Evolutionary theorists often talk as if natural selection were choosing the most adapted traits, or if organisms were deciding to do the most adaptive strategy. Moreover, the payoff of those decisions often depend on what others are doing, and since Hamilton ( 1964 ), biologists possess conceptual tools such as kin selection and inclusive fitness to make sense of outcomes of evolution in these contexts, even when they seem unadaptive (such as sterility). The link between selection and adaptation through which selection or organisms can be seen as agents, as well as the scope and nature of Hamiltonian conceptions of social evolution, stimulated many formal elaborations (such as, initially, Fisher’s “Fundamental theorem of natural selection”), but also raise major philosophical issues about causation and statistics, and about rationality and adaptation or selection. Two recent philosophy books, Okasha’s Agents and goals in evolution, and Birch’s Philosophy of social evolution , tackle those question. This essay reflects on them in order to think of those two issues. After having reviewed the books, I try to sketch some philosophical lessons onto which they concur.

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论文评论：探索后汉密尔顿进化生物学的概念基础——社会代理的理性与进化

进化理论家经常谈论好像自然选择正在选择最适应的特征，或者生物体决定采取最适应的策略。此外，这些决定的回报通常取决于其他人的行为，并且自 Hamilton (1964) 以来，生物学家拥有概念工具，例如亲属选择和包容性适应，以理解这些环境中的进化结果，即使它们看起来不适应（如无菌）。选择和适应之间的联系，通过这种联系，选择或生物体可以被视为代理人，以及哈密顿社会进化概念的范围和性质，刺激了许多正式的阐述（例如，最初，费舍尔的“自然选择的基本定理”） ，但也提出了关于因果关系和统计的重大哲学问题，以及关于理性和适应或选择。最近的两本哲学书，Okasha 的代理和进化目标，以及 Birch 的社会进化哲学，解决了这些问题。本文对它们进行了反思，以思考这两个问题。在阅读了这些书之后，我尝试勾勒出他们同意的一些哲学课程。