"MAchiavellian" Intelligence as a Basis for the Evolution of Cooperative Dispositions
By: ORBELL, John...et al
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ArticlePublisher: New York : Cambridge University Press, February 2004American Political Science Review 98, 1, p. 01-16Abstract: How to promote cooperative behavior is classically salved by incentives that lead self-interested individuals in socially desirable directions, but by now well-estabilished laboratory results show that people often do act cooperatively, even at significant cost to themselves. These results suggest that cooperative dispositions might be an envolved part of humman nature. Yet such dispositions appear inconsistent with the "Machiavellian inbtelligence" paradigm, wich develops the idea taht our brains have envolved, in substantial part, for capturing adaptive advantage from within-group competition. We use simulation to address the evolutionary relationship between basic Machiavellian capacities and cooperative dispositions. Resiults show that selection on such capacities can (1) permit the spread of cooperative dispositions even in cooperation-unfriendly worlds and (2) support transitions to populations with high mean cooperative dispositions. We distinguish between "rationality in action" and "rationality in design" - the adaptive fit between a design attribute of an animal and its environment. The combination of well-developed Machiavellian intelligence, modest mistrust, and high cooperative dispositions appears to be a design for the brains of highly political animals such as ourselves.
How to promote cooperative behavior is classically salved by incentives that lead self-interested individuals in socially desirable directions, but by now well-estabilished laboratory results show that people often do act cooperatively, even at significant cost to themselves. These results suggest that cooperative dispositions might be an envolved part of humman nature. Yet such dispositions appear inconsistent with the "Machiavellian inbtelligence" paradigm, wich develops the idea taht our brains have envolved, in substantial part, for capturing adaptive advantage from within-group competition. We use simulation to address the evolutionary relationship between basic Machiavellian capacities and cooperative dispositions. Resiults show that selection on such capacities can (1) permit the spread of cooperative dispositions even in cooperation-unfriendly worlds and (2) support transitions to populations with high mean cooperative dispositions. We distinguish between "rationality in action" and "rationality in design" - the adaptive fit between a design attribute of an animal and its environment. The combination of well-developed Machiavellian intelligence, modest mistrust, and high cooperative dispositions appears to be a design for the brains of highly political animals such as ourselves.
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