Evolutionary Psychology And Economic Theory

by Koppl

• ISBN13: 9780762311385
• ISBN10: 076231138X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-05
• Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology

Summary

Contributors to this volume seriously engage issues in the crossroads where biology, psychology, and economics meet. The volume makes several important contributions to the area and provides an overview of the current state of knowledge. Biologist David Sloan Wilson, psychologists Robert Kurzban and C.A. Aktipis, economists Geoffrey Hodgson, Paul Rubin and Evelyn Gick, and jurist David Friedman consider altruism, selfishness, group selection, methodological individualism, dominance hierarchies, and other issues relating evolutionary psychology to economics. Several contributors, such as Viktor Vanberg and Brian Loasby, pay special attention to the role of F. A. Hayek and other "Austrian" thinkers in shaping evolutionary approaches to economic theory. Theoretical biologist Deby Cassill relates her revolutionary theory of "skew selection" in biology to perennial issues in political economy. The volume includes a symposium on group selection and methodological individualism. In an important paper, D. G. Whitman argues that group selection and methodological individualism are "compatible and complementary." Comments from Elliot Sober & David Sloan Wilson, Richard Langlois, Todd Zywicki, and Adam Gifford offer a heterogeneous set of responses to Whitman's argument. Roger Koppl's introduction constitutes a review essay and includes an argument that "Austrian" economists have a comparative advantage in bringing the Verstehen tradition of social thought into contact with recent work in biology and evolutionary psychology.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	ix
Advisory Board	xi
Economics Evolving: An Introduction to the Volume	1	(16)
Roger Koppl
Economics and Evolutionary Psychology	17	(18)
David Friedman
Mogul Games: In Defense of Inequality as an Evolutionary Strategy to Cope with Multiple Agents of Selection	35	(26)
Deby Cassill
Alison Watkins
Austrian Economics, Evolutionary Psychology and Individual Actions	61	(18)
Geoffrey M. Hodgson
Hayek and Modern Evolutionary Theory	79	(22)
Paul H. Rubin
Evelyn Gick
Hayek's Theory of the Mind	101	(34)
Brian J. Loasby
Is Homo Economicus Extinct? Vernon Smith, Daniel Kahneman and the Evolutionary Perspective	135	(20)
C. Athena Aktipis
Robert O. Kurzban
Austrian Economics, Evolutionary Psychology and Methodological Dualism: Subjectivism Reconsidered	155	(46)
Viktor J. Vanberg
The New Fable of the Bees: Multilevel Selection, Adaptive Societies, and the Concept of Self Interest	201	(20)
David Sloan Wilson
SYMPOSIUM ON GROUP SELECTION
Group Selection and Methodological Individualism: Compatible and Complementary	221	(30)
Douglas Glen Whitman
On Group Selection and Methodological Individualism -- A Reply to Douglas Glen Whitman	251	(10)
Elliott Sober
David Sloan Wilson
Comment on ``Group Selection and Methodological Individualism: Compatible and Complementary'' by Douglas Glen Whitman	261	(6)
Richard N. Langlois
Reconciling Group Selection and Methodological Individualism	267	(12)
Todd J. Zywicki
Levels of Selection and Methodological Individualism	279	(18)
Adam Gifford Jr.
Group Selection and Methodological Individualism: Reply to Comments	297
Douglas Glen Whitman