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SUMMARY:Markets\, social opportunities\, and the evolution of fairness - J
 ean-Baptiste André - Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris\, France
DTSTART:20121016T150000Z
DTEND:20121016T160000Z
UID:TALK37947@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Oskar Brattstrom
DESCRIPTION:The evolutionary foundations of fairness is one of  the most h
 otly debated questions in evolutionary anthropology. Reciprocate cooperati
 on (in a large sense) generates collective benefits and\, beyond explainin
 g its mere existence\, it is also essential to understand how evolution ha
 s shaped the way these benefits are divided. Fairness is the fact that\, a
 mong the many ways to distribute collective benefits\, we tend to favor im
 partial distributions and request our partners to do the same (e.g. 50/50 
 divisions in symmetric interactions). The evolution of fairness raises a p
 articularly difficult question for theoreticians\, as it actually entails 
 dealing with the so-called issue of “equilibrium selection”. The princ
 iple of reciprocity per se is underdetermined (this is known in game theor
 y as the “folk theorem”)\, which fundamentally stems from the fact tha
 t a very wide range of cooperative agreements are better than being alone.
  Influential authors have thus claimed that this problem is actually so di
 fficult that it requires\, almost unavoidably\, the operation of some form
  of group selection [1]. Here\, we offer an alternative solution. We show 
 that the indeterminacy of reciprocate cooperation vanishes if one consider
 s properly the outside options of individuals. In reality\, the question i
 s not whether a given interaction is better than being alone\, but whether
  a given interaction is better than another interaction\, possibly with a 
 different partner [2\,3]. We will present an overview of our modeling resu
 lts in this field [4\,5]\, together with the results of a model built spec
 ially to deal with the issue of equilibrium selection. We show that fairne
 ss evolves naturally when individuals have varied social opportunities\, b
 ecause the issue of each interaction is then constrained by the fact that 
 it must bring at least the same benefit than other interactions. In partic
 ular\, if two individuals have the same outside opportunities\, they can a
 gree upon an interaction only if it brings the same benefit to both of the
 m. The indeterminacy of reciprocity is hence in large part an artifactual 
 consequence of the way models are usually built\, and the evolution of fai
 rness does not require any form of group selection.\n\nReferences \n\n1. B
 oyd\, R. and Richerson\, P. J. (2009). Phil. T. Roy. Soc. B\, 364(1533):32
 81–3288.\n\n2. Noë\, R. and Hammerstein\, P. (1995). TREE\, 10(8):336
 –339.\n\n3. Baumard\, N. (2010). Odile Jacob\, Paris.\n\n4. André\, J. 
 B. and Baumard\, N. (2011). Evolution 65:1447-56.\n\n5. André\, J. B. and
  Baumard\, N. (2011) Journal of Theoretical Biology 289:128–135.\n
LOCATION:Part II Lecture Theatre\, Department of Zoology
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