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Genetic Relatedness and the Evolution of Altruism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Samir Okasha
Samir Okasha*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of York, U.K.
*
Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, U.K. so5@york.ac.uk
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Abstract

In their recent book, Elliott Sober and David Wilson (1998) argue that evolutionary biologists have wrongly regarded kinship as the exclusive means by which altruistic behavior can evolve, at the expense of other mechanisms. I argue that Sober and Wilson overlook certain genetical considerations which suggest that kinship is likely to be a more powerful means for generating complex altruistic adaptations than the alternative mechanisms they propose.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , March 2002 , pp. 138 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to the late William Hamilton, John Maynard Smith, Alex Rosenberg, Elliott Sober, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and discussion.

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