Public Relations, Cooperation, and Justice From Evolutionary Biology to Ethics [Hardcover]

Modern approaches to public relations cluster into three camps along a continuum:

• conflict-oriented egoism, e.g. forms of contingency theory that focus almost exclusively on the wellbeing of an entity;
• redressed egoism, e.g. subsidies to redress PRs egoistic nature; and
• forms of self-interested cooperation, e.g. fully functioning society theory.

Public Relations, Cooperation, and Justicedraws upon interdisciplinary research from evolutionary biology, philosophy, and rhetoric to establish that relationships built on cooperation and justice are more productive than those built on conflict and egoistic competition. Just as important, this innovative book shuns normative, utopian appeals, offering instead only empirical, materialistic evidence for its conclusions.

This is a powerful, multidisciplinary, and well-documented analysis, including specific strategies for the enactment of PR as a quest for cooperation and justice, which aligns the discipline of public relations with basic human nature. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of public relations and communication ethics.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Section I: Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction: A Consilience of Cooperation

Chapter 2 The Public Relations of Evolution

Chapter 3 Introduction to Section II: Evolutionary Biology, Neuroscience,

and Cooperation

Chapter 4 Re-envisioning Charles Darwin

Chapter 5 Peter Kropotkin and Mutual Aid

Chapter 6 Dawkins, Gould, and Wilson: The Modern Debate

Chapter 7 The Evolution of Game Theory