The purpose of this research is to examine Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene. The plan of the research will be to set forth the general principle and theme of The Selfish Gene, and then to select two related chapters from the book for purposes of critical analysis, with a view toward showing the principal pattern of ideas emerging therein, and the relationship of the chapters to the overall design of the work.
The main idea of The Selfish Gene appears to be something of a tautology: that there is a biogenetic process of cloning that supersedes or informs virtually all other biological processes. That process has implications for the development, experience, and (especially) survival of individual organisms and for species as a whole. Labeling himself a neo-Darwinist because he is explicating evolutionary theory, he states his premise in the initial preface: "We are survival machines--robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (v). It is important to note that Dawkins both expresses and implies that his discussion is partly metaphorical. That is, when he refers to the selfish gene, he is not putting a moral construction on the term. Selfish in the context Dawkins uses it refers to biological mechanisms of genetic survival, which are undertaken by various species in competition between species and within species. To the degree conscious behavior is a factor of such processes, it can be connected to genetic behavior. Yet Dawkins declares that he is "not advocating a morality based on evolution" (2) and that although genes "may instruct us to be selfish . . . we are not necessarily compelled to obey them all our lives" (3). He adds that he is describing certain instances and neither exhaustively describing species behavior nor prescribing or even (morally) criticizing society based on genetic analysis of its biological or sociobiological features. Animal behavior nevertheless proceeds from genet...