I'm strongly with Wilson in wanting an alternative to approaches such as Hamilton's that focus too narrowly on kinship (and also to approaches such as Trivers' that focus too narrowly on reciprocity). I believe that altruism in the form of taking into account at least some of the payoffs of others as well as one's own payoffs is a reality for many humans and nonhumans in situations involving strangers and one-shot games. Given that prior belief, I think there is real value to an approach to modeling altruism that explains how at least some kinds of it can be an evolutionarily stable strategy in situations involving non-relatives and one-shot interactions.
But allowing that I haven't read the Wilson, Nowak, Tamita article, I'm quite doubtful that their high-tech approach is the way forward for biologists. I think the way forward will instead involve a low-techThomas Schelling-Robert Frank inspired understanding of the ways in which selective altruism can be helpful to the altruist in leadership and trust games that are as or more important in the real world than prisoner's dilemmas in which altruism, selective or otherwise, is harmful or at best unhelpful.
I have a comment on a problem posted at the NYT Numberplay site. It's mostly just on Nash equilibria--the general (nonoriginal) point such as it is is that Nash equilibirum is highly relevant even when the "players" are noncalculating because of evolution.
The conventional wisdom on altruism in 2 x 2 games, as I take it: Although altruism can contribute to higher social value, the altruist is destined to lose out to the egoist in their interactions. Hence altruism will decline over time, absent sufficient ability of altruists to form their own groups and/or to punish those who do not behave altruistically. The modification to conventional wisdom argued for here: Altruists in games in which mixed Nash strategies are an equilibrum in some cases do better in those equilibria than egoists. More specifically, altruists do better than egoists in their interactions when the altruist's known altruism leads the egoist to play the altruist's objectively preferred strategy more often than would be the case absent the egoist's knowing he/she is playing with an altruistic player. Yet more specifically: If the effect of altruism is to narrow the difference in the altruist's payoffs for the egoist strategy that is *more* preferred by the altruist relative to the difference in payoffs for the egoist's strategy that is *less* preferred by the altruist, altruism results in the altruist outperforming the egoist. In the reverse case in which altruism widens the difference in the altruist's payoffs for the strategy he/she prefers the egoist play relative to the less-preferred strategy, altruism is harmful to the altruist. The takeaway: Although the cases are symmetrical overall, with the losses from altruism balancing out the gains, there is an important class of 2 x 2 games that broadly relate to leading and following (Chicken, Leadership, and Battle of the Sexes) in which altruism helps the altruist to induce the rational egoist to defer to the altruist. A concern on the part of leaders and managers for the welfare of those they lead and manage can thus be understood as strategically efficacious.
ROW payoffs in lower left—COL payoffs in upper right..
ALT payoffs in lower left—EGO payoffs in upper right..
Row payoffs in lower left—Column payoffs in upper right..
Summary--ALT relative to EGO in MIXED NASH games--The advantage for ALT in Leadership and BOTS is exactly balanced by the advantage for EGO in Schelling and Stag Hunt. With the payoffs assigned here, ALT's advantage in Chicken (9/11) outweighs EGO's advantage in Trust (22/35)--given that this depends on specific numbers assigned, though, it is better to treat the two games as having matching and equal advantages for ALT and EGO pending a general, non-plug-in analysis. Note that the advantages of ALT are in the three games in which the optimal solution involves the players playing different strategies and receiving different payoffs.
There are three Nash equilibria in the game: Row defects and Column cooperates, Column defects and Row cooperates, and both play mixed strategies of cooperating and defecting with probability 1/2.
Cooperation weakly dominates defection for the altruistic Row, which will lead R to cooperate and Column to defect. The only Nash equilibrium in the game is R cooperate and C defect. The altruistic Row thus receives a subjective payoff of 3 but an objective fitness payoff of only 1, and is by assumption less fit than the non-altruistic Column with an objective payoff of 4.
Defection strongly dominates cooperation for the competitive Row player; R will thus defect and Column, knowing that,will cooperate. The only Nash equilibrium is R defect, C cooperate, with R receiving an objective payoff of 4 and C receiving an objective payoff of 1.
Assuming that types are known and that C is not required to play with the competitive R but can play with others like him/herself, the only players that the competitive R will be able to play with will be other competitive players with the same payoff structure. Both will defect, resulting in subjective and objective payoffs of 0 and a lower level of fitness than non-competitive players playing one another will receive.
In this matrix, Column knows that Row will cooperate with p .5 (if R is altruistic on this play of the game) and defect with p .5 (if R is competitive on this play). Knowing that, C will himself/herself play a mixed strategy of cooperating and defecting, each with probability .5. The equilibrium is Nash, with neither player able to gain by departing from it. Both the altruistic-competitive R and the nonaltruistic-noncompetitive C will receive the same objective payoffs (2 on average) over time; both types will persist over time, with neither outcompeting the other.
*The game is a variant Chicken matrix in which C-C has a greater collective payoff than C-D (either because of bargaining costs or forgone benefits of mutual cooperation).
One way to look at the value competition concept is as a solution to the problem of altruism that Price and many other evolutionary theorists have worried over. The proposed solution: "Irrational" altruism that is selected against at the individual level can become selected for when it is combined with another trait. My candidate for the other trait: "irrational" egotism.
Getting the argument requires understanding that there is not only a problem of altruism but a problem of egoism. That is, commitment to acting to achieve one's own ends is rational only to a certain degree. Beyond that limited degree, such egoistic commitment is irrational in multiple senses: One is working harder on behalf of one's ends than one wants to do, and one is also engendering resistance from others.
The difficulty in evolving organisms with an irrational level of egoism is not a problem unless there is social value in such egoism. But it is likely that there is such value; hard work checked by social restraints and a need to cooperate will benefit others if not the worker. Hence, it is plausible to believe that there is a problem of egoism that needs to be set alongside the better understood if unresolved problem of altruism.
The core part of the tying argument: Although neither irrational egoism alone nor irrational altruism alone is adaptive, together they can be adaptive. When the two are tied, altruism is no longer exploitable in the way that it is when it is unalloyed, since the wronged altruist who is also an egoist will seek vengeance unto the ends of the earth. The problem of egoism is also solved by tying: While the unalloyed egoist is a bane to the community and maladaptive because of the community's appropriate resistance to him, the egoist who is also an altruist can be accepted by the community. A combined egoist-altruist is thus quite clearly adaptive compared to a pure altruist or a pure egoist, and may well be adaptive compared to an individual who lacks both irrational egoism and irrational altruism.
The tying argument in itself I believe leaves the case for altruism and egoism at the level of showing how the combination of the two attributes could be adaptive, not of proving that the combination is in fact adaptive. To do that, one needs a further line of argument, such as the value competition argument about the internal competition in the organism between egoism and altruism. That competition, if suitably organized, is a potential tiebreaker that makes an irrational altruistic-egoistic organism adaptive compared to a rational one lacking either trait.
A reductionist sociobiological project of explaining sociology and psychology in terms of biology lacks appeal to social scientists concerned with their own discipines. By contrast, a reverse-reductionist value competition project of explaining pyschology in terms of democracy in the form of competition within the brain has potential to gain support from political scientists, economists, anthropologists, and sociologists.