Thinking of behaviours an organism can adapt, at the very base an action can alw

Question

Thinking of behaviours an organism can adapt, at the very base an action can always be either selfish or altruistic (cooperative).

Usually, selfish behaviour is assumed to be the preferred choice and the question is how altruistic behaviour comes about.

But if reciprocal altruism can give both participants a higher benefit than their respective costs (which it usually does), why would selfish behaviour (in the sense of behaviour which reaps benefit at another entity's expense) be what we assume to happen? If evolution tends to optimise things, why does it not optimise this?

Explanation / Answer

From the common viewpoint, in which natural selection is seen as acting on individual organisms, it's almost a tautology that the organisms favored by selection are those that maximize their own reproductive fitness. Thus, the possibility that some organisms might engage in acts that help another organism at their own expense may seem like a paradox, or at least a puzzle in need of explanation.

One solution to this puzzle is offered by the gene-centered view of evolution, where selection is viewed as acting on genes, with organisms being merely convenient (and usually, but not always, cooperative) collections of genes that (usually) reproduce together. From this viewpoint, it is not at all surprising that evolution might favor genes that cause an organism to help other organisms, provided that there's a statistical tendency for those other organisms to also be carrying the same gene.

Other mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation do also exist. For example, organisms with sufficiently advanced cognitive capabilities may indeed engage in reciprocal altruism, where they help others only if those others have shown themselves willing to help them in exchange. Such exchanges, being mutually beneficial, do indeed help both participating organisms, and are thus selected for even at the organism level. However, to persist (in the absence of gene or group level selection effects), they generally need some form of enforcement and/or learning mechanism

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