Kim Sterelny, Richard Joyce, Brett Calcott and Ben Fraser (eds): Cooperation and Its Evolution
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Kim Sterelny, Richard Joyce, Brett Calcott and Ben Fraser (eds): Cooperation and Its Evolution MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013, 577 + viii pp., US$ 55,00 (Hb). ISBN 978-0-262-01853-1 Ce´dric Paternotte
Received: 15 December 2013 / Accepted: 17 December 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
How did cooperation evolve? Contrary to appearances, this is not a single question. There are several kinds of cooperative behaviour of different scopes, various cooperative species, interacting under different environmental constraints, a variety of cooperative mechanisms and of evolutionary processes. Moreover, the conceptual problems faced by explanations of cooperation are also multiple. The most striking feature of Cooperation and its Evolution is the sheer diversity of perspectives, of questions and of conceivable replies it contains. Any attempt to properly summarise the book is bound to be ridiculously long, as almost every chapter would necessitate an independent treatment. It is populated by cooperative birds, parasitic fish, reef-constructing organisms, chimpanzees and of course humans. It tackles mechanisms, processes and properties such as signalling, trade, markets, division of labour, territoriality and hierarchy. In humans, it addresses imitation, punishment, learning, shame, guilt, disgust, commitment and morality. This plethora of topics receives no other explicit structure than a division of its twenty-six chapters in two sections (Agents and Environments, Agents and Mechanisms), respectively corresponding to ‘‘the conditions that make cooperation profitable and stable’’ (1) and to the question of ‘‘how proximate mechanisms emerge and operate in the evolutionary process’’ (2). More specific is the editors’ further description, according to which five overall themes make cooperation a major theme in evolutionary biology, namely: generation and division of profit, transitions in individuality, levels of selection, externalism and human cooperation. The related topics of transitions in individuality and levels of selection are actually almost absent, and when not are parts of the explanans rather than explananda. Before discussing the other themes though, I would rather start with those that have been left out. C. Paternotte (&) Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universita¨t Mu¨nchen, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Munich, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
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C. Paternotte
Cooperation has always been deemed problematic for one reason: its ever-present vulnerability to free-riding mutants or strategies, who could reap the benefits of others’ cooperation while saving the effort of participating. Historically, solutions originated from two formal approaches. First, Hamilton’s (1964) concept of inclusive fitness (and the related notion of kin selection) dealt with cooperation between relatives and allowed theorists to understand cooperation among bacteria, eusocial insects and even mammals. Kin selection has been extensively formally explored sin
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