Abstract

Part of Allen et al.’s criticism of Hamilton’s rule makes sense only if we are interested in social adaptation rather than merely social selection. Under the assumption that we are interested in casually modeling social adaptation, I illustrate how graphical causal models of social adaptation can be useful for predicting evolution by adaptation. I then argue for two consequences of this approach given some of the recent philosophical literature. I argue Birch’s claim that the proper way to understand Hamilton’s rule is as providing an organizational framework for causal models is incorrect. I provide an account of a causally adequate decomposition of evolutionary change due to social adaptation and show that my account is superior to Okasha’s.