A Darwinian Left?

The application of Darwinian ideas to social and political thinking is one of the most controversial intellectual developments of our time, stirring up fierce debate among a wide range of people including scientists, social scientists, journalists, economists, psychiatrists, philosophers and lawyers. Darwinism Today is a series of short books that introduces readers to the cutting edge of these debates. Written by leading Darwinian scholars, the books show how issues as disparate as the nature of aggression and the definition of female beauty can be illuminated in unexpected ways by recent advances in evolutionary biology, and reveal the implications of such findings for society. In A Darwinian Left Peter Singer looks at why the left-wing is so contemptuous of these biological theories of behaviour. If humans are indeed born cooperators as research suggests, why does the right claim Darwinism as its own? The author traces the history of this intellectual divide and concludes that it i s high time the left radically revised its outdated view of human nature.
He shows how the insights of modern evolutionary theory can help to set realistic and realizable goals, reinvigorating left-wing thinking for the next millennium. This is a new vision of the political left from one of the leading moral philosophers of our time.