My understanding is that both parts are needed… to use your money example, if you feel that you’re entitled to money, and you find a wallet sitting on the sidewalk, you may impulsively decide to take the money out of it rather than return it intact, but if you don’t have that feeling of entitlement, you’re much less likely to feel the impulse in the first place to take the money out of it.
Alternately, people get an impulse to rape because their instincts drive them to reproduce. For all that it doesn’t work too well in this environment, for some reason the instincts have decided that force is the best route to reproductive success given their host’s circumstances. The rest is just noise.
But does it work well in any environment? Someone, I forget where, once argued that rape in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness—where everyone knows everyone—would just get the rapist’s skull bludgeoned in by the victim’s friends or relatives.
(Though to be fair, a number of possible circumstances where this wouldn’t be true could be imagined, I suppose...)
There are a great many circumstances where rape has low probability of retaliation. More than enough to justify it as a conditional strategy. In fact, listing out a few examples, it feels as if it’s far more often true than not! (And remember that the EEA includes the last five or ten thousand years, during which humans lived in much larger communities and genes and especially memes changed significantly.)
First, a man may rape women from another tribe—and this is ubiquitous when opportunity is present, e.g. in war. This might also contribute to behavior with total strangers in today’s society.
Second, many (older) cultures see women not as persons to be avenged but as valuable property to be guarded. If a woman is raped (and tells her relatives), and the rapist isn’t completely without connections himself, then a common outcome may be marrying the two. If a woman’s bridal value is much lowered once she is not a virgin, this is her only marriage option that brings the virginal-value. OTOH, retaliation’s only benefit is in deterrence, which isn’t immediately valuable; usually, for vengeance to take place, you need a social custom requiring vengeance—such as in ‘honor’ cultures.
Third, if the rapist is powerful enough (via relatives, money, social position), such as nobility, he can rape any lower-status woman with impunity and settle the matter with perhaps some money, or just ignore it. Some social systems explicitly allow this in law (e.g., European nobility vs. commoners).
Fourth, if there are no witnesses, many cultures’ law would not take a woman’s word over a man’s. In which case, most cultures would prevent private, illegal vengeance.
Fifth, if a man rapes his wife (or girlfriend), traditional society sees no wrong, and there is often noone to avenge her. (Most modern rapes are commited by husbands/boyfriends/dates.)
This is pretty much what I was thinking—if the societal environment is such that there’s an instinctual impression that rape is efficient, the societal environment needs to change.
My understanding is that both parts are needed… to use your money example, if you feel that you’re entitled to money, and you find a wallet sitting on the sidewalk, you may impulsively decide to take the money out of it rather than return it intact, but if you don’t have that feeling of entitlement, you’re much less likely to feel the impulse in the first place to take the money out of it.
Alternately, people get an impulse to rape because their instincts drive them to reproduce. For all that it doesn’t work too well in this environment, for some reason the instincts have decided that force is the best route to reproductive success given their host’s circumstances. The rest is just noise.
But does it work well in any environment? Someone, I forget where, once argued that rape in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness—where everyone knows everyone—would just get the rapist’s skull bludgeoned in by the victim’s friends or relatives.
(Though to be fair, a number of possible circumstances where this wouldn’t be true could be imagined, I suppose...)
Off the top of my head:
1) When the rapist has sufficient status or allies to prevent negative consequences.
2) If the victim is of a rival group to that of the rapist. Different tribe. Different ‘caste’. Different party within the same tribe.
3) The social rules don’t enforce a rape taboo strongly. In many cultures rape is defended by family vengeance and not particularly by ‘justice’.
4) The consequences to women don’t make ‘reporting and punishment’ the expected outcome.
5) When ‘rape’ is defined differently to how it is defined by us. (eg. Wives, dates, underage, those under authority.)
6) If reproductive prospects look bleak the expected payoff doesn’t need to be particularly high.
Sorry, didn’t see your comment before I posted mine! You pretty much summed it up.
There are a great many circumstances where rape has low probability of retaliation. More than enough to justify it as a conditional strategy. In fact, listing out a few examples, it feels as if it’s far more often true than not! (And remember that the EEA includes the last five or ten thousand years, during which humans lived in much larger communities and genes and especially memes changed significantly.)
First, a man may rape women from another tribe—and this is ubiquitous when opportunity is present, e.g. in war. This might also contribute to behavior with total strangers in today’s society.
Second, many (older) cultures see women not as persons to be avenged but as valuable property to be guarded. If a woman is raped (and tells her relatives), and the rapist isn’t completely without connections himself, then a common outcome may be marrying the two. If a woman’s bridal value is much lowered once she is not a virgin, this is her only marriage option that brings the virginal-value. OTOH, retaliation’s only benefit is in deterrence, which isn’t immediately valuable; usually, for vengeance to take place, you need a social custom requiring vengeance—such as in ‘honor’ cultures.
Third, if the rapist is powerful enough (via relatives, money, social position), such as nobility, he can rape any lower-status woman with impunity and settle the matter with perhaps some money, or just ignore it. Some social systems explicitly allow this in law (e.g., European nobility vs. commoners).
Fourth, if there are no witnesses, many cultures’ law would not take a woman’s word over a man’s. In which case, most cultures would prevent private, illegal vengeance.
Fifth, if a man rapes his wife (or girlfriend), traditional society sees no wrong, and there is often noone to avenge her. (Most modern rapes are commited by husbands/boyfriends/dates.)
I could go on and on...
This is pretty much what I was thinking—if the societal environment is such that there’s an instinctual impression that rape is efficient, the societal environment needs to change.
I could write more about that kind of thing, but I actually have a link to an excellent blog post on the topic, so go read what Harriet has to say about it.
Are we sure of that? Is there an analysis of the contribution of rape towards inclusive genetic fitness in modern Western society?