold” in terms of “subjective selection,” however, comes with various difficulties.
A first point is that Singh describes the main process involved in shaping cultures in terms of “selection” among alternatives proposed. But most cultural materials are not selected in that sense, as they are re-constructed by individuals on the basis of fragmentary cues taken from other individuals’ public representations (Sperber & Hirschfeld, Reference Sperber and Hirschfeld2004).
More important is a central ambiguity as concerns the role of natural selection. Singh of course assumes that the cognitive equipment relevant to cultural transmission is an outcome of natural selection, but also suggests that fitness has no specific impact on the “subjective selection” process itself.
That is clear in passages where Singh contrasts his “subjective selection” account of cultural traits with what he calls “biological” explanations, which he describes as based on the assumption that a cultural practice occurs because it maximizes fitness. For instance, discussing aesthetics (sect. 4.1, para. 2), Singh criticizes a “biological” interpretation “which posits that humans have been shaped by natural selection to produce […] songs and lullabies.” In a similar manner, Singh contrasts his own account of the formation of groups with a “biological” one, following which forming groups brings increased fitness (sect. 5.2, p. 11). In these two domains, then, what Singh calls “biological” explanations would proceed along the lines of a [natural selection → behaviors] explanatory frame.
But that is not how current evolutionary accounts of behavior work. Indeed, the whole enterprise of evolutionary psychology started from rejecting the assumption that organisms behave in ways that directly maximize fitness (Cosmides & Tooby, Reference Cosmides, Tooby and Dupré1987). Rather, the major assumption of that research program is that organisms behave in ways that minimize the distance between their current state and some goal states defined by evolved cognitive systems – which themselves were selected because they motivate behaviors that increased fitness, on average, in ancestral environments. So the explanatory frame is [natural selection → cognitive adaptations → behaviors].
That is why section 2.1, for instance, is (at best) too concise and possibly misleading, in stating that natural selection makes us “pursue higher-level outcomes, such as food, sex, status, and information, as well as lower-level goals that aid in their pursuit.” Crucially, natural selection does not just result in organisms that follow these goals and sub-goals, but in organisms that pursue them in extremely specific ways, and that is crucial to understanding culture.
For instance, it is insufficient to state that humans are motivated for a desire to “woo potential mates” (2.1). Human females for example do much more than that. They try to find and retain mates that maximize proximity to a target along multiple dimensions that include stable personality, disposition to provide, willingness to protect, as well as intelligence, formidability, and many other equally precise, naturally and sexually selected traits (Buss & Schmitt, Reference Buss and Schmitt2019; Conroy-Beam, Walter, & Duarte, Reference Conroy-Beam, Walter and Duarte2022; Conroy-Beam, Reference Conroy-Beam2024). Women’s behavior is optimized, not toward some general goal, but towards a number of very specific ones.
The same point applies to the formation of social groups (section 5.2). It is at least incomplete to describe people’s goal as “deliberately creat[ing] closed groups to promote mutual benefits.” Our coalitional psychology does much more than that. It orchestrates a whole series of capacities and motivations to monitor people’s commitment, to evaluate different individuals’ contributions, to assess their contributions against their resources, to evaluate the size and cohesiveness of one’s own and of other coalitions, and much more (Tooby, Cosmides, & Price, Reference Tooby, Cosmides and Price2006; Tooby & Cosmides, Reference Tooby, Cosmides and Høgh-Olesen2010). Here, again, natural selection provides not a generic goal (create groups) but very specific targets.
Because of this problem – glossing over the details of the evolved, domain-specific psychological adaptations activated – Singh’s description of the “selective” process in various domains relies mostly on commonsense criteria that do not provide a solid basis for fundamental assumptions about human psychology.
For instance, it is perhaps true that some aspects of musical capacities evolved from interactions with infants (section 4.1.). The subjective selection account posits that the happened because parents had the goal to pacify their infants. But, why do we assume that they have that goal? Mostly because the parents themselves tell us so, and because our folk-psychology tells us that it must be their motivation. But that is not an explanation of their behavior, let alone an evolutionary explanation.
In a similar way, one may agree that shamans behave the way they do because that behavior provides others with cues of exceptional and essential qualities (Singh, Reference Singh2018). But it seems at least incomplete to suggest that shamanism is subjectively selected because shamans convince their audience that “they have some control over uncertain events” (sect . 3.1, para. 4). Why would people want their shamans, or indeed anyone, to control uncertain events? How do we know that they have that goal? Again, this alleged goal is inferred from people’s own reports and from our interpretation of their behavior. But people’s own reasons for their behavior, like our inferences to their best reasons, are not the same as a psychological explanation of that behavior.
A more complete “subjective selection” perspective would, first, leave aside the misleading language of selection, to take into account the fact that cultural transmission implies inferences from fragmentary cues rather than inheritance and selection; second, it would include a description of people’s motivations that is anchored in independent psychological evidence and explains the relevant cognitive processes themselves in terms of fitness.
Addressing these problems would help preserve the essential merit of Singh’s proposal – to encourage us to focus on the production of cultural materials and on individual motivations engaged in their production.
Financial support
This research received support from the Templeton Religion Trust.
Competing interests
None.