Cambridge Elements · Decision Theory and Philosophy

Evolutionary Game Theory

by J. McKenzie Alexander

London School of Economics

Evolutionary game theory originated in population biology from the realisation that frequency-dependent fitness introduces a strategic element into evolution. Since its development, the theory has been adopted by social scientists and philosophers to analyse interdependent decision problems played by boundedly rational individuals — leading to theoretical innovations of considerable interest to the biological and social sciences alike.

This Element offers an introduction to the field's two principal approaches: the static analysis of evolutionary stability concepts, and the study of dynamical models, their convergence behaviour, and their rest points. It also explores the many fascinating, and sometimes intricate, connections between the two.

01About this Element

Cambridge Elements are concise, peer-reviewed monographs designed to give readers a rigorous yet accessible point of entry into a research area. This volume is written for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in philosophy, economics, biology, and the social sciences who want a compact treatment of evolutionary game theory that takes both its mathematical structure and its philosophical applications seriously.

Where many introductions treat the static and dynamic strands of evolutionary game theory as separate enterprises, this Element foregrounds the relationships between them — when an evolutionarily stable strategy is and is not a rest point of the replicator dynamics, when convergence does and does not coincide with stability, and what the discrepancies tell us about the modelling assumptions we bring.

02Topics covered

  • Evolutionary stable strategies
  • The replicator dynamics
  • Local interaction models
  • Stochastic dynamics
  • Cooperation and altruism
  • Signalling games
  • Best-response and imitation dynamics
  • Fitness landscapes

03About the author

J. McKenzie Alexander

J. McKenzie Alexander is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, where he has taught for over two decades. His research interests include evolutionary game theory, game and decision theory, the philosophy of social science, and the philosophy of society.

His first book, The Structural Evolution of Morality (Cambridge, 2007), used evolutionary game-theoretic models to address questions in moral philosophy. His most recent book, The Open Society as an Enemy (LSE Press, 2024), is available open access.

04Related work