The Consilient Brain : The Bioneurological Basis of Economics, Society, and Politics

The present work is the third in a series constituting an extension of my doctoral thesis done at Stanford in the early 1970s. Like the earlier works, The Reciprocal Modular Brain in Economics and Politics, Shaping the Rational and Moral Basis of Organization, Exchange, and Choice (Kluwer AcademicfPlenum Publishing, 1999) and Toward Consilience: The Bioneurological Basis of Behavior, Thought, Experience, and Language (Kluwer AcademicfPlenum Publishing, 2000), it may also be considered to respond to the call for consilience by Edward O. Wilson. I agree with Wilson that there is a pressing need in the sciences today for the unification of the social with the natural sciences. I consider the present work to proceed from the perspective of behavioral ecology, specifically a subfield which I choose to call interpersonal behavioral ecology. Ecology, as a general field, has emerged in the last quarter of the 20th century as a major theme of concern as we have become increasingly aware that we must preserve the planet whose limited resources we share with all other earthly creatures. Interpersonal behavioral ecology, however, focuses not on the physical environment, but upon our social environment. It concerns our interpersonal behavioral interactions at all levels, from simple dyadic one-to-one personal interactions to our larger, even global, social, economic, and political interactions. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction....Pages 1-3 Front Matter....Pages 5-5 The Maslow Hierarchy of Needs vs. Maclean’s Triune Brain....Pages 7-14 The Conflict Systems Neurobehavioral Model....Pages 15-22 The Global-State Algorithms of Reciprocal Behavior....Pages 23-27 The Dynamic Equation of Our Neural Architecture....Pages 29-31 The Homeostatic Regulation of Our Social Neural Architecture....Pages 33-36 The Question of Science: Physics vs. Social....Pages 37-40 Front Matter....Pages 41-41 Reciprocity and the Evolution of the Market....Pages 43-48 The Misrepresentation of Adam Smith....Pages 49-55 The Neural Foundations of the Invisible Hand....Pages 57-62 The Neural Basis of General Equilibrium Theory....Pages 63-66 Friedrich Hayek and Wishful Thinking....Pages 67-71 Neural Architecture and Price Theory....Pages 73-78 Self-Interest and the Self-Reference Fallacy....Pages 79-81 Neural Architecture and the Market Calculus....Pages 83-86 The Neural Dynamic in Equilibrium Modeling....Pages 87-92 Front Matter....Pages 93-93 Political Economy: The Neural Dynamic and Scarcity....Pages 95-101 Institutions, Organizations, and Reciprocity....Pages 103-108 The New Institutional Economics: Williamson and Transaction Cost Economics....Pages 109-115 The New Institutional Economics: The Perspective of Douglass North....Pages 117-123 Front Matter....Pages 125-125 Evolution, Science, and Society....Pages 127-134 Inclusive Social Fitness and Evolutionary Neuroscience....Pages 135-138 The Neural Dynamic, Exchange, and Social Structure....Pages 139-148 The Neural Dynamic and Our Political Choices....Pages 149-157 Global Politics, Reciprocity, and the CSN Model....Pages 159-163 Front Matter....Pages 165-165 The Concept of Justice....Pages 167-172 Our Moral Consciousness....Pages 173-179 The CSN Model vs. The Maslow Hierarchy....Pages 181-185 Conclusion....Pages 187-191 Back Matter....Pages 193-234 This book considers neuroscience as the bridge between the natural and social sciences, and examines the applicability for sociology, economics, and political science of new concepts in cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscience. This work applies current research in evolutionary neuroscience to the foundation of economics and politics