Before the invention of agriculture, our human ancestors lived for tens of thousands of years in small communal societies that had no state, private wealth, or contracts. There is no genetic basis for tribalism, racism, sexism, or other features of present societies. These ideologies and behaviors in the world today reflect the class interests of capitalist rulers, and millions of workers throughout the world have fought against them. We can develop a scientific outlook toward human nature, only if we have no ideological need to justify or perpetuate any aspect of class exploitation and social inequality. Wilson's sociobiological approach to ethics evades the concrete reality of workers' subordination to capitalist rule by focusing on the relationship between the individual and society.
Marxist ethics recognizes that what is good for the exploiting class is bad for the working class.
Egalitarianism and internationalism are the ethical precepts of the working class. Patriotism, religion, racism, and sexism benefit the exploiting class. They enrich capitalists, blur class lines, and promote divisions within the working class. Marxists strive to unify and expand our understanding of the world. In contrast to Wilson's reductionist, mechanical materialist approach to science, dialectical materialism is the Marxist scientific method based on the reality that everything in the world is interconnected and in the process of changing.