Download 1 Evolution, Co-operation and Rationality Case for Support

Evolution, Co-operation and Rationality
Case for Support
Research Questions or Problems
The overall aim of the project is to study the philosophical implications of recent
work in evolutionary biology on the topics of co-operation, social behaviour, and
the conflict between individual and group interests. These topics have long
been of interest to political philosophers and to social scientists, who have
traditionally studied them from the viewpoint of rational choice theory, rather
than evolutionary theory. Viewed the former way, the issue is whether a rational
agent will ever choose to behave co-operatively, or to sacrifice their welfare for
that of the group; viewed the latter way, the issue is whether such behaviours
will ever be favoured by natural selection. One major goal of the project is to
understand the implications of this shift from a rational choice to an evolutionary
perspective. The key questions to be tackled are:
(i) Can evolutionary considerations help explain pro-social behaviours, such as
co-operation and altruism, that are hard to account for from a traditional rational
choice perspective? Should we think of evolutionary theorists and rational
choice theorists as offering competing or complementary explanations of
human social behaviour?
(ii) Does the analogy between utility-maximisation in rational choice theory and
fitness-maximisation in evolutionary theory hold in every respect? For example,
how close is the link between classical game theory, where the quantity being
maximised is expected utility, and evolutionary game theory, where the quantity
being maximised is Darwinian fitness, i.e. expected number of offspring?
(iii) Can the traditional ‘problem of the social contract’ be usefully addressed
from an evolutionary perspective? What would an evolutionary solution to this
problem look like?
(iv) Evolutionary theorists often invoke multi-level selection to explain social
behaviour, i.e. they apply Darwinian principles at two hierarchical levels
simultaneously, thus distinguishing what is individually optimal from what is
optimal at the group level. Is there a way of incorporating a multi-level
perspective into rational choice theory, where the notion of optimality is usually
applied at a single level?
The second major goal is to explore the implications of recent biological work
on ‘evolutionary transitions in individuality’. Such transitions occur when a
number of free-living biological units, originally capable of surviving and
reproducing alone, form themselves into a co-operative whole, generating a
new higher-level individual. This process has happened repeatedly in the
history of life, giving rise to the familiar biological hierarchy we see today (gene
- chromosome - prokaryotic cell - eukaryotic cell - multicelled organism - kin
group - colony). Evolutionary transitions raise a crucial question: why was it
beneficial for the smaller units to give up their free-living existence and form an
aggregate? How did natural selection reconcile the interests of the smaller units
with the interest of the whole? These issues have been at the forefront of the
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biological literature in the last fifteen years. Intriguingly, closely analogous
issues have arisen in both philosophy and social science. In particular, the
potential conflict between individual and group interests, and the different ways
of alleviating the conflict, has long been a central concern of political
philosophers, political theorists and economists. However, little has been done
to forge a connection with the evolutionary discussions, as our project aims to
do. The key questions to be tackled are:
(v) Can the recent biological work on evolutionary transitions help us
understand the nature of human co-operative groups? For example, might the
principles which explain the evolution of social insect colonies, in which the
individuals work mainly for the good of the colony, also be applicable to human
social groups?
(vi) Theoretical work suggests that in order for an evolutionary transition to
occur, mechanisms are needed to align the evolutionary interests of individuals
with that of their groups. (Kinship is one such mechanism; another is fair
meiosis.) Do such mechanisms shed light on the widely-discussed problem in
political philosophy of how to reconcile the conflict between individual selfinterest and group welfare?
(vii) Can the theory of evolutionary transitions illuminate traditional
metaphysical debates about the ‘reality’ of human groups and societies? For
example, some biologists argue that a collection of individuals only constitutes
a ‘real’ evolutionary unit, rather than a mere aggregate, if policing mechanisms
are in place to regulate the selfish tendencies of the individuals. Others have
proposed that real evolutionary units must exhibit ‘emergent properties’. What
are the broader metaphysical implications of these biological ideas?
Research Context
Our project derives its rationale from the existence of deep and interesting
connections between the way that the problem of co-operation, and the conflict
between individual and group interests, has been studied in philosophy,
evolutionary biology and economics (including game theory). In particular, there
are striking links between Darwinian theory and rational choice theory,
particularly in relation to strategic behaviour, since a notion of optimality is
central to both; moreover, biologists interested in social evolution routinely
address issues that have close analogues in political philosophy and social
science, for example, the problem of reconciling individual self-interest with
group welfare.
Though these thematic connections have been noted before, they have rarely
been examined in detail. This reflects the fact that substantive dialogue across
disciplinary boundaries is not easy. We believe, however, that our project is
uniquely placed to achieve such a dialogue, and to promote collaboration
between workers in philosophy, biology and economics, since both applicants
have a track record of producing research that spans these disciplines. Okasha
works primarily in philosophy of biology; his recent book Evolution and the
Levels of Selection has been favourably reviewed in both the philosophy and
biology presses, including in Science, one of the top-ranking scientific journals
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in the world (see Science 316, 1428-30). Binmore is one of the world’s leading
game theorists and a pioneer of experimental economics; he has also
collaborated extensively with evolutionary biologists. His most recent work uses
game theory to tackle traditional problems in political philosophy concerning the
origin and maintenance of the social contract. The combined expertise of
Okasha and Binmore presents an exciting opportunity for a co-ordinated
programme of inter-disciplinary research.
Previous work in this area includes two books on evolutionary game theory by
Brian Skyrms (Evolution of the Social Contract, CUP 1996; The Stag Hunt and
the Evolution of Social Structure, CUP 2004); books on evolutionary transitions
by Richard Michod (Darwinian Dynamics, Princeton UP 1998), by John
Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry (The Major Transitions in Evolution, OUP
1995) and by Laurent Keller (Levels of Selection in Evolution, OUP 2005); and
a book on the evolution of co-operation by Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson
(Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behaviour, Harvard
UP 1998). Each of these works has had a major impact in its respective field,
and generated considerable discussion in the journals. However, the questions
detailed above remain unanswered by the existing literature. Our project will
therefore fill a gap in the existing research, resolve important foundational
issues, and help build bridges between fields. The project’s outcomes will be of
particular interest to biologists concerned with social evolution and group living,
economists concerned with strategic behaviour, and philosophers concerned
with the nature of rationality and the origin of the social contract.
The immediate impetus for the project comes from a series of discussions that
have taken place in the Bristol philosophy department over the last few years.
These began with a workshop on philosophy of biology in August 2005,
continued with an extended reading group on Binmore’s book Natural Justice,
and culminated in a workshop on evolution, co-operation and rationality in
November 2007, the proceedings of which have been invited for publication in
the journal Synthese (KRA). These discussions involved the two applicants,
other members of the philosophy and biology departments, and invited
speakers from across the UK including David Papineau, Matthew Ratcliffe and
Jason Alexander.
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