Journal ArticleDOI
Evolutionary theories of morality and the manipulative use of signals
TLDR
In this paper, a theory of communication developed by ethologists is used to explain moral systems and moral sentiments in light of evolutionary biological theory, and the core of this approach is the idea that signals are best seen as attempts to manipulate others, rather than as attempting to inform them.Abstract:
Several attempts have recently been made to explain moral systems and moral sentiments in light of evolutionary biological theory. It may be helpful to modify and extend this project with the help of a theory of communication developed by ethologists. The core of this approach is the idea that signals are best seen as attempts to manipulate others rather than as attempts to inform them. This addition helps to clarify some problematic areas in the evolutionary study of morals, and it generates new, testable predictions about moral statements.read more
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Darwin's Cathedral
TL;DR: David Sloan Wilson's "Darwin's Cathedral" takes the radical step of joining the two, in the process proposing an evolutionary theory of religion that shakes both evolutionary biology and social theory at their foundations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Signaling Theory, Strategic Interaction, and Symbolic Capital.
TL;DR: Signaling theory provides an opportunity to integrate an interactive theory of symbolic communication and social benefit with materialist theories of individual strategic action and adaptation as mentioned in this paper, and the potential explanatory value of signaling theory for a variety of anthropological topics.
Journal ArticleDOI
The cultural evolution of prosocial religions.
Ara Norenzayan,Azim F. Shariff,Will M. Gervais,Aiyana K. Willard,Rita Anne McNamara,Edward Slingerland,Joseph Henrich +6 more
TL;DR: It is explained how a package of culturally evolved religious beliefs and practices characterized by increasingly potent, moralizing, supernatural agents, credible displays of faith, and other psychologically active elements conducive to social solidarity promoted high fertility rates and large-scale cooperation with co-religionists, often contributing to success in intergroup competition and conflict.
Journal ArticleDOI
Towards a unified science of cultural evolution
TL;DR: It is argued that studying culture within a unifying evolutionary framework has the potential to integrate a number of separate disciplines within the social sciences and to borrow further methods and hypotheses from biology.
Journal ArticleDOI
Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior
Richard Sosis,Candace S. Alcorta +1 more
TL;DR: These literatures are reviewed and both the proximate mechanisms and ultimate evolutionary processes essential for developing a comprehensive evolutionary explanation of religion are examined.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour. I
TL;DR: A genetical mathematical model is described which allows for interactions between relatives on one another's fitness and a quantity is found which incorporates the maximizing property of Darwinian fitness, named “inclusive fitness”.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism
TL;DR: In this paper, a model is presented to account for the natural selection of what is termed reciprocally altruistic behavior, and the model shows how selection can operate against the cheater (non-reciprocator) in the system.
Book
The Strategy of Conflict
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a theory of interdependent decision based on the Retarded Science of International Strategy (RSIS) for non-cooperative games and a solution concept for "noncooperative" games.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Logic of Animal Conflict
J. Maynard Smith,George R. Price +1 more
TL;DR: Game theory and computer simulation analyses show, however, that a “limited war” strategy benefits individual animals as well as the species.