Kourki, Arsham Nejad. “Multilevel Selection and Major Transitions in Sociocultural Evolution.” (2017).
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There has been a growing literature on the applicability of abstract Darwinian principles to the sociocultural domain. In this paper, I will argue that the theoretical framework of multilevel selection and evolutionary transitions in individuality is applicable to human sociocultural evolution and that its application gives us great unificatory power. In order to do so, I will first provide a general account of major evolutionary transitions and their relation to the levels of selection in evolution. Next, I will defend the applicability thesis because the successive levels of social organisation in human societies satisfy the conditions required to fall under the set of explananda of the multilevel selection and evolutionary transitions framework; that this applicability entails the evolution of a certain type of traits at each successive level; and that at least some of these traits must be in some ways similar to traits involved in the evolution of biological levels of organisation; meanwhile attempting to link the conceptual to the empirical. Finally, I will explore the implications of this thesis.