Jonathan Birch
Biographic Data
| ID | 3597562 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan Birch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan |
| FAMILY NAME | Birch |
| SIGNATURE | BIRCH J |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7517-4759 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Medical AI, inductive risk and the communication of uncertainty: The case of disorders of consciousness
Some patients, following brain injury, do not outwardly respond to spoken commands, yet show patterns of brain activity that indicate responsiveness. This is ‘cognitive-motor dissociation’ (CMD). Recent research has used machine learning to diagnose CMD from electroencephalogram recordings. These techniques have high false discovery rates, raising a serious problem of inductive risk. It is no solution to communicate the false discovery rates dire…
Sentience and the science–policy nexus: Replies to Wandrey and Halina, and Bayne
The edge of sentience is a book about what we should do when a decision problem forces us to draw a pragmatic line between the sentient and the non‐sentient. The commentaries from Wandrey and Halina and from Bayne analyse both my precautionary framework and my claims about specific cases. My responses start with the case of large language models (LLMs), zoom out to general issues about the science–policy relationship, then zoom in again on the ca…
Protecting animal cultures as World Heritage
Affect Is at the Heart of Norm Psychology: Commentary on Heyes, “Rethinking Norm Psychology”
NEXT ARTICLETalking About the Absent and the Abstract: Referential Communication in Language and Gesture
How we got stuck: The origins of hierarchy and inequality
Kim Sterelny's book The Pleistocene social contract provides an exceptionally well‐informed and credible narrative explanation of the origins of inequality and hierarchy. In this essay review, we reflect on the role of rational choice theory in Sterelny's project, before turning to Sterelny's reasons for doubting the importance of cultural group selection. In the final section, we compare Sterelny's big picture with an alternative from David Weng…
The search for invertebrate consciousness
There is no agreement on whether any invertebrates are conscious and no agreement on a methodology that could settle the issue. How can the debate move forward? I distinguish three broad types of approach: theory‐heavy, theory‐neutral and theory‐light. Theory‐heavy and theory‐neutral approaches face serious problems, motivating a middle path: the theory‐light approach. At the core of the theory‐light approach is a minimal commitment about the rel…
Should Animal Welfare Be Defined in Terms of Consciousness
Definitions of animal welfare often invoke consciousness or sentience. Marian Stamp Dawkins has argued that to define animal welfare this way is a mistake. In Dawkins’s alternative view, an animal with good welfare is one that is healthy and “has what it wants.” The dispute highlights a source of strain on the concept of animal welfare: consciousness-involving definitions are better able to capture the normative significance of welfare, whereas c…
Animal sentience
Sentience' sometimes refers to the capacity for any type of subjective experience, and sometimes to the capacity to have subjective experiences with a positive or negative valence, such as pain or pleasure. We review recent controversies regarding sentience in fish and invertebrates and consider the deep methodological challenge posed by these cases. We then present two ways of responding to the challenge. In a policy-making context, precautionar…
Materialism and the Moral Status of Animals
Consciousness has an important role in ethics: when a being consciously experiences the frustration or satisfaction of its interests, those interests deserve higher moral priority than those of a behaviourally similar but non-conscious being. I consider the relationship between this ethical role and an a posteriori (or 'type-B') materialist solution to the mind-body problem. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, if type-B materialism is correc…
Teaching & Learning Guide for: Animal Sentience
Animal sentience, in a broad sense, refers to the capacity of an animal to have feelings with a subjective character. If an animal is sentient, there is something that it is like to be that animal. These feelings can include pleasure and pain, but also others such as hunger, curiosity, loneliness, and fear. Animal sentience plays an important role in ethical deliberations, as sentient animals are capable of suffering, a capacity frequently taken …
The hatching of consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Metazoa and Joseph LeDoux’s The Deep History of Ourselves present radically different big pictures regarding the nature, evolution and distribution of consciousness in animals. In this essay review, I discuss the motivations behind these big pictures and try to steer a course between them
Refining the Skill Hypothesis: Replies to Andrews/Westra, Tomasello, Sterelny, and Railton
I reflect on the commentaries on my ‘skill hypothesis’ from Andrews/Westra, Tomasello, Sterelny, and Railton. I discuss the difference between normative cognition and the broader category of action-guiding representation, and I reflect on the relationship between joint intentionality and normative cognition. I then consider Sterelny and Railton’s variants on the skill hypothesis, which highlight some important areas where future evidence could he…
The Skilful Origins of Human Normative Cognition
I briefly present and motivate a ‘skill hypothesis’ regarding the evolution of human normative cognition. On this hypothesis, the capacity to internally represent action-guiding norms evolved as a solution to the distinctive problems of standardizing, learning and teaching complex motor skills and craft skills, especially skills related to toolmaking. We have an evolved cognitive architecture for internalizing norms of technique, which was then c…
Global Workspace Theory and Animal Consciousness
Peter Carruthers has recently argued for a surprising conditional: if a global workspace theory of phenomenal consciousness is both correct and fully reductive, then there are no substantive facts to discover about phenomenal consciousness in nonhuman animals. I present two problems for this conditional. First, it rests on an odd double-standard about the ordinary concept of phenomenal consciousness: its intuitive non-gradability is taken to be u…
New Testament Topics
No abstract available
Early Christianity
No abstract available
The meaning of biological signals
Kin Selection, Group Selection, and the Varieties of Population Structure
Various results show the ‘formal equivalence’ of kin and group selectionist methodologies, but this does not preclude there being a real and useful distinction between kin and group selection processes. I distinguish individual and population-centred approaches to drawing such a distinction, and I proceed to develop the latter. On the account I advance, the differences between kin and group selection are differences of degree in the structural pr…
Altruistic deception
Inclusive fitness as a criterion for improvement
Animal Cognition and Human Values
Animal welfare scientists face an acute version of the problem of inductive risk since they must choose whether to affirm attributions of mental states to animals in advisory contexts, knowing their decisions hold consequences for animal welfare. In such contexts, the burden of proof should be sensitive to the consequences of error, but a framework for setting appropriate burdens of proof is lacking. Through reflection on two cases—pain and cogni…
Kin Selection and Group Selection
In group-structured populations in which some other assumptions are satisfied, kin and group selectionist methods provide formally equivalent conditions for change. However, this only shows an equivalence between two statistical methodologies, and this is compatible with there being a real, causal distinction between kin and group selection processes. This chapter pursues a Hamilton-inspired, population-centred approach to drawing that distinctio…
Gene Mobility and the Concept of Relatedness
Social behaviour is widespread in the microbial world, yet social evolution theory was mostly developed with multicellular animals in mind. One difference between multicellular organisms and microbes is the prevalence of mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids, in microbial populations. Plasmids are often implicated in the production of so-called public goods, and relatedness may be at the heart of this phenomenon. However, gene mobility introd…
Hamilton’s Rule as an Organizing Framework
Queller’s version of Hamilton’s rule (HRG), derived from the Price equation, states that the mean breeding value for a social character increases if and only if rb > c , where r is the coefficient of relatedness between social partners, b is the benefit conferred on recipients, and c is the cost incurred by actors. The value of HRG lies in its ability to provide an organizing framework for social evolution theory, helping us to interpret, classif…
Two Conceptions of Social Fitness
Hamilton introduced two conceptions of social fitness, which he termed neighbour-modulated fitness and inclusive fitness, and he argued that the two concepts are equivalent. This argument relies on two assumptions—actor’s control and additivity—that can be justified as approximations under ‘ δ -weak selection’, which is selection on tiny differences between the mutant and the wild type. The assumption of δ -weak selection stems from a methodologi…
Animal sentience
Sentience' sometimes refers to the capacity for any type of subjective experience, and sometimes to the capacity to have subjective experiences with a positive or negative valence, such as pain or pleasure. We review recent controversies regarding sentience in fish and invertebrates and consider the deep methodological challenge posed by these cases. We then present two ways of responding to the challenge. In a policy-making context, precautionar…
Hamilton’s Rule and Its Discontents
In an incendiary 2010 Nature article, M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita, and E. O. Wilson present a savage critique of the best-known and most widely used framework for the study of social evolution, W. D. Hamilton’s theory of kin selection. More than a hundred biologists have since rallied to the theory’s defence, but Nowak et al. maintain that their arguments ‘stand unrefuted’. Here I consider the most contentious claim Nowak et al. defend: that Hamil…
The negative view of natural selection
Altruistic deception
Hamilton’s Two Conceptions of Social Fitness
Hamilton introduced two conceptions of social fitness, which he called neighbor-modulated fitness and inclusive fitness. Although he regarded them as formally equivalent, a reanalysis of his own argument for their equivalence brings out two important assumptions on which it rests: weak additivity and actor’s control. When weak additivity breaks down, neither fitness concept is appropriate in its original form. When actor’s control breaks down, ne…
Irretrievably confused? Innateness in explanatory context
Materialism and the Moral Status of Animals
Consciousness has an important role in ethics: when a being consciously experiences the frustration or satisfaction of its interests, those interests deserve higher moral priority than those of a behaviourally similar but non-conscious being. I consider the relationship between this ethical role and an a posteriori (or 'type-B') materialist solution to the mind-body problem. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, if type-B materialism is correc…
Teaching & Learning Guide for: Animal Sentience
Animal sentience, in a broad sense, refers to the capacity of an animal to have feelings with a subjective character. If an animal is sentient, there is something that it is like to be that animal. These feelings can include pleasure and pain, but also others such as hunger, curiosity, loneliness, and fear. Animal sentience plays an important role in ethical deliberations, as sentient animals are capable of suffering, a capacity frequently taken …
Kin Selection, Group Selection, and the Varieties of Population Structure
Various results show the ‘formal equivalence’ of kin and group selectionist methodologies, but this does not preclude there being a real and useful distinction between kin and group selection processes. I distinguish individual and population-centred approaches to drawing such a distinction, and I proceed to develop the latter. On the account I advance, the differences between kin and group selection are differences of degree in the structural pr…
Animal Cognition and Human Values
Animal welfare scientists face an acute version of the problem of inductive risk since they must choose whether to affirm attributions of mental states to animals in advisory contexts, knowing their decisions hold consequences for animal welfare. In such contexts, the burden of proof should be sensitive to the consequences of error, but a framework for setting appropriate burdens of proof is lacking. Through reflection on two cases—pain and cogni…
Irretrievably confused? Innateness in explanatory context
The negative view of natural selection
Hamilton’s Rule and Its Discontents
In an incendiary 2010 Nature article, M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita, and E. O. Wilson present a savage critique of the best-known and most widely used framework for the study of social evolution, W. D. Hamilton’s theory of kin selection. More than a hundred biologists have since rallied to the theory’s defence, but Nowak et al. maintain that their arguments ‘stand unrefuted’. Here I consider the most contentious claim Nowak et al. defend: that Hamil…
Hamilton’s Two Conceptions of Social Fitness
Hamilton introduced two conceptions of social fitness, which he called neighbor-modulated fitness and inclusive fitness. Although he regarded them as formally equivalent, a reanalysis of his own argument for their equivalence brings out two important assumptions on which it rests: weak additivity and actor’s control. When weak additivity breaks down, neither fitness concept is appropriate in its original form. When actor’s control breaks down, ne…
Kin Selection and Group Selection
In group-structured populations in which some other assumptions are satisfied, kin and group selectionist methods provide formally equivalent conditions for change. However, this only shows an equivalence between two statistical methodologies, and this is compatible with there being a real, causal distinction between kin and group selection processes. This chapter pursues a Hamilton-inspired, population-centred approach to drawing that distinctio…
Gene Mobility and the Concept of Relatedness
Social behaviour is widespread in the microbial world, yet social evolution theory was mostly developed with multicellular animals in mind. One difference between multicellular organisms and microbes is the prevalence of mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids, in microbial populations. Plasmids are often implicated in the production of so-called public goods, and relatedness may be at the heart of this phenomenon. However, gene mobility introd…
Hamilton’s Rule as an Organizing Framework
Queller’s version of Hamilton’s rule (HRG), derived from the Price equation, states that the mean breeding value for a social character increases if and only if rb > c , where r is the coefficient of relatedness between social partners, b is the benefit conferred on recipients, and c is the cost incurred by actors. The value of HRG lies in its ability to provide an organizing framework for social evolution theory, helping us to interpret, classif…
Two Conceptions of Social Fitness
Hamilton introduced two conceptions of social fitness, which he termed neighbour-modulated fitness and inclusive fitness, and he argued that the two concepts are equivalent. This argument relies on two assumptions—actor’s control and additivity—that can be justified as approximations under ‘ δ -weak selection’, which is selection on tiny differences between the mutant and the wild type. The assumption of δ -weak selection stems from a methodologi…
Conceptualizing Social Behaviour
Hamilton classified social behaviours by the sign of their effects on the reproductive success of the actor and the recipient, leading to a four-part schema that categorizes behaviour as altruistic, selfish, mutually beneficial, or spiteful. While broadly endorsing Hamilton’s approach, this chapter argues that we should categorize social behaviour in terms of the selection processes that have maintained the behaviour in recent evolutionary histor…
Cultural Relatedness and Human Social Evolution
Humans often set aside their own self-interest to help others and punish free riders, even when interacting with strangers. To explain the origin of these ‘broad-scope prosocial preferences’, we should consider the processes of cultural evolution that might have acted in early human populations. Two types of cultural selection can be distinguished: CS1, in which cultural differences between individuals cause differences in their reproductive succ…
Jumping into the River …
This chapter provides an introduction to the book. Some brief background on the aims and history of social evolution theory is followed by a brief discussion of Ernst Mayr’s proximate-ultimate distinction. There follows a short overview of the book as a whole. Part I of the book ‘Foundations’, aims to construct a coherent picture of the conceptual structure of social evolution theory, a picture that distinguishes the different explanatory roles o…
And Climbing Out Again
This chapter lists in brief some of the key claims for which the book has argued. It then provides a conclusion to the book, relating some of the book’s recurring themes to other debates in the philosophy of biology and sketching some directions for future work. The first theme is the relationship between statistics and causality, which is connected to the long-running clash between ‘statisticalist’ and ‘causalist’ interpretations of evolutionary…
The Philosophy of Social Evolution
From microbes to humans, the natural world is full of spectacular examples of social behaviour. In the 1960s, W. D. Hamilton introduced three key innovations—now known as Hamilton’s rule, kin selection, and inclusive fitness—that changed the way we think about how social behaviour evolves, beginning a research program now known as social evolution theory. This is a book about the philosophical foundations and future prospects of that program. Par…
Animal Cognition and Human Values
Animal welfare scientists face an acute version of the problem of inductive risk since they must choose whether to affirm attributions of mental states to animals in advisory contexts, knowing their decisions hold consequences for animal welfare. In such contexts, the burden of proof should be sensitive to the consequences of error, but a framework for setting appropriate burdens of proof is lacking. Through reflection on two cases—pain and cogni…
Altruistic deception
Inclusive fitness as a criterion for improvement
Global Workspace Theory and Animal Consciousness
Peter Carruthers has recently argued for a surprising conditional: if a global workspace theory of phenomenal consciousness is both correct and fully reductive, then there are no substantive facts to discover about phenomenal consciousness in nonhuman animals. I present two problems for this conditional. First, it rests on an odd double-standard about the ordinary concept of phenomenal consciousness: its intuitive non-gradability is taken to be u…
New Testament Topics
No abstract available
Early Christianity
No abstract available
The meaning of biological signals
Kin Selection, Group Selection, and the Varieties of Population Structure
Various results show the ‘formal equivalence’ of kin and group selectionist methodologies, but this does not preclude there being a real and useful distinction between kin and group selection processes. I distinguish individual and population-centred approaches to drawing such a distinction, and I proceed to develop the latter. On the account I advance, the differences between kin and group selection are differences of degree in the structural pr…
The hatching of consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Metazoa and Joseph LeDoux’s The Deep History of Ourselves present radically different big pictures regarding the nature, evolution and distribution of consciousness in animals. In this essay review, I discuss the motivations behind these big pictures and try to steer a course between them
Refining the Skill Hypothesis: Replies to Andrews/Westra, Tomasello, Sterelny, and Railton
I reflect on the commentaries on my ‘skill hypothesis’ from Andrews/Westra, Tomasello, Sterelny, and Railton. I discuss the difference between normative cognition and the broader category of action-guiding representation, and I reflect on the relationship between joint intentionality and normative cognition. I then consider Sterelny and Railton’s variants on the skill hypothesis, which highlight some important areas where future evidence could he…
The Skilful Origins of Human Normative Cognition
I briefly present and motivate a ‘skill hypothesis’ regarding the evolution of human normative cognition. On this hypothesis, the capacity to internally represent action-guiding norms evolved as a solution to the distinctive problems of standardizing, learning and teaching complex motor skills and craft skills, especially skills related to toolmaking. We have an evolved cognitive architecture for internalizing norms of technique, which was then c…
How we got stuck: The origins of hierarchy and inequality
Kim Sterelny's book The Pleistocene social contract provides an exceptionally well‐informed and credible narrative explanation of the origins of inequality and hierarchy. In this essay review, we reflect on the role of rational choice theory in Sterelny's project, before turning to Sterelny's reasons for doubting the importance of cultural group selection. In the final section, we compare Sterelny's big picture with an alternative from David Weng…
Psychology (24 works) · Philosophy (21 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (19 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Biology (15 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Mathematics (12 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (8 works)