Volume 10, Issue 1, 2008
Angus Menuge
Pages 119-136
Intelligent Design, Darwinism, and Psychological Unity
Folk psychology affirms the existence of a persistent, unitary self at the center of each individual’s mental life. Darwinian psychologists have challenged this view with the selfish gene and selfish meme theories of the mind. Both theories claim that cognition arises from the interaction of blind, selfish replicators (genes or memes) and that the enduring self is an illusion. I argue that both theories suffer from an implausible atomism and an inability to explain human reasoning, subjectivity, points of view, and psychological unity. By contrast, a psychology premised on Intelligent Design is able to account for all these problems.