3 - RESCUING ECONOMIC MAN FROM THE SELFISH GENE

Summary

The focus on economic man in essay 1 may have been out of place. The biologist Richard Dawkins (1976) claims that the person is but the agent of his or her genes. Gene interests guide human action. And, unlike the critics discussed in the prior essay, who claim that people do not choose goals that truly serve their interests, the theory of the selfish gene leaves no doubt about the gene serving its purpose; natural selection has made survival this purpose. Selfish-gene theory may topple the person, but it strengthens the case for the power of self-interest as this is measured by gene interest.

My objectives here are two. First, I examine some implications of selfish-gene theory that are not explicit in Dawkins's work, or in those parts of the debate that has followed publication of his work that I have been able to read. Second, I extricate economic man from the agent status to which he is assigned by selfish-gene theory. The gene of Dawkins's theory is entirely focused on one goal – its survival. Survival certainly is important to economic man, but, as viewed in economics, it is not his exclusive goal. Superficially viewed, people seem willing to take risks they would avoid if survival were their only goal. People are willing to court the risk of dying to experience the exhilaration of climbing high mountains; to get from here to there faster than is safe; and to undertake dangerous voyages across unknown seas and even through unexplored space.