"The Stag Hunt and
the
Evolution of Social Structure"
Brian Skyrms
2004, Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521533929
<>Brian Skyrms, author of the
successful Evolution
of
the Social
<>Contract (which won the prestigious Lakatos Award) has
written
a sequel. The new book is a study of ideas of cooperation and
collective
action. The point of departure is a prototypical story found in
Rousseau’s
A Discourse on Inequality. Rousseau contrasts the pay-off of
hunting
hare where the risk of non-cooperation is small but the reward is
equally
small, against the pay-off of hunting the stag where maximum
cooperation
is required but where the reward is so much greater. Thus, rational
agents
are pulled in one direction by considerations of risk and in another by
considerations
of mutual benefit. Written with all Skyrms’s characteristic clarity and
verve, this intriguing book will be eagerly sought out by students and
professionals
in philosophy, political science, economics, sociology and evolutionary
biology.
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