Rules and Evolution

Abstract

The previous chapters were largely devoted to the concept of rule, especially inferential rule. One more aspect that might help us get a grip on the concept is an inquiry into how rules manage to come into being. And, indeed, evolutionary biologists are nowadays preoccupied with phenomena that seem intimately connected with rules, namely with the phenomena of cooperation and altruism. Why do people do things that seem to be beneficial for their peers rather than for themselves? Why do they bind themselves with rules that may sometimes divert them from the trajectory dictated to them by their apparent needs, the following of which is hammered into their genes by natural selection?