Does natural selection tend to maximise something? Does it produce individuals who act as if they maximised something? These questions have long occupied evolutionary theorists, and have proven especially tricky in the case of social evolution, which is known for leading to apparently suboptimal states. This paper investigates recent results about maximising analogies - especially regarding whether individuals should be considered as if they maximised their inclusive fitness - and compares the fruitfulness of global and local approaches. I assess Okasha & Martens's recent local approach to the individual-as-maximising-agent analogy and its robustness with respect to interactive situations. I then defend the relative merits of a comparable global approach, arguing that it is conceptually on a par and heuristically advantageous.

中文翻译：

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社会进化和个体作为最大化代理的类比。

自然选择会倾向于最大化某些东西吗？它会产生个体行为，好像他们最大化了某些东西吗？这些问题长期以来一直被进化理论家所占据，并且在社会进化的情况下被证明特别棘手，而社会进化以导致明显次优的状态而著称。本文调查了有关最大化类比的最新结果，尤其是关于是否应考虑将个体视为最大化其包容性的结果，并比较了全球和本地方法的成果。我评估了Okasha＆Martens最近针对个体最大化代理人类比的本地方法及其相对于交互情况的稳健性。然后，我捍卫可比的全球方法的相对优点，认为它在概念上是同等的，并且在启发上是有利的。