PHIL 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Evolutionary Game Theory, Philosophical Explanations, Kin Selection
Document Summary
Philosophy of biology, peter godfrey-smith, chapter 8 evolution and social behavior. Darwin"s original formulation of his theory of evolution survival of the fittest, the war of all against all for limited resources has a hard time explaining cooperation, within species and across species. This kind of behavior can range from mutualism to altruism to self-sacrifice. Three philosophical explanations: group selection - benefits at the group level. The problem with cooperation is that sometimes selfish individuals take advantage of it subversion. Does altruism really pay off? (williams, sober, wilson) Kin selection altruism towards others who share the organism"s genes. (hamilton) Reciprocity short-term sacrifices that are repaid in the long run. (trivers) Others who tried to evaluate these theories empirically tried applying evolutionary game theory. in a given situation, game theory seems to allow you to calculate the odds: the prisoner"s dilemma" is a favorite example. (axelrod, hamilton, binmore, nowak.
