What Kind of Asceticism and Evolution?

This article—a response to Johannes Bronkhorst's “Human Behaviors That Reduce Evolutionary Fitness”—focuses on his and the author's differing understandings of evolution and asceticism. The crux of the matter is the understanding of human evolution in terms of biology. While Bronkhorst's understanding builds on Ernst Mayr's and Julian Sorrell Huxley's “modern synthesis,” this article opts for an “evo-devo” perspective that regards culture as an intrinsic part of human biology. It argues that a comprehensive understanding of human evolution must take into account the high degree of deliberate intentionality of humans, which allows for selection on the phenotype of institutions, and that Bronkhorst's focus on extreme asceticism—which he never defines or specifies in terms of its relation to ordinary forms—is problematic. Finally, it is argued that a thorough understanding of asceticism, like any other human cultural phenomenon, necessitates consideration of its biological, psychological, and sociological dimensions.