Evolution of the Social Contract

by Brian Skyrms

In this highly readable book, Brian Skyrms, a recognized authority on game and decision theory, investigates traditional problems of the social contract in terms of evolutionary dynamics. Game theory is skillfully employed to offer new interpretations of a wide variety of social phenomena, including justice, mutual aid, commitment, convention and meaning. The book is not technical and requires no special background knowledge. As such, it could be enjoyed by students and professionals in a wide range of disciplines: political science, philosophy, decision theory, economics and biology.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Sociology, Science

162 pages, Paperback

First published June 28, 1996

Reviews

[Katja · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is deceptively short and covers a lot of material in a bit more than hundren pages. The material is perfectly accessible and requires no prior knowledge although familiarity with (evolutionary) game theory would be helpful. Actually, the book is all about games and explains how the notion of fairness might have evolved, why altruism is reasonable, where meaning and language come from, how regularities in interactions affect the outcome, etc. If you liked Chapter 5 on language you might want to read Skyrms' other book on signaling. If you enjoyed Chapters 3 and 4, Martin Nowak's "Supercooperators" could be a good next read.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A set of clear and compelling demonstrations of the milage you can get out of applying evolutionary dynamics to classic games. Your favorite demonstration will probably vary with your prior interests (e.g. some may appreciate the applications to theories of justice, while others may gravitate toward the discussion of altruism). For me, it was the final chapter on the evolution of meaning. This book is often cited in discussions of social conventions, and it probably makes the biggest theoretical jump since David Lewis set up the foundations in 1969. Lewis formulates conventions as arbitrary, but self-sustaining, solutions to coordination problems and showed exactly how they're self-sustaining once established, but more-or-less left open the question of how they're established in the first place. The usual explanation appeals to cognitive constructs like salience (i.e. focal points in Shelling games), but this just pushes back the question to how common knowledge of salience is established. Skyrms shows that random populations of non-cognitive agents will necessarily converge on conventions simply due to replicator dynamics (with a minuscule value of a correlation parameter controlling how often "like meets like"), and that these conventions are evolutionarily stable. This obviously isn't to say that conventions among humans are formed without social reasoning, especially for the substantially more complex behaviors we display. But if we're comfortable modeling sequences of social interactions as "generations" in replicator dynamics, this is an encouraging proof of concept for how we might hope to model & explain the formation of conventions. In the 2 decades since Evolution of the Social Contract was published, we've been able to elaborate on it.

[Nick Huntington-Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book on evolutionary game theory. Very clearly presented, with great visualizations and examples. A clear recommendation for anyone interested in the relationship between strategic behavior and social outcomes.

[Per Kraulis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and challenging book. The basic idea is that many basic aspects of human society and behaviour are rooted in evolutionary processes.

[Morris Yen · Rating 5 out of 5]

feasible introduction of social contract theories
included key concepts in evolutionary game theory, such as Nash equilibria, Nash bargaining solution, correlation, and signaling.

[Sharad Pandian]

A fascinating exploration of how a game theoretic approach can be used to understand the emergence through evolution of various norms. Skyrms purposefully doesn't include too much math or details, and introduces the terms he uses throughout to make the book accessible to a general audience. (Despite this, my lack of background in game theory almost definitely means I've still missed out on the motivation for this study, its nuances, and its implications)