The first person perspective ("consiousness") doesn't seem necessary for anything except for anthropic selection effects.

I mean, I'd say that a lot of humanity's quirks can be anticipated if you assume that intelligence is heavily favored by natural selection, but sentience is disfavored. I'm not sure if there are any actual evo bio papers on the connection between a need to have as accurate a mental of the world as possible while being as self-un-aware as can be managed and our specifically abnormally high tolerance for ethanol, but it seems like it writes itself.