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According to the theory of natural selection, nature selects for
those characteristics which enhance an organism’s ability
to survive in the environment. Survival is an important threshold,
but without procreation, it would have no effect on successive
generations – there would be none. For this reason,
procreation is a key to an organism’s success.
In Skinner v. Oklahoma, these evolutionary principles
appear to guide constitutional law. At issue in the Skinner case
was an Oklahoma statute which authorized sterilization for any
habitual criminal convicted of two or more felonies involving “moral
turpitude.” After a first conviction for stealing chickens,
and a second for armed robbery, Oklahoma instituted sterilization
proceedings against Mr. Skinner. Not wanting to give up the
right to have children, he challenged the constitutionality of
the statute, claiming the right to procreate as a fundamental civil
right. The court agreed with him, describing procreation
as “a right which is basic to the perpetuation of a race.”
Skinner is also about the conflict between the interests
of an individual versus those of the group of which he is a part. There
are times when the two are not aligned. The group has an interest
in protecting itself against misbehavers, persons who through their
actions injure others. Believing that the propensity to criminal
behavior was genetically inherited, the Oklahoma legislature reasoned
that, if they barred “habitual criminals” from producing
progeny, the number of criminals in the population would diminish. The
statute benefited the population as a whole at the expense of the
individual who lost the right to have children.
The clash between individual and group interests is a familiar
one to evolutionary biologists. Since Darwin’s discovery
of natural selection, it has been generally accepted that evolution
operates on individuals within a population. Individuals,
who act in their self-interest to the detriment of the group, are
favored by natural selection. If you steal resources from
your neighbors, and these resources enhance your reproductive potential,
while damaging theirs, it is your genes and behavior that become
prevalent in the population, while theirs diminish. Under
this theory, cheaters always win.
Certain features of groups of individuals have led biologists
to propose that selection can take place on a group level, as well. According
to the group selection theory, there are instances where organisms
will regulate their behavior for the good of the group even to
their own detriment. The theory arose from observation that
most animal species control their own population densities to avoid
depleting their habitat of necessary food resources. Many
species of birds, for example, reduce the number of eggs they produce
as the population number in their group grows. The explanation
offered by group selectionists is that adaptations have evolved
to restrain individual birds from procreating in order to protect
the interests of the population as a whole. Foregoing reproduction,
to keep the population count down, ensures that enough food will
be available to feed the existing members of the group. Animal
Dispersion in Relation to Social Behavior, V.C. Wynne-Edwards,
Hafner Publishing Company, 1962. Codes of law enacted by
humans were seen analogously – as group adaptations selected
to “safeguard the general welfare and survival of society,
especially against the antisocial, subversive self-advancement
of the individual.” Wynne-Edwards, ibid, 131.
Although popular during the 1960’s, most evolutionary biologists
have now rejected this view, instead believing that seemingly altruistic
displays by individuals have a greater hidden benefit than cost. Rather
than seeing the bird’s cutback in the number of offspring
it produces as a group adaptation, it could easily be interpreted
as the bird acting in its own best interests. Increased population
density means less available food to feed hungry nestlings. Instead
of trying to spread out the limited food to feed many hungry mouths,
and reduce the viability of her entire brood, the bird decreases
her procreation output in half and now has adequate food to feed
all of her children. The Selfish Gene, R. Dawkins,
Oxford University Press, 1989 edition, Pages 109-122.
A group selection rule was rejected in Skinner, as well. Extinguishing
the right to procreate in criminally recalcitrant individuals is
a “good of the group” rule, promoting group interests,
while discouraging antisocial behavior and preventing misbehaving
genes from being dispersed into the population gene pool. An
individual who committed a felony lost his right to reproduce in
order to benefit the group. The idea was to purge the “bad” genes
from the population. In overturning this statute, the Court
affirmed the right of an individual to reproduce even if it hurt
the group by facilitating the spread of seemingly anti-social behaviors.
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