Life, death and economics from a Darwinian viewpoint
Traditional philosophies (Aristotle, Hegel, Schopenhauer, etc.) approached death from the angle of justification: death was often justified by the greater good of the species, i.e. the overcoming (Aufhebung) of the finite individuality of the living being in the universality of the species (or of the "Concept" (Hegel)). The Darwinian biology of death proposes another angle: it explains natural death, instead of taking it as a brute fact, essential to all life and therefore inexplicable, but justifiable by the essence of that life. As explanandum, intrinsic death is the result of evolutionary processes, and thus refers to natural selection - which presupposes extrinsic death. But after Medawar (1955) and Williams (1957), noting the difficulties of group selection (the "good of the species"), evolutionary biologists explained senescence, and therefore death, in multicellular organisms - in particular, interspecific differences in lifespan - through a reference to the "shadow of selection" (Haldane), i.e. the decrease in selective intensity with the age of the organism, since accidental deaths end up depopulating the population, thus lightening the intensity of competition. Aging is thus explained with reference to natural selection, as an accumulation of lethal mutations that pass the selective filter because they have a late effect (Medawar), or as a collateral product of increased selection for early reproduction (Williams), which means that they are explained by a survival-reproduction trade-off. After pointing out the difference between justification and explanation, I will analyze theories of 'compromise', a remarkable instance of economic model in evolutionary biology. I situate them within a more general economic scheme tthat pervades Darwinian biology. Finally I will argue that the absence of a single "currency" for these trade-offs implies explanatory pluralism.
The seminar will be held physically; however, interested people who cannot attend can follow it using this Zoom-link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/62598720384