something like inclusive fitness and kin altruism?
Let me start with Aquinas. In the “Supplement” to his Summa Theologica I,
Thomas follows Aristotle and the Roman natural-law theorist Ulpian in asserting that humans share with all animals an inclination to have offspring. '° Having said this, he then introduces a very modern sounding commentary on the uniqueness to humans of the long period of infant dependency. Notice the similarity of his argument to the words of Cacioppo above. Aquinas writes,
Yet nature does not incline thereto in the same way in all animals; since there are animals whose offspring are able to seek food immediately after birth, or are sufficiently fed by their mother; and in these there is no tie between male and female; whereas in those whose offspring needing the support of both parents, although for a short time, there is a certain tie, as may be seen in certain birds. In man, however, since the child needs the parents’ care for a long time, there is a very great tie between male and female, to which tie even the generic nature inclines. *°
Although there is in this quote a description of how family formation emerges at the human level, there is an implicit argument for both the fact of human infant dependency and what we today call inclusive fitness as well. But these ideas are even more evident in the next quote, although stated very much from the male point of view, a habit typical of his time. Aquinas says, “Since the natural life which cannot be preserved in the person of an undying
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father is preserved, by a kind of succession, in the person of the son, it is naturally befitting that the son succeed in the things belonging to the father.” 7! Aquinas’s main source for this insight was Aristotle’s Politics. In one place Aristotle wrote, “ In common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves.” ”
However, in both Aristotle and Aquinas, such claims were not just about the importance of kin continuity, they were statements about the origin and need of long-term investments by parents at the human level. In contrast to his teacher Plato who, in his Republic, had advocated removing children from their biological parents in an effort to overcome the civil frictions created by nepotism, ~ Aristotle counters with an assertion about the origins of human care. Aristotle wrote, “That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.” He believed that in Plato’s state, “love will be watery....Of the two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection — that a thing is your own and that it is your only one — neither can exist in such a state as this.”** This is an assertion about the importance of kin altruism in human care.
Although Aquinas saw these natural inclinations as important for the formation of long-term human care, he believed that they were not sufficient for mature parental love. Powerful social, cultural, and indeed religious reinforcements were also necessary for stable parental investment to be realized. This, once again, is due, according to Aquinas, because of the many long years of human childhood dependency; human children need their parents for a very long period of time and over the course
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