NDLI: Explaining Universal Social Institutions: A Game-Theoretic Approach

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Topoi : Volume 36

Topoi : Volume 35

Topoi : Volume 35, Issue 2, October 2016

Topoi : Volume 35, Issue 1, April 2016

Some Changes in Editorial Policies

Introduction: Presuppositions Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology

An Information Packaging Approach to Presuppositions and Conventional Implicatures

Presupposition Failure and the Assertive Enterprise

Accommodating Presuppositions

Multivalent Semantics for Vagueness and Presupposition

Scalar Implicatures Versus Presuppositions: The View from Acquisition

Selection Restrictions as Ultimate Presuppositions of Natural Ontology

On Presuppositional Implicatures

A Presuppositional Account of Causal and Temporal Interpretations of and

When “All the Five Circles” are Four: New Exercises in Domain Restriction

Using Triggers Without Projecting Presuppositions

Presuppositions as Anaphoric Duality Enablers

Presupposition Projection and Conditionalization

Introduction: The Philosophy of Information

Is There a Philosophy of Information?

Erratum to: Is There a Philosophy of Information?

Information Channels and Biomarkers of Disease

The Method of Levels of Abstraction in Pluralism and Governance of Dialogical Interaction

What Can We Know of Computational Information? Measuring, Quantity, and Quality at Work in Programmable Artifacts

Just Information Warfare

Are Information or Data Patterns Correlated with Consciousness?

An Informational Perspective on Agency Causation

The Semantics of Untrustworthiness

Introduction: Social Ontology, Culture and Institutions

Deacon’s Challenge: From Calls to Words

The Organism-Centered Approach to Cultural Evolution

Explaining Universal Social Institutions: A Game-Theoretic Approach

How Institutions Work in Shared Intentionality and ‘We-Mode’ Social Cognition

Do Rights Exist by Convention or by Nature?

How Social Institutions Can Imitate Nature

Explaining Universal Social Institutions: A Game-Theoretic Approach

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Vlerick, Michael
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	Universal social institutions, such as marriage, commons management and property, have emerged independently in radically different cultures. This requires explanation. As Boyer and Petersen (J Inst Econ 8:125, 2012) point out ‘in a purely localist framework (these institutional commonalities) would have to constitute massively improbable coincidences’ (3–4). According to Boyer and Petersen, those institutions emerged naturally out of genetically wired behavioural dispositions, such as marriage out of mating strategies and borders out of territorial behaviour. While I agree with Boyer and Petersen that ‘unnatural’ institutions cannot thrive, this one-sided explanation of universal social institutions in terms of genetic human nature is unsatisfactory. Drawing on the literature on multi-level selection and gene-culture coevolution, I argue that universal social institutions are first and foremost the products of cultural selection. They occupy fitness peaks in the landscape of cultural possibilities, much in the same way that biological adaptations occupy fitness peaks in the landscape of biological possibilities. To show this, I use game-theory. By modelling the domains of social interaction in which marriage, commons management, and property emerged as Prisoner’s dilemma situations, it becomes clear how an institutional framework allows the group to move to an interactive equilibrium with a larger payoff. Institutions do so by incentivising (through punishment and/or reward) all parties to adopt a cooperative strategy. They are culturally selected ways of optimising genetically constrained domains of human social interaction.
Starting Page	291
Ending Page	300
Page Count	10
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01677411
Journal	Topoi
Volume Number	35
Issue Number	1
e-ISSN	15728749
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2015-02-10
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Universal social institutions Multi-level selection Gene-culture coevolution Game-theory Prisoner’s dilemma Correlated equilibrium Philosophy Philosophy of Science Philosophy of Technology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy

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A graphic measure for game-theoretic robustness

Reciprocity in Human-Robot Interaction: A Quantitative Approach Through the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Ultimatum Game

Rejoinder to Bermúdez on Lewis, Newcomb’s Problem and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Prisoners’ other Dilemma

Strategic vs. Parametric choice in Newcomb’s Problem and the Prisoner’s Dilemma: Reply to Walker

Efficient social contracts and group selection

Institutions matter! Why the Herder Problem is not a Prisoner’s Dilemma

The origins of human cooperation

Endogenous Neighborhood Selection and the Attainment of Cooperation in a Spatial Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

Explaining Universal Social Institutions: A Game-Theoretic Approach

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