Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction

265 Pages·2008·2.194 MB·English

by  William Flesch

Comeuppance

Comeuppance
Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment,
and Other Biological Components of Fiction
William Flesch
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Copyright © 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2009.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Flesch, William, 1956–
Comeuppance : costly signaling, altruistic punishment, and other
biological components of fiction / William Flesch.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-02631-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-674-03228-6 (pbk.)
1. Fiction—Psychological aspects. I. Title.
PN3352.P7F53 2007
808.301′9—dc22 2007021761
To Laura, Daniel,
and Julian
(age six, who told his parents proudly,
after rebuking someone for parking at a fire-hydrant,
“I was doing altruistic punishment!”)

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 How Could an Interest in Fiction Have Evolved? 7
2 Signaling 75
3 Storytellers and Their Relation to Stories 125
4 Vindication and Vindictiveness 155
Coda 182
References 187
Notes 203
Index 245

Preface
In this book I cite some recent work in evolutionary psychology to try to
analyze some of the biological conditions of possibility of narrative and
in particular of fiction. I, too, am suspicious of evolutionary psychology.
I would be glad to think, therefore, that the sometimes mildly technical
theoretical and psychological arguments that I make about the nature of
fiction will be judged by the insights they yield with respect to particu-
lar narratives. Readers should feel free to begin with Chapter 4, which
focuses on two exemplary narratives. Chapter 4 should be pretty clear
even without the earlier terminological explanation that the first three
chapters provide; if you find it at all convincing you can turn to the first
three chapters for an argument as to why evolution might have formed
us to respond to Oliver Twistand King Learas we do. Chapter 4 is on vin-
dictiveness and vindication in narrative, and it shows how the basic
scheme I argue for functions in these two examples. That scheme, much
simplified, is this: narratives tend to contain or at least to suggest the
possibility of three basic figures (though there may be more or fewer
than three characters who instantiate them):an innocent, someone who
exploits that innocent, and someone else who seeks to punish the ex-
ploiter. Humans are endowed by our evolutionary heritage with a
propensity to punish those who cheat the innocent and with a propen-
sity to cheer on other punishers. This is why we dislike villains and root
for heroes. The biological origin of this propensity is part of what has
come to be called the “evolution of cooperation,” which provides the in-
sights that are central to this book.
Every book testifies to the evolution of cooperation. It does so officially
in some of its paratextual apparatus:Dedication, Acknowledgments,
Notes, and Works Cited. The other elements of the apparatus appear in
due order; here let me acknowledge a few of the people who made this
book possible through their help and occasional severity (since this
book is in part a celebration of severity):