The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love

Evolutionary Perspectives

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Human love, widely regarded by religious and wisdom traditions as both an essential means toward human flourishing and a crucial end of human fulfillment, has been largely ignored in the history of evolutionary science. Since Huxley (1894) and Spencer (1897), prevailing interpretations of Darwinian biology have tended to view altruism and sacrificial other regard as incommensurable with the process of natural selection. In the last several decades, however, biological sciences in general and evolutionary theory in particular have witnessed a remarkable upsurge of interest in altruism and other forms of love.

	To what extent are differences in other regarding attitudes and behaviors heritable?
	To what extent is variance in altruistic attitudes or behaviors associated with fitness differentials?
	To what extent is kin selection - and familial bonding dynamics that may emerge therefrom- a necessary and/or sufficient substrate for the development of deeply caring, richly benevolent other regard?

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	To what extent is reciprocal altruism - and the social and affective structures that emerge therefrom - a necessary and/or sufficient substrate for the development of deeply caring, richly benevolent other regard?
	To what extent is altruism a sexually selected trait, and under what conditions does it function positively or negatively in mate recruitment?
	To what extent do patterns in moral and altruistic behavior conform to expectations of indirect reciprocity?
	To what extent do patterns in moral and altruistic behavior conform to expectations of self deception theory?
	How plastic is the influence of group-selection, and must genuinely sacrificial other regard inevitably come at the cost of intensely exclusionary disregard or hostility?
	Are the most radical forms of altruism evolutionarily "uncoupled" (Plotkin, 1997) from the human genetic/neurological substrate?
	Can game theoretic models of cooperativity be extended to account for genuine sacrifice by reformulation in light of group or hierarchical selection?
	How far can animal models take us in our understanding of human altruism?
	What is the relationship between organismal well-being and altruistic behaviors and disposition, i.e., is unlimited love a homeostatic adaptation for life in groups?
	How can religious beliefs, experiences, and institutions be understood in terms of evolutionary (genetic selection) or coevolutionary (memetic transmission) processes, and in what ways are they biologically adaptive and/or altruism-promoting?