A key insight or dreconceptualization
Ewolucyjna teoria piękna

Darwinian Theory of Beauty

According to this theory, promoted by Denis Dutton, Homo sapiens, as a cooperative species, has developed a unique evolutionary adaptation that enhances collective survival. We consider "beautiful" that which requires craftsmanship, self-discipline, and effort. Behaviors characterized by these traits evoke a sense of satisfaction. Above all, however, they trigger the expression of social approval.

This approval activates the dopaminergic system in a member of a community who has developed the craft and discipline of creating material goods. This mechanism is linked to the mechanism of seeking social approval, present in each of us. In other words, cultures that reward their hosts for effort, determination, craftsmanship, or impersonal pro-sociality create more incentives to work on themselves and work for others. As a result, they will produce and generate more and better products of material culture (e.g., weapons). They will also create more laws and customs that enhance the capacity for cooperation and ultra-cooperation.

The entire "evolutionary theory of beauty" is incorrectly conceptualized and misleadingly named by its proponents. The mechanism of social approval is not a "sense of beauty." It is a mechanism, a product of biological and cultural coevolution, that increases the fitness (natural selection) of a community by elevating the status of those members whose effort/talent/sacrifice enriches the entire community. Its essence is the acquisition by human communities of the ability to survive and create synergistic engines of cultural transmission (see VI.3 Civilizational Formatting).