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A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. By Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis. Princeton University Press 2011. ISBN: 0691151253; 9780691151250

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Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin.

In A Cooperative Species, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis–pioneers in the new experimental and evolutionary science of human behavior–show that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers.

The authors describe how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment.

Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, A Cooperative Species provides a compelling and novel account of how humans came to be moral and cooperative.

Samuel Bowles heads the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute and teaches economics at the University of Siena. Herbert Gintis holds faculty positions at the Santa Fe Institute, Central European University, and the University of Siena. The authors’ recent research has appeared in Science, Nature, American Economic Review, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and Current Anthropology.

SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. By Martin Nowak & Roger Highfield. Free Press 2011. 352 pages. ISBN: 1439100187; 9781439100189

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EVOLUTION IS OFTEN PRESENTED AS A STRICTLY COMPETITIVE ENDEAVOR. This point of view has had serious implications for the way we see the mechanics of both science and culture. But scientists have long wondered how societies could have evolved without some measure of cooperation. And if there was cooperation involved, how could it have arisen from nature “red in tooth and claw”?

Martin Nowak, one of the world’s experts on evolution and game theory, working here with bestselling science writer Roger Highfield, turns an important aspect of evolutionary theory on its head to explain why cooperation, not competition, has always been the key to the evolution of complexity. He offers a new explanation for the origin of life and a new theory for the origins of language, biology’s second greatest information revolution after the emergence of genes. SuperCooperators also brings to light his game-changing work on disease. Cancer is fundamentally a failure of the body’s cells to cooperate, Nowak has discovered, but organs are cleverly designed to foster cooperation, and he explains how this new understanding can be used in novel cancer treatments.

Nowak and Highfield examine the phenomena of reciprocity, reputation, and reward, explaining how selfless behavior arises naturally from competition; how forgiveness, generosity, and kindness have a mathematical rationale; how companies can be better designed to promote cooperation; and how there is remarkable overlap between the recipe for cooperation that arises from quantitative analysis and the codes of conduct seen in major religions, such as the Golden Rule.

In his first book written for a wide audience, this hugely influential scientist explains his cutting-edge research into the mysteries of cooperation, from the rise of multicellular life to Good Samaritans. With wit and clarity, Nowak and Highfield make the case that cooperation, not competition, is the defining human trait. SuperCooperators will expand our understanding of evolution and provoke debate for years to come.

　　《小批评集》收集了我自1994年以来用中文写作的篇幅较短的随笔、评论、访谈和杂文。这些文字大都曾经发表在国内的报刊杂志上。把这些文章结集出版，虽早就有友人热心催促，我自己却一直犹豫不决。最让我踌躇的，是把写于上个世纪的那些或被人遗忘、或已不被更年轻的一辈知晓的“少作”从故纸堆里拿出来重新公之于世。但是就有朋友说，展示求学乃至思想发展的历程，对于读者还是有用的。我于是翻检旧作，权衡再三，觉得朋友们的话确实不无道理，而且还感到无论是早几年的那些读书感想，还是更近几年感时而发的评论，虽非严格的学术写作的“正课”，倒是无不来自对文本的精读，无不是切切实实的观察与反思；惟其并非“正课”，它们才可能让专门学科之外的读者发生兴趣；再有就是从求学和思想发展的角度讲，那些我今天已经不复在意的话题与那些今天在我看来仍有意义的话题，彼此之间其实是有比较完整的相互关联性的；它们实际上具有相互解释和相互补充的功能。于是我不揣浅陋，把近二十年里的短文无论新旧都整理出来，订为一集，题为《小批评集》。称其为“小”，既因其中包含的文章篇幅较短，也是相对于所谓“正课”的学术论文乃至著作而言的。

　　1994年在沈昌文先生主持的《读书》杂志上发表第一篇学术笔记的时候，是我在耶鲁读比较文学的第二年。当时修习的课程均围绕着英德诗歌（特别是浪漫派的诗歌）、希腊拉丁古典文学以及德意志观念论和浪漫派的哲学等主题。那时写下的几篇读书笔记，就是当时听课和阅读的副产品，题目自然也都不出当时攻读的科目。其中关于英国诗歌的部分，其兴趣和观察角度尤其受耶鲁英语系和比较文学系几位浪漫派研究大家的影响。而对当时在美国兴起的、向这些前辈的研究方法和观点提出挑战的所谓“新历史主义”，我始终是抱着审慎态度看待的，因此这些随笔没有反映这一派的观点。

　　上个世纪末，我开始写作博士论文。同我此前修课的情况不同，我的博士论文包含了中国文学的内容。这是我第一次进入北美的所谓“汉学”领域。这个新的领域那时让我意识到，同所谓“西学”的领域相比，这个领域不仅是内容不同，而且常常连最根本的方法（就让我这里暂且在世俗意义上使用这个词）、旨趣、观念和话语程式都不一样，更不用说纯粹的学术之外的东西。我那时在这种环境里，疲于应付，付出不少代价，随笔写作便随之减少了。但是这一经验也并非没有带给我好处，仅就我自己的学术和思想发展方面而言，这一经验强迫我离开幻想和思辨的象牙塔，不得不在思考中更多地包含来自现实的因素，让我认识到我必须要面对的“中国性”。这就是我那一时期的这类写作开始加入越来越多的中国内容，并最终产生了一批针对中国现当代文化评论的原因。

后记也讲个故事。

暑假返美，又做一回陪审员。一桩交通事故案子，跟前几趟一样，仍是在撒冷市中心的县法院。律师质证、辩论结束，陪审团关起门来合议之前，法官照例给陪审团一通“指示”（instruction），如侵权行为的构成要件和民事举证责任标准。那是位老法官，富有经验，审判完全驾轻就熟了。听着他把一个个普通法术语用老百姓的话讲得明明白白，出于专业习惯，脑子里就开始追溯比较那些术语的诺曼法语和拉丁语词源。接着便意识到，这“人民法官”的话语策略同律师正好相反。律师办案，接待客户或者向证人取证，往往满口晦涩的行话，生怕人家没有被法律的奥秘与威严吓着。法官呢，虽说是“法律之化身”，一身黑袍，在庭上讲话却十分平易，不故作高深。陪审团和旁听席上的两造亲友与公众，跟着那循循善诱的口吻，一下就跨越了行话的栅栏。他简直是出色的翻译家呢。

经书上说，亚当的长子——夏娃“同耶和华一起”（’eth-YHWH）或“凭上帝佑助”（七十士本：dia tou theou）所生的“男人”（《创世记》4:1注），名叫该隐。该隐的儿女开创了牧、工、乐、妓四大行业，文明社会由此发端（同上，4:17以下）。那么，亚当子孙最初的翻译需求，该始于这四大行业的建立，即行话的生成与行业门槛维护，及随之而来的对语言障碍的克服（解释）吧。那可是远在宁录大王造通天塔，上帝“搅乱”子民语言之前的事情。换言之，人类虽然在巴别之野（今伊拉克）失去了亚当夏娃在伊甸园学会的“天堂语”，得来的却是远为复杂的“搅乱之语”的翻译知识，或由翻译而演进的理解、表达、分析、质疑与批判能力（详见《宽宽信箱·通天塔的教训》）——未必是坏事呢。推而论之，一切语言解释活动，都是翻译，远不止各民族语言间的转译沟通。因而，翻译必是永无止境、一场接一场的常新的斗争。

那案子我们陪审员怎样达成一致意见，法官如何判决，已淡忘了。只记得那天“法律面前人人平等”的异象降临之际，这一点关于译事的忽发奇想；再有就是回家途中，坐在缓缓行驶的波士顿郊线列车上，闪过的另一个念头：尘土亚当的故事和译注，该修订了。

Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, by Robert N. Bellah. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2011. ISBN 9780674061439. 784 pages.

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Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution.

How did our early ancestors transcend the quotidian demands of everyday existence to embrace an alternative reality that called into question the very meaning of their daily struggle? Robert Bellah, one of the leading sociologists of our time, identifies a range of cultural capacities, such as communal dancing, storytelling, and theorizing, whose emergence made this religious development possible. Deploying the latest findings in biology, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology, he traces the expansion of these cultural capacities from the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (roughly, the first millennium BCE), when individuals and groups in the Old World challenged the norms and beliefs of class societies ruled by kings and aristocracies. These religious prophets and renouncers never succeeded in founding their alternative utopias, but they left a heritage of criticism that would not be quenched.

Bellah’s treatment of the four great civilizations of the Axial Age—in ancient Israel, Greece, China, and India—shows all existing religions, both prophetic and mystic, to be rooted in the evolutionary story he tells. Religion in Human Evolution answers the call for a critical history of religion grounded in the full range of human constraints and possibilities.

Robert N. Bellah is Elliott Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.