ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the general problem about the meaning of individualism and contrast what Darwin actually wrote on the importance of human sociability with neo-Darwinist separatist doctrines. Darwin emphasized how the development of human intelligence did not displace our species's highly complex range of social feelings but simply showed up conflicts among them and gradually suggested ways of dealing with these conflicts within society, notably morality. The book considers how Darwin's approach provides a useful change from the traditional philosophical debates in which Feeling and Reason has often been treated almost as opponents: separate and alternative faculties. Scientists such as Brian Goodwin and Simon Conway Morris, along with philosophers such as Jerry Feodor, have developed this thought by noting that organisms too display active tendencies in their formation that are unmistakably independent of natural selection.
