Evolution’s republic: Groundwork for a biosocial contract

Abstract

Are the concepts of the state of nature and the social contract still relevant for contemporary political theory? I argue that these ideas from early modern and Enlightenment political theory can be fruitfully reapplied via the data and methods of evolutionary biology. Alignment of evolutionary theory with social contract theory can answer the charge that Darwinism, however accurate its picture of the natural world or natural history, provides no defensible grounding for ethics or politics. The implications of the biosocial contract for political economy are far-reaching, with Rousseau’s insistence that ‘all have something and none has too much of anything’ gaining biological and evolutionary confirmation. Republicanism refracted through Darwinism telescopes freedom as non-domination back to the very biological origins of human politics. Such naturalization suggests translating the Rawlsian imperative to reconcile self-interest and social cooperation into the related Darwinian imperative to use the public sphere to end irrational and destructive arms races.