The Evolutionary Limits of Liberalism 

Paul Graham, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Buckingham:

“This book not only challenges the dominant model of preference-satisfaction in economic and political theory, but unlike much work in behavioural economics it provides an alternative framework for assessing whether individual choices are adaptive: Darwinian multilevel selection, which gives a central role to intergroup competition. As such, it is an important contribution to the field.”

John Meadowcroft, Reader in Public Policy, King’s College London:

“Faria sets out a provocative analysis of the implications of evolutionary theory for liberalism. Liberal thinkers have often argued that liberal institutions have evolved as a solution to the challenges that face advanced societies, but Faria argues that there are reasons to believe that liberal values and institutions are weaker in evolutionary terms than many of the alternatives. Accordingly, liberalism faces an existential challenge that it is not well-placed to overcome. Whether or not one agrees with Faria, this is an important book that addresses issues all of us living in contemporary liberal democracies should take seriously.”

Jonathan Anomaly, Associate Director of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Programme, University of Pennsylvania:

“With falling birthrates and a crisis of self-confidence, liberal political societies in the West are facing an existential crisis. Dr. Faria deploys concepts from economics and evolutionary biology to investigate whether liberal societies are, over the long run, stable and adaptive. This is one of the most important questions of the twenty first century, and political philosophers who ignore it may become as obsolete as a poorly adapted primate.”