ABSTRACT
Why do humans cooperate? at evolutionary scholars should nd this question interesting might perplex some religious studies scholars. e benets of cooperation are familiar. Yet, as omas Hobbes observed, these benets are fragile, and cooperative exchange requires mechanisms
for social order. Hobbes imagines life “in a state of nature” lacking such ordering mechanisms as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes 1651: pt 1, ch. 13). According to Hobbes, humans have managed to improve on the state of nature by creating governing institutions, which require that individuals:
confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or assembly of men, to bear their person … is is the generation of that great leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. (Ibid.: pt 2, ch. 17)
Yet there is a problem with the evolutionary logic of Hobbes’s presumed mechanism. e problem centers on the evolutionary stability of individual consent. Where theft of a cooperative benet is possible, “common interests” do not exist independently of protection mechanisms. Rather, manifold individual interests exist, and these overlap only to varying degrees. Common interests must be forged and maintained. If individuals were to grant their power and strength to governments, then what will prevent those who govern from exploiting this power for selsh gain? Some explanation for the evolutionary emergence and stability of cooperative institutions is therefore needed.
