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Fitness extraction and the conceptual foundations of political biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Mircea Boari
Mircea Boari*
Affiliation:
FreeTh&Ent Group 1–3, M. Kogălniceanu Bd, C. P. 62-44, 053-080 Bucharest Romania and ESSEC Business School Avenue Bernard Hirsch, B.P. 105 95021 Cergy-Pontoise Cedex France [email protected]
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Abstract

In well known formulations, political science, classical and neoclassical economics, and political economy have recognized as foundational a human impulse toward self-preservation. To employ this concept, modern social-sciences theorists have made simplifying assumptions about human nature and have then built elaborately upon their more incisive simplifications. Advances in biology, including advances in evolutionary theory, notably inclusive-fitness theory, have for decades now encouraged the reconsideration of such assumptions and, more ambitiously, the reconciliation of the social and life sciences. I ask if this reconciliation is feasible and test a path to the unification of politics and biology, called here “political biology.” Two new notions, “fitness extraction” and “fitness exchange,” are defined, then differentiated from each other, and lastly contrasted to cooperative gaming, the putative essential element of economics.

Keywords

political biologyfoundations of political sciencefoundations of economicstheoretical biologyfoundational theoryfitnessself-preservationevolution
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 24 , Issue 1-2 , September 2005 , pp. 64 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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