Evolutionary psychology in ecological economics: consilience, consumption and contentment

Ecological Economics 41 (2002) 289–303

SURVEY

Evolutionary psychology in ecological economics:consilience, consumption and contentment

Tim Jackson *Centre for En�ironmental Strategy, Uni�ersity of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, UK

Received 12 June 2000; received in revised form 22 February 2002; accepted 26 February 2002

Abstract

This paper makes the case that if ecological economics seeks ‘consilience’ with biology it must acquaint itself withevolutionary theories about social development and human behaviour. The author reviews some of the literature inthis area. Particular attention is paid to the newly emerging discipline of evolutionary psychology, which sets out aneo-Darwinian view of human nature in which individual and social behaviour is dominated by the evolutionarystrategies of the ‘selfish gene’. The paper discusses the relevance of this perspective for two specific ‘problem areas’in ecological economics. The first of these is the question of consumption and consumer behaviour. The second is theproblem of ‘mismatch’ between the pursuit of economic growth and social well-being or contentment. These examplesillustrate that evolutionary psychology may sometimes provide a natural ally for ecological economics, in particularpointing up certain failures of conventional economics. On the other hand, it also offers harsh lessons concerning thedifficulty of changing evolved behaviour patterns. The paper suggests three possible avenues of response by ecologicaleconomists to the insights of evolutionary psychology. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Evolutionary psychology; Consilience; Consumption; Well-being

This article is also available online at:www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon

1. Introduction

On the tenth anniversary of the first ever issueof Ecological Economics, a specially-commis-sioned article by Gowdy and Ferrer-i-Carbonellprovided a useful survey of contributions to thejournal over the preceding decade. In it, the au-thors argued that the accumulated literature rep-resents an exemplary contribution to what the

biologist E.O. Wilson has called ‘consilience’ be-tween different branches of knowledge. That is,they argued that ecological economics had con-tributed successfully to the promotion of an essen-tial unity in knowledge, reflected in the insightthat ‘the assumptions of one branch of knowledgeshould conform to the accepted facts of otherbranches of knowledge’ (Gowdy and Ferrer-i-Car-bonell, 1999).

The concept of consilience was first coined inan epistemological context by the philosopherWilliam Whewell who wrote that ‘‘the Consilienceof Inductions takes place when an Induction ob-

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T. Jackson / Ecological Economics 41 (2002) 289–303290

tained from one class of facts coincides with anInduction obtained from another different class.This Consilience is a test of the truth of theTheory in which it occurs’’ (Whewell, 1840). Inmuch the same spirit, Wilson has argued that‘‘units and processes of a discipline that conformwith solidly verifiable knowledge in other disci-plines have proven consistently superior in theoryand practice to units and processes that do notconform’’ (Wilson, 1998).

Gowdy and Ferrer-i-Carbonell were mostlyconcerned to demonstrate the extent to whichecological economics has addressed Wilson’s cri-tique of the ‘hermetic’ nature of conventionaleconomics. ‘‘In the spirit of consilience,’’ theywrite, ‘‘ecological economists have expanded thesubject matter of utility theory by recognising thecomplexity and social context of human be-haviour and likewise have expanded the economictheory of production by taking explicit account ofthe constraints imposed by the environment’’(Gowdy and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 1999). Thus, thebulk of the contributions to ecological economicsincluded in the survey falls into what mightbroadly be called the ‘biophysical critique’ ofmodern economics flowing from the work of writ-ers such as Georgescu-Roegen (1971) and Daly(1991). In addition, the review identifies a fewcontributions that attempt to use evolutionaryconcepts to enlighten our understanding of eco-nomics. Principally, such contributions flow fromthe concept of coevolution, which stresses (byanalogy with certain kinds of biological relation-ships) the dynamical interdependencies within andbetween natural, social and economics systems(Gowdy, 1994; Norgaard, 1994).

Virtually absent, however, from this otherwiseexemplary decade of literature is any discussion ofthe relevance to ecological economics of neo-Dar-winian theories about human nature and socialevolution.1 This omission is all the more surpris-ing in view of the critical role occupied by suchtheories within Wilson’s own conception of con-silience. Nor is Wilson alone in suggesting that

the evolutionary perspective is relevant to under-standing the broad spectrum of human behaviour;and to the extent that human behaviour (and, inparticular, consumer behaviour) is crucial to sus-tainable development, the absence of evolutionarytheories of human nature from the literature ofecological economics is an omission of someimportance.

The present paper has three specific purposes.Firstly, it provides a brief historical review ofevolutionary approaches to human behaviour andsocial psychology. In pursuit of this aim, the firstsection sketches out a brief overview of earlyevolutionary approaches to social theory. Moreimportantly, the second section discusses the re-emergence of neo-Darwinian views of human na-ture during the late twentieth century, in the guiseof ‘evolutionary psychology’, and sets out some ofthe fundamental assumptions and implications ofthis resurgent body of work.

Next, the paper provides two specific illustra-tions of the way in which the insights of evolu-tionary psychology might be considered relevant(if not unequivocally useful) to ecological eco-nomics. The first of these illustrations is con-cerned with the critical light that evolutionarypsychology throws upon our understanding ofconsumption and consumer behaviour. The sec-ond relates to the so-called ‘mismatch’ hypothesis,which seeks to explain the divergence betweeneconomic growth and human well-being or con-tentment, upon which many critics of modernindustrial society (including a number of ecologi-cal economists) have commented.

Finally, the paper discusses the implications ofthese case studies (and the generic project ofevolutionary psychology) for ecological econom-ics. In particular, it highlights three distinct waysin which ecological economists might seek to re-spond to the evolutionary psychology literature.

2. Early approaches to social evolution

Thorstein Veblen’s essay ‘‘Why Is EconomicsNot an Evolutionary Science?’’ represents an earlyattempt to instil biological concepts into econom-ics (Veblen 1898). There is clearly a sense in which

1 A modest exception to this generalisation is reference tothe attempt by Norton et al. (1998) to understand how andwhy human preferences evolve over time.

T. Jackson / Ecological Economics 41 (2002) 289–303 291

one of the aims of the discipline of ecologicaleconomics is to provide a continuation of thatsame intellectual programme (Costanza, 1989).Veblen believed that the evolutionary metaphorwas crucial to an understanding of the dynamicsof socioeconomic systems, and in particular to anunderstanding of technological change in capital-ist society. ‘‘An evolutionary economics’’, hewrote, ‘‘must be a theory of a process of culturalgrowth as determined by the economic interest, atheory of a cumulative sequence of economic in-stitutions stated in terms of the process itself’’(Veblen, 1919, p. 77).

Hodgson (1994) argues that Veblen had twomain aims in adopting an evolutionary viewpoint.Firstly, he wanted an economics which reflected aprocess of cumulative causation, an unending pro-cess of change built on the back of change, inplace of the traditional picture of an economicsystem that is consummated in equilibrium. Sec-ondly, he wanted to build a theory of economicsin which development could be modelled by anal-ogy with the Darwinian model of evolution,namely, as a process of adaptation and selection.

Whether or not he was successful in buildingsuch a model2, it is clear that Veblen’s insightswere influential in the formation of later theoriesof institutional economics (such as those devel-oped by Kaldor (1972), Kapp (1976), Myrdal(1978)) and evolutionary economics (such as thosedeveloped by Schumpeter (1939), and more lat-terly by Day (1987), Boulding (1981), Witt (1992)and others. These theories are, however, mainlyinterested in providing nonequilibrium modelswith which to understand the dynamic evolutionof business cycles and economic systems. Theymake only limited attempts to incorporate explicitmechanisms of agency based on a biological un-derstanding of human nature.

Of more direct interest to the main thrust ofthis paper is the work of some of the socialtheorists who preceded Veblen, and exerted someinfluence on him. Foremost amongst these was

Herbert Spencer. Veblen was not a Spencerian;indeed, he criticised Spencer on a number ofgrounds (Veblen, 1898, pp. 402–405), specificallyfor assuming that the evolutionary mechanismwould lead, through the ‘survival of the fittest’, tothe perfectibility of society. What Veblen sharedwith Spencer was the common aim of providing atheory for understanding social development,which drew upon insights from biology. ForSpencer, this understanding was provided by therealisation that ‘the struggle for existence has beenthe indispensable means to evolution’ (Spencer,1969, p. 176) and that ‘competition… is the chiefcause of social integration’ (Spencer, 1878, p.218). In similar vein, Veblen argued that ‘‘the lifeof man in society, just as the life of other species,is a struggle for existence, and therefore, it is aprocess of selective adaptation. The evolution ofsocial structure has been a process of naturalselection of institutions’’ (Veblen, 1899, p. 188).The two writers sought something more than abiological analogy for the evolution of social sys-tems. They attempted to articulate evolutionarymechanisms within society, which drew explicitlyfrom a biophysical basis.

Nevertheless, Veblen’s view of evolution dif-fered markedly from Spencer’s. Specifically, Ve-blen accepted the Malthusian ‘struggle forexistence’ as the motivation for adaptation andselection, but refused to equate this kind of evolu-tion with progress, in the sense of social improve-ment or advance. Spencer, by contrast, believedfirmly that evolution was headed inexorably in thedirection of the perfect society. His laissez-faireoptimism was far closer to the nineteenth centuryutopians—Rousseau, Condorcet and Godwin—than it was to Malthus (Young, 1969, p. 137). Inthis sense, Spencer’s theory of social evolutionwas quite specifically pre-Darwinian, and es-poused the common Victorian ideal of the uni-verse as a place ordered by a benevolent deity inwhich higher purposes would prevail in human-ity’s man’s best interests. Veblen by contrast wasattempting to construct a post-Darwinian view ofsocial evolution in which change was effectedthrough fundamentally mechanistic processes—adaptation and selection—and was neither pur-posive nor necessarily benign.

2 Jennings and Waller (1998) dispute this point, arguing thatVeblen ‘was never willing to articulate the [selection] mecha-nism in sufficient detail to argue conclusively that he intendedan actual biological analogy’.


An interesting variation on this theme is pro-vided by the writings of Gumplowicz (Gumplow-icz, 1898, 1963) who was also convinced thatDarwinian evolutionary theory held the key toscientific progress in the social sciences. Emphasis-ing that natural selection operated on groupsrather than individuals, he formulated a view ofthe behaviour of modern nation states in which thesubjection of the weaker by the stronger was auniversal law and all states were drawn into thestruggle for power and territory in an unremittingRassenkampf or racial war (Hawkins, 1995).

Like Spencer, Gumplowicz saw competition andwarfare as the principle architects of social evolu-tion. However, Gumplowicz’ view of human pro-gress was unrelentingly bleak: he refused tocountenance the possibility of any moral progressin human affairs and argued that the behaviour ofmodern states was no different from that of prim-itives. ‘‘Lying, deceit, breach of confidence andbetrayal is on every page of their history’’, heargued. ‘‘Indeed it is generally recognised thatstates oppose each other like savage hordes; thatthey follow the blind laws of nature; that no ethicallaw or moral obligation, only fear of the stronger,holds them in check’’ (Gumplowicz, 1963, p. 229).In contrast to Spencer’s Panglossian optimism,Gumplowicz predicted a cyclical view of change inwhich ‘communities expanded through conquestand assimilation up to a certain point, beyondwhich they disintegrated and the process recom-menced’ (Hawkins, 1995).

Amongst the interesting features of Gumplow-icz’ model of social development is his identifica-tion of the root cause of social conflict in theattempted satisfaction of human needs. Accordingto Gumplowicz, there were two fundamental socialprocesses which generated conflict between socialgroups: on the one hand, the insatiable desires ofhuman beings to improve their material welfare;and on the other, the exploitation of the services offoreigners (i.e. those outside the social group) toachieve this end. Since the motivation for thesecond process was the pressure of the first, thesetwo processes essentially reduce to one: the desireto satisfy current material needs and ensure thesatisfaction of future needs. ‘‘Moreover, this evo-lution cannot cease,’’ wrote Gumplowicz (1963, p.

229). ‘‘For nature has provided that man’s needsshall not stand still. Higher and ‘nobler’ wants areconstantly awakened. At the very point wherenatural ethnic divisions would disappear, artificial‘social’ divisions arise to perpetuate the antago-nism of human groups’’. The modern resonancesof this thesis—particularly concerning the lan-guage of needs—are, of course, striking. Butwhere the Brundtland Commission, for example,saw needs as the basis for an equitable and sustain-able distribution of resources, Gumplowicz sawthem as the source of limitless conflict.

Implicit within any theory of social evolutionlies a theory of human behaviour. According toGumplowicz, humans behave in such a way as tomaximise the possibilities for material consump-tion for themselves and for their social group, bothnow and into the future. This is the process thatdrives both the exploitation of foreigners andultimately the destructive conflict which resultsfrom that. One possible avenue of escape from thebleakness of this social vision is to question thepsychological model of human behaviour whichunderlies it. How defensible is Gumplowicz’ viewof human nature? Is it consilient with scientificunderstanding of our own biological nature? Iron-ically, it has really been possible to address thesequestions in the last few decades only. The disci-pline of evolutionary psychology, however, pre-sents us with an intellectual construct which claimsscientific authority for a neo-Darwinian theory ofhuman behaviour. It is to this theory that we nowturn

3. Evolutionary psychology

As Moore (1986) and Young (1985) have bothpointed out, the foundation for an evolutionaryview of human behaviour was laid down by Dar-win himself. In the final chapter of The Origin ofSpecies, he suggested that ‘in the distant future’ thestudy of human psychology would be based on anevolutionary footing (Darwin, 1968). He himselfventured some way towards this project in TheDescent of Man (Darwin, 1871) where he setout the notion of sexual selection, namely: thatevolutionary adaptations were selected, in part,


according to their success in attracting sexualmates. In The Expression of the Emotions in Manand Animals (1872) he posited that the develop-ment of emotions was itself an example of anevolutionary adaptation.

It is only a small step from these two insights tosuggest that the form and expression of humanemotions—more broadly of human behaviouralcharacteristics—are determined in no small partby their success as evolutionary adaptations. Nev-ertheless, for over a century after the publicationof The Origin, there was little or no advance inour understanding of the evolution of humanbehaviour, so that in 1960, the Oxford anthropol-ogist J.S. Weiner could remark that this subjectwas ‘one large baffling topic on which our evolu-tionary insight remains meagre’ (Wright, 1994).

Within a few years of this comment, however, aquiet revolution had started. In 1963, the biologistWilliam Hamilton first proposed that it is in factthe gene rather than the individual that operatesas the unit of selection.3 His objective in makingthis supposition was to solve one of the long-standing problems associated with Darwinian se-lection: the existence of altruism. If selection takesplace at the level of the individual it should, in thelong run, favour the evolution of individuals whoexhibit only selfish (i.e. self-preserving) behaviour.However, the existence of genuinely altruistic be-haviour is a fact of biology that Darwin himself atfirst believed was ‘insuperable, and actually fatalto my whole theory’ (Darwin, 1968, p. 257). Dar-win’s attempt to solve the problem was to suggestthat selection operates not only on individuals butalso on families or groups. Hamilton’s proposalprovided a mechanism for the evolution of altru-ism–even the pure altruism of self-sacrifice–with-out recourse to group selection as an evolutionarymechanism. Though the individual may perish,the genes that he or she shares with other mem-bers of the species have a better chance of survivalas a result of the sacrifice (Hamilton, 1963).

Aside from its import in addressing the prob-lem of altruism, Hamilton’s work was a landmarkfor another reason, namely, that it set out a basisfor the genetic evolution of behavioural character-istics (Hamilton, 1964). In other words, it laid afoundation for the long-awaited continuation ofDarwin’s project to provide an evolutionary basisfor human psychology.

During the next decade this foundation wasstrengthened and broadened through the work ofother biologists. George Williams set out an evo-lutionary basis for male and female sexual be-haviour—and the differences between them.Specifically, he cast the genetic interests of maleversus female behaviour in terms of the sacrificesrequired by each of them in order to achievereproduction (Williams, 1966). This work was ex-tended a few years later by Trivers (1972) whostarted by replacing William’s concept of repro-ductive sacrifice with one of parental investment.He then used this concept to provide a simpleextension of Darwin’s idea of sexual selection inwhich, by quantifying the balance of parentalinvestment between mother and father in anyspecies, we could better understand a variety ofbehavioural characteristics within the species.Thus, behavioural characteristics such as ‘the ex-tent of male eagerness and female coyness, theintensity of sexual selection, and many subtleaspects of courtship and parenthood, fidelity andinfidelity’ (Wright, 1994, p. 42), all became expli-cable on an evolutionary model.

These ideas might have remained within theconfines of biology had it not been for the publi-cation in the mid-1970s of two ground-breakingpopular books. In 1975, E.O. Wilson (Wilson,1975) himself published a landmark volume onSociobiology, a new science of human behaviourbased firmly on the newly-developed neo-Dar-winian insights into human behaviour. A yearlater, a young Oxford scientist named RichardDawkins (Dawkins, 1976) published a book calledThe Selfish Gene in which he pursued the implica-tions of Hamilton’s insight that the fundamentalunit of evolutionary selection is the gene. To-gether these two books brought the new evolu-tionary theories about human behaviour to a wideand diverse audience, and caused a furor of re-newed interest, and not a little controversy.

3 The foundations of modern genetics were laid within Dar-win’s lifetime by the Moravian monk, Gregor Mendel. Ironi-cally, his work was virtually unknown and largely ignored atthe time.


Although genetic inheritance was by this timewell established as an explanatory mechanism forthe evolution of physical characteristics in thenatural world, the idea that the same mechanismcould be used to explain human traits and be-havioural characteristics—as popularised byWilson in Sociobiology—was greeted with a mix-ture of horror and derision; so much so, that mostpractitioners of the field he defined prefer now toavoid his label (Ashworth, 1996). Nonetheless, theideas themselves persisted, and in the hands of awhole new generation of biologists and psycholo-gists (e.g. Brittan, 1997; Buss, 1991; Buss andSchmitt, 1993; Cronin, 1991; Daly and Wilson,1983; Miller, 2000; Tooby, 1987; Tooby and Cos-mides, 1990; Wright, 1994), they became a newand powerful theory about human behaviour.

The prevailing view of human nature thatemerges from this body of literature possessesseveral critical features. In the first place, evolu-tionary psychology proposes that human nature isin certain key respect, universal. It argues, sec-ondly, that these universal characteristics of hu-man nature are the products of biologicalevolution, and represent genetic dispositions to-wards certain kinds of behavioural responses,which have been selected on the basis of evolu-tionary fitness. Thus, according to the theory,humans share many of their fundamental be-havioural characteristics with other close mam-mals, and indeed with many other species.Furthermore, specifically human adaptations stemhistorically from the ‘environment of evolutionaryadaptation’, that is to say, from the period whenHomo sapiens emerged as a distinct species(Tooby and Cosmides, 1990).

Human nature, argues evolutionary psychol-ogy, is driven primarily by strategies which wouldhave maximised the opportunities for genetic suc-cession in the ancestral environment. Some of thisbehaviour emerges as selfish, predatory and sexu-ally aggressive. But the theory also attempts toaccount for the cooperative and moral character-istics of human behaviour (Ridley 1996) throughconcepts such as male parental investment (Triv-ers, 1972), kin selection (Hamilton, 1963), recipro-cal altruism (Trivers, 1971) and status hierarchies(Williams, 1966).

It is not possible within the scope of this paperto set out all the details of this new view ofhuman nature. Ridley’s (1994) exposition is, how-ever, masterful. Human nature, he argues, is fun-damentally determined by the strategies and ploysof the ‘selfish gene’. By definition, those geneswhich have survived thus long are those thatconvey traits and characteristics which have in-creased the chances of genetic succession. Geneticsuccession depends upon two critical factors: one,surviving long enough to reach reproductive age,and two, finding a mate with whom to reproduce.Accordingly, human nature is conditioned in partby the need to access the (material, social andsexual) resources required for these tasks. In par-ticular, argues evolutionary psychology, we aredisposed towards a continuing need to ‘position’ourselves in relation to the opposite sex, and withrespect to our sexual competitors. Moreover, thisfundamental element of sexual competition neverabates. Rather, we find ourselves having to runfaster and faster as time goes by, like the RedQueen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland,precisely because our competitors are all engagedin the same unending struggle.

The metaphor of the Red Queen was first pro-posed by the biologist van Valen (1973) on dis-covering that the probability that a family ofanimals will become extinct does not depend onhow long that family has already existed. For vanValen, this fact ‘represented a vital truth aboutevolution that Darwin had not wholly appreci-ated. The struggle for existence never gets easier.However well a species may adapt to its environ-ment, it can never relax because its competitorsand its enemies are also adapting their niches’(Ridley, 1994, pp. 61–62). That this process isequally true of competition within species is oneof the fundamental insights of evolutionarypsychology.

It is important to note that evolutionary psy-chology, though clearly reductionist (in that itseeks evolutionary explanations for the source ofhuman behaviour), is not (or at least not always)deterministic. Accordingly, evolutionary psychol-ogy tends to reject monocausal explanations(Wright, 1994) and suggests that we inherit ‘dis-positions not destinies’ (Rose, 1995). Some of


these dispositions relate to our ability and propen-sity for learning; and in any given situation spe-cific responses will depend on a number of factorsincluding (innate) dispositions, learned behaviour,and environmental factors (which include bothnatural and cultural influences).

The epistemological parsimony introduced bythese distinctions is to some extent diluted by thefact that evolutionary psychology regards bothlearning and culture as being mediated by ‘epige-netic’ rules. Thus, Wilson sets out a ‘coevolution-ary’ model of the relationship between genes andculture in which ‘genes prescribe the epigeneticrules, which are the regularities of sensory percep-tion and mental development that animate andchannel the acquisition of culture’ (Wilson, 1998).Thus, genetic succession remains the ultimate or‘distal’ explanation for both human behaviouraldispositions and for cultural evolution. But the‘proximal’ cause for individual actions includesboth individual genetic predispositions and envi-ronmental factors.

As an illustration of the plurality inherent inthe behavioural lexicon of evolutionary psychol-ogy, it is worth considering two strikingly differ-ent models of behaviour that emerged in the earlyyears of evolutionary psychology. Williams (1966)articulated the idea of dominance-subordination(status) hierarchies drawing on the earlier idea ofa ‘pecking order’, attributed to the Norwegianbiologist Schjelderup-Ebbe. Status hierarchies arenot functional organisations; rather, they are the‘statistical consequence of a compromise made byeach individual in its competition for food, matesand other resources’ (Williams, 1966, p. 218).Individual strategies within the hierarchy vary.Dominance ‘pays off’ as a strategy if the addi-tional resources accrued through dominance ex-ceed those expended in fighting one’s corner.Submissiveness pays off when the resources ex-pended fighting one’s corner exceed those fore-gone by accepting a lower status within the group.

By contrast, Trivers suggests an altogether dif-ferent set of behaviours in which success is alliednot to dominance and aggression but to coopera-tion and affiliation. In fact, Williams (1966) hadalready remarked that ‘‘an individual who max-imises his friendships and minimises his antago-

nisms will have an evolutionary advantage, andselection should favour those characters that pro-mote the optimisation of personal relationships’’(op. cit. p. 94). Trivers (1971) developed thissuggestion into a fully-ledged theory of reciprocalaltruism by using the game-theoretic context ofthe ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ to show how cooperativestrategies can contribute strategic advantage overpurely individualist strategies.

In general terms one would expect to see bothstrategies in operation within any social group.Axelrod (1984) developed a computer model toillustrate how the two strategies might evolve inconjunction with each other. The model indicatedthat in the long run, and provided that coopera-tion is given some kind of head start, conditionalcooperation (sometimes called tit-for-tat be-haviour, in which agents cooperate at least untilthey are persuaded that others are not cooperat-ing) is a stable evolutionary strategy. Onceenough agents are cooperating, conditional coop-erators tend to survive, and thus conditional co-operation (as a strategy) also survives. As Wright(1994, p. 200) puts it, ‘‘even if several steadfastnoncooperators arrive on the scene all at once,they still can’t subvert a population of TIT FORTATs’’. One of the interesting aspects of thiswork is that the success or failure of individualstrategies depends crucially on the social environ-ment. Affiliative (cooperative) strategies tend notto be particularly successful within strong statushierarchies. (Thus, unconditional cooperators donot fare well at all in most of Axelrod’s simula-tions.) But likewise, dominance strategies tend tobe less successful in affiliative environments,where dominating behaviour is mistrusted(Wilkinson, 2000).

In summary, evolutionary psychology attemptsto understand human behaviour on the basis ofevolutionary strategies for genetic success. Assuch, it presents us with one of the most obvi-ous—and the most up-to-date—candidates in thesearch for a consilient model of human agencywithin ecological economics. Given this promise,it is clearly worth asking what insights evolution-ary psychology might have in addressing specificaspects of ecological economics. The next sectionsof this paper discuss, by way of illustration only,


the application of insights from evolutionary psy-chology to two particular ‘problem areas’ in eco-logical economics. The first of these is thequestion of consumer behaviour. The second isthe ‘mismatch’ between conventional developmentpaths and human well-being or contentment.

4. Evolutionary psychology of consumption

Consumer behaviour is clearly a vital subjectfor consideration within ecological economics(Daly, 1996; Jacobs and Røpke, 1999; Jacobs,1991; Myers, 1997; Norgaard, 1994; Redclift,1996). In spite of observations that modern indus-trial economies have experienced a shift towardspost-material values (Inglehart and Abramson,1994), consumption patterns in the developedworld have shown increasing trends over the last50 years (Jackson and Marks, 1999). Fashion-driven, often fetishistic consumer behaviour (Fineand Leopold, 1993; Goodwin et al., 1997; Rosen-blatt, 1999) continues to drive an increasing re-liance on material commodities and to thwart ourbest efforts to reduce the material throughput ofmodern socioeconomic systems.

The conventional economic view of the con-sumer—as a rational self-maximiser of utility—has been criticised widely within ecologicaleconomics (van den Bergh et al., 2000; Sieben-huner, 2000a). In a recent attempt to present analternative vision of consumer behaviour, Jacksonand Marks (1999) developed a perspective basedon the Max Neef (1991) characterisation of fun-damental human needs. Building on a line ofreasoning which includes Plato, Maslow (1954),Fromm (1976), the Max Neef framework definesa set of human needs which are finite, few, anduniversal across humanity. Crucially, this frame-work supposes a critical distinction between needsand satisfiers. Though the needs themselves arefinite, the means chosen for the attempted satis-faction of those needs are potentially infinite andmay vary widely over time and across cultures.

Moreover, these ‘satisfiers’ are not all equallysuccessful in terms of meeting the underlyingneeds. On the contrary, some ‘satisfiers’ offer onlypseudo-satisfaction of the underlying needs, while

others again inhibit or even destroy the satisfac-tion of a need. Jackson and Marks garner evi-dence to suggest that pseudo-satisfaction isparticularly prominent in the attempt to use mate-rial goods to satisfy non-material needs such asaffection, participation, creativity and so on. Onthe basis of this evidence, and in the light of theenvironmental damage caused by material con-sumption, the authors suggest that one way ofconceiving a more sustainable society (withoutcompromising human welfare) lies in redesigningthe process of needs-satisfaction.

Both the conventional economic model and theneeds-based model of human welfare rest on cer-tain underlying assumptions about human nature.Thus it is reasonable to ask, first, what evolution-ary psychology has to say about these underlyingmodels.

Firstly, of course, it is clearly relevant to call onWilson’s critique of economics as ‘hermetic’. Theutility calculus on which consumer behaviour isbased in the economic model is a crude andill-formed model of human nature when com-pared with the multiplicity of behaviours andcomplexity of proximal motivations highlightedby evolutionary psychology. In some sense, eventhe ‘rationality’ of utility maximisation in theeconomic model is called into question by evolu-tionary psychology. Classical utilitarianism sup-poses that reason alone is capable of identifyingand distinguishing between different actions, theoutcomes of those actions and the pleasures orpains associated with them. Evolutionary biologysets out a much more complex terrain in whichreason itself is construed at best as an emergentproperty of emotional responses laid down as‘somatic markers’ in the physical body (Damasio,2000). Evolutionary psychology portrays humansalmost as unwitting collaborators in genetic selec-tion, carried along by drives and persuasions overwhich we have little individual or collective con-trol, victims of the evolutionary strategies of theselfish gene.

By comparison, the needs-based approach atleast shares with evolutionary psychology the as-sumption that certain aspects of human natureare universal. Moreover, the thesis of multiplicityin satisfaction—or attempted satisfaction—bears


some similarity to the thesis of multiplicity inbehavioural patterns deriving from the universaldrive for genetic succession. On a closer inspec-tion, however, the consilience between evolution-ary psychology and the needs-based view appearsshakier. In particular, though offering theprospect of sustainable consumption (by a revi-sioning of the way in which needs are satisfied),the needs-based model offers little in the way ofexplanation as to why current consumption pat-terns should have proved so seductive.

Evolutionary psychology, by contrast, offersthe insight that seduction is precisely the point. Ifthe lessons from evolutionary psychology are cor-rect, much of our behaviour as economic con-sumers derives from our nature as biologicalanimals attempting to maximise our opportunitiesfor genetic succession. Amongst other things, thismeans that we are driven constantly to positionourselves as advantageously as possible, both withrespect to the opposite sex and in relation to oursexual competitors. There is clear evidence that acertain proportion of consumer behaviour isgeared precisely towards this end (Fine andLeopold, 1993; Rosenblatt, 1999). Moreover, thisthesis borrows considerable credibility from else-where in the ecological economics literature. Ve-blen himself put forward the idea that at leastsome of consumer behaviour is directed at ‘con-spicuous consumption’—consumption which ad-vertised our wealth (and therefore, our socialposition) relative to those around us (Veblen,1899).

Hirsch argued more than 20 years ago that weare led to consume not solely on the basis of thefunctional value of material goods, but also onthe basis of their value in positioning us withrespect to our fellow humans (Hirsch, 1977).Hirsch even highlighted the never-ending ‘RedQueen’ struggle associated with positional con-sumption. As he described it, ‘it is a case ofeveryone in the crowd standing on tiptoe andnone getting a better view. Yet at the start of theprocess some individuals gain a better view bystanding on tiptoe, and others are forced to fol-low if they are to keep their position. If all dofollow… everyone expends more resources andends up with the same position’ (Hirsch, 1977, p.49).

Thus, at one level at least, evolutionary psy-chology purports to offer a theory of humanbehaviour which is not only consilient with biol-ogy, but also has clear resonance with some in-sights from within ecological economics andsocial psychology. As such, its interpretations ofthe roots of consumer behaviour—however,bleak for the prospects of sustainable develop-ment—deserve to be taken seriously.

5. The evolutionary psychology of contentment

We noted above that, in contrast to the utilitar-ian view, evolutionary psychology ascribes noover-riding authority to the rationality of individ-ual utility maximisation. Clearly, pleasures of onekind and another may have developed as evolu-tionary mechanisms to reinforce successful geneticstrategies. Love, friendship, family, peer approval,career success and (perhaps most obviously) sexall seem to come with some kind of feeling ofpleasure or contentment attached to them; and ithas been argued (Wright, 1994) that all of theseaspects of life assume important roles in kin selec-tion (Hamilton, 1972), reciprocal altruism (Triv-ers, 1971) and other strategies for geneticsuccession.

Conversely, it is clear that excessive unhappi-ness or misery can be detrimental to genetic suc-cession, particularly when it is severe enough toinvoke suicide or otherwise impede reproductivesuccess. Nevertheless, claims Wright (1995), ‘‘ratesof depression have been doubling every decade,suicide is the third most common cause of deathamong young adults in North America, 15% ofAmericans have had a clinical anxiety disorder’’.In Wright’s view, these kinds of statistics supporta kind of ‘mismatch’ hypothesis: a claim that insome sense the socioeconomic system in which weare currently embroiled is misaligned with thepsychological make-up of Homo sapiens as anevolved species.

In making this claim, Wright—and other evo-lutionary psychologists—are echoing somethingecological economists and others have been sayingfor years. Almost 40 years ago, Lewis Herberargued that human society had ‘‘reached a degree


of anonymity, social atomisation, and spiritualisolation that is virtually unprecedented in humanhistory’’ (Herber, 1963). Fromm (1976) was ap-palled at the alienation and passivity, that per-vade modern life. Scitovsky (1976) highlighted thedestructive nature of consumer behaviour.Wachtel (1989) argued that ‘‘the consumer way oflife is deeply flawed, both psychologically andecologically’’. The literature even highlights theRed Queen characteristics of this obsessive addic-tion to material consumption. Like most psycho-pathological behaviour, it tends to generatedecreasing returns to scale, and involves runningever harder and faster in order to stay in the sameplace (Douglas and Isherwood, 1980).

The ecological economics critique tends toplace the responsibility for this ‘mismatch’ in thehands of the existing economic and social struc-tures, and in particular in the relentless pursuit ofeconomic growth at the expense of both socialwelfare and ecological health. Daly and Cobb(1989) and others have highlighted the divergencein recent years between rising trends in economicoutput (gross domestic product) and falling trendsin ecologically sustainable human welfare. MaxNeef (1995) has used this evidence to suggest a‘threshold’ hypothesis, namely: that in the earlystages of development economic growth deliversincreasing levels of human well-being; but, once acertain threshold has been reached, continuedeconomic growth actually impedes further pro-gress and reduces well-being.

Evolutionary psychology approaches the ‘mis-match’ between socioeconomic institutions andhuman well-being from a different perspective.Specifically, evolutionary psychologists point outthat our conditioned behaviour evolved during aquite specific period of history, namely, the periodof ‘evolutionary adaptation’ (Tooby and Cos-mides, 1990). Thus, our responses to each other,to other social groups, to other species and to theenvironment are ones that evolved during a timeat which humans were essentially nomadic hunter-gatherers. Our current social environment, partic-ularly in developed economies, is increasinglydivergent from the ancestral environment. AsNesse and Williams (1997) point out: ‘‘adapta-tions that lead to genetic success in a population

are likely to operate effectively in historically nor-mal conditions. For our species, this means theStone Age’’. Thus, the mismatch responsible forthe burgeoning discontents of modern life, ac-cording to the evolutionary psychologists, is themismatch between the society we find ourselves inand the environment for which we were‘designed’.

The explanatory uses of this thesis are extensiveand diverse. Aside from the evidence of increasingsuicide rates and rates of depression, the theoryhas been used variously to explain homicidal ten-dencies (Daly and Wilson, 1988), the rise in di-vorce rates (Wright, 1997), increases in vagrancy(Wright, 1994), the increasing ineffectiveness ofantibiotic treatments (Nesse and Williams, 1997),the failure to achieve political solutions to realworld problems (Miller, 1997, 2000), the growthin chronic diet-related illnesses such as heart dis-ease and diabetes (Cronin and Curry, 1997) and agood deal more besides.

The question of devising appropriate policyresponses to this mismatch is, as I have argued inmore detail elsewhere (Jackson, 2000), consider-ably more clouded. The critical point here is thatpolicy responses form a part of the cultural fabricof society. Whilst evolutionary psychology clearlydoes not preclude cultural change towards sus-tainable policies and practices, it suggests thatcultural evolution is to some extent influenced bythe epigenetic rules (Wilson, 1998) that circum-scribe human behaviour. Thus, as Dawkins hasrecently argued quite explicitly, evolutionary psy-chology suggests that ‘sustainability does notcome naturally’ to the human species (Dawkins,2001).

6. Discussion

This paper has reviewed a number of differentapproaches to understanding social evolution andhuman behaviour. In particular, it has examinedin some depth the emerging science of evolution-ary psychology and argued that it has some im-portant lessons for ecological economics. Not allof these lessons are happy ones. Evolutionarypsychology, for example, informs us that there is


a clear evolutionary logic (albeit one which is nowoutdated in survival terms) behind the behaviourof human beings as consumers. In particular, thetendency to accumulate material goods for posi-tional reasons appears to occupy a critical place inour evolved strategies for genetic success.

On the other hand, evolutionary psychologyreinforces one of the key insights of ecologicaleconomics, namely, that the institutions and con-ventions of modern society (and in particular ofmodern economic systems) are ill-suited either todefend the integrity of its environment or to en-hance well-being. In fact, evolutionary psychologygoes further than this to suggest that modernsociety is ill-suited to defend the long-term repro-ductive success of the gene pool. Thus, our failureto develop sustainable economies becomes, in thehands of evolutionary psychology, an emergentproperty of an evolutionary system (a coevolu-tionary system) in which genetic evolution hasfailed to keep pace with cultural evolution—asystem, one might say, which appears to all in-tents and purposes to be fatally flawed!

It seems to me that ecological economics facesthree possible avenues of response to this starkmessage. The first is to accept the worldview ofevolutionary psychology and to construe its les-sons as casting serious—possibly even terminal—constraints on the project of conceivingsustainable development. The second is to acceptthe worldview of evolutionary psychology but tosearch within its constraints for ways of influenc-ing human behaviour towards sustainable devel-opment. The third is to question (and perhapsreject) the epistemological basis of evolutionarypsychology and the metaphysics that supports it.

The first of these avenues is the one chosen, forexample, by Morrison (1999) who casts humanityas a ‘plague mammal’, nature’s ‘prattlingprodigy’, rejects all notions of social or spiritualpurpose, and suggests that the only relevant pol-icy question is how to manage the inevitablecollapse of the population curve. A perverse vari-ation on the same theme is pursued by Easter-brook (1996) who argues that evolution is aliveand well, and looks forward with something ap-proaching glee to our eventual demise and the riseof the next super-species. Clearly this is a response

whose legitimacy cannot be entirely ruled out,particularly on some readings of the availableevidence. Nonetheless, its bleakness invites a po-tentially paralysing retreat into the philosophy ofdespair.

The second alternative is the one favoured (ofcourse) by those who broadly accept evolutionarypsychology but recognise the need for changes inhuman behaviour if we are to achieve sustainabledevelopment. Those who take this line tend tofocus mainly on the evolutionary arguments foraltruistic, cooperative and affiliative behaviourpatterns. They point in particular to the capacityfor cultural learning and the potential for institu-tional reinforcement of sustainable behaviours(e.g. Wright, 1994; Siebenhuner, 2000b). Perhapsthe most promising clue to the potential benefitsof this approach is the insight that the success ofindividual behavioural strategies depends cruciallyon the social environment. Thus, Wilkinson(2000) argues strongly in favour of reducing in-come inequality as a means to fostering affiliative,cooperative behaviour strategies, a policy that hasclear resonance with the ecological economicsagenda (Stymne and Jackson, 2000).

Siebenhuner (2000b) points out, correctly in myview, that the lack of reciprocity between presentand future generations limits the extent to whichreciprocal altruism can be expected to deliversustainable development. He suggests instead thathope lies in a revised concept of group selectionarticulated by Sober and Wilson (1998), in whichsurvival rests on the characteristics and strategiesof the group as a whole, rather than the be-haviours of its individual members. It is, however,salutary to note Sober and Wilson’s own caution-ary reflections on the degree of promise thatgroup selectionism holds on offer. ‘‘Group selec-tion does provide a setting in which helping be-haviour directed at members of one’s own groupcan evolve;’’ they acknowledge. ‘‘However, itequally provides a context in which hurting indi-viduals in other groups can be selectively advanta-geous. Group selection favours within groupniceness and between group nastiness’’ (Sober andWilson, 1998).

Thus, even group selectionism appears to offerus no more optimistic vision of the prospects for


social evolution than the one espoused byGumplowicz, and it is difficult to see how muchcloser it takes us towards sustainable develop-ment. Within the evolutionary psychology world-view there appears to be no evolutionarymechanism capable of reliably thwarting the re-lentless pursuit of our own material interests andthose of our social group–processes which leadultimately to political conflict and environmentaldegradation.

Some evolutionary psychologists have at-tempted to argue that religious or spiritual beliefsevolved precisely to provide a balancing mecha-nism at the super-social or planetary level.Wright (1994), for example, argues that Darwinhimself ended up thinking of religion in this way.Others have pointed out, however, that such be-lief systems have never been successful either inpreserving social cohesion or in protecting theenvironment. Morrison (1999) goes as far as tosuggest that religious fervour evolved only toprovide anaesthetic benefits to doomed civilisa-tions—paralysing them from taking appropriateaction to prevent their demise!

A further variation on this second avenue ofresponse is to argue for a decoupling of statusfrom power, and in particular of status fromcontrol over material resources. Wright (1994)argues, somewhat perversely perhaps, that ‘in amonastery, serenity and asceticism can be sourcesof status’ and insists that ‘there are cultures andsubcultures that try to put less emphasis on thematerial and more emphasis on the spiritual’ (op.cit. p. 61). But evolutionary psychology generallyleaves us in no doubt that existing models ofhuman behaviour remain far from this ideal. Asa review of Ridley (1994) book trumpets: ‘‘ani-mals and plants invented sex to fend off parasiticinfection. Now look where it has got us. Menwant BMWs, power and money in order to pair-bond with women who are blonde, youthful andnarrow-waisted’’.

The final avenue of response is to reject evolu-tionary psychology out of hand. In deference toits depth and breadth, the critique of evolution-ary psychology (and of evolutionary biologymore generally) really deserves a survey paper ofits own. Here it is perhaps enough to point the

interested reader towards Hilary and StevenRose’s (Rose and Rose, 2000) colourful collec-tion of essays. Broadly speaking, the contributorsaccuse evolutionary psychology of a variety ofsins, including: failing to provide a secure episte-mological basis for their predictions, indulging infaulty logic and loose reasoning, failing to distin-guish appropriately between proximal and distalexplanations, drifting into genetic determinism,and committing the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ of infer-ring ‘ought’ from ‘is’.

The last of these accusations appears to offersome explanation for the ferocity with which evo-lutionary psychology and its predecessors (socio-biology and social Darwinism) tend to becountered. In a deliciously irreverent contributionto the Rose and Rose volume, Jencks (2000)notes how easily we slip ‘from what is likely,what is programmed by nature into us, what isan epigenetic rule, into believing it is somethingthat cannot, in the long run, be resisted.’ Inkeeping with its intellectual predecessors, evolu-tionary psychology parades before it some rem-nant of the Spencerian notion of ‘the survival ofthe fittest’, along with the unsettling suggestionthat competitive and aggressive behaviours aresomehow justifiable on this basis. This, claimsJencks, ‘is the solecism that Consilience achieves,despite its author’s disclaimers’ (op. cit. p. 44).

In fact, Wilson does not so much slip into thenaturalistic fallacy as revel in refuting its author-ity. ‘‘The posing of the naturalistic fallacy is itselfa fallacy,’’ he insists. ‘‘For if ought is not is, thenwhat is? To translate is into ought makes sense ifwe attend to the objective meaning of ethicalprecepts’’ (Wilson, 1998, p. 278). This is one ofnumerous passages in Wilson’s Consilience inwhich we gain insight into his true agenda. ‘‘Themain thrust of the consilience worldview,’’ headmits in the final chapter, ‘‘is that culture andhence the unique qualities of the human specieswill make complete sense only when linked incausal explanation to the natural sciences. Biol-ogy in particular is the most proximate andhence relevant of the scientific disciplines’’ (ibidp. 298). Thus, we are left in no doubt by Wilson(as by other proponents of evolutionary psy-chology) that the term consilience is not to be


confused with the term conciliation. This is not somuch about ‘unifying knowledge’ as claiming terri-torial advantage for a particular branch of knowl-edge. Ultimately the pluralism on which ecologicaleconomics has always prided itself may lead it toreject the kind of consilience that Wilson appearsto demand.

In the final analysis, perhaps, we need to takeevolutionary psychology with a pinch of salt.Clever theories, according to this clever theory,may be nothing more than elaborate attempts toincrease the sexual capital of the theorists (Miller,2000). Nonetheless, it seems to me that ecologicaleconomics must take some position in relation tomodels of human behaviour. Certainly, it is not acoherent intellectual position both to claimWilson’s concept of consilience, as Gowdy andFerrer-i-Carbonell (1999) do, and yet to reject theinsights of evolutionary psychology. If one acceptsthe evolutionary psychology worldview, then thereis clearly a difficult task ahead in formulatingwithin it a concept of human and social agencycompatible with sustainable development. If onerejects the evolutionary psychology worldview, asI suspect many ecological economists might wish todo, then we are faced with what is perhaps an evengreater task: namely, the establishment of an epis-temological and metaphysical basis for a moreoptimistic view of human nature.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for critical comments and discus-sions on earlier drafts of this work from a numberof people, including: Blake Alcott, Guido Buen-storf, Fritz Hinterberger, Nic Marks, Joan Mar-tinez-Alier, Richard Norgaard, Bernd Sieben-huner, Prashant Vaze, Jo Vogel, two anonymousreferees and the participants in a working sessionat the 3rd European Society of Ecological Econom-ics conference in Vienna in May 2000.

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Evolutionary psychology in ecological economics: consilience, consumption and contentment