278 Self and the Phenomenon of Life
b2726 Self and the Phenomenon of Life: A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to Humanity “9x6”called for a war against Muslims to recapture Jerusalem, the Holy Land,
promising absolution and remission of sins for Christians who joined the
cause, resulting in consolidation of his own weakening power at home.
12.7 Group Selection Revisited: Self as the
Fundamental Unit
It is highly relevant at this point to take up again the topic of “What is the
most appropriate level of natural selection?” Is it the gene, the individ-
ual, the kin, the clan, or is it multilevel? Richard Dawkins declared his
position in his famous book, The Selfish Gene: “The muddle in human
ethics over the level at which altruism is desirable — family, nation, race,
species, or all living things — is mirrored by a parallel muddle in biology
over the level at which altruism is to be expected according to the theory
of evolution... I shall argue that the fundamental unit of selection, and
therefore of self-interest, is not the species, nor the group, nor even,
strictly, the individual. It is the gene, the unit of heredity.”^39 Obviously,
Dawkins puts the gene on the center stage, arguing that it is the “fun-
damental unit of selection.” From this perspective he accepts kin selec-
tion, including altruism among close relatives, and rejects selection in
larger groups, because only the former is “genetically relevant.” (The
other kind of altruism that Dawkins accepts is the reciprocal altruism
in which the mutual advantage is immediately apparent.) Contrary to
this, Wilson and Wilson effectively argue that natural selection occurs
at multiple levels, from individual to groups of different sizes.^10 While
I concur with the latter idea, I would like to propose the use of “self,”
with its implied expandability, as the appropriate unit for the multilevel
nature of selection. An individual is a self, a tribe is a self, and a nation
is also a self, as they all are systems that auto-perpetuate. Not only that,
a university, a bureaucracy, a football league, and an international busi-
ness conglomerate, are all selves. Each competes with other selves of
the same nature and the same rank for “survival.” Thus, using self as a
unifying concept, the confusion regarding the level of natural selection