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What Fitness Can’t Be

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Abstract

Recently advocates of the propensity interpretation of fitness have turned critics. To accommodate examples from the population genetics literature they conclude that fitness is better defined broadly as a family of propensities rather than the propensity to contribute descendants to some future generation. We argue that the propensity theorists have misunderstood the deeper ramifications of the examples they cite. These examples demonstrate why there are factors outside of propensities that determine fitness. We go on to argue for the more general thesis that no account of fitness can satisfy the desiderata that have motivated the propensity account.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following for comments on previous drafts: Frédéric Bouchard, Sara Rachel Chant, Mohan Matthen, Michael Strevens, Elliott Sober, Denis Walsh, and audience members of a session of the American Philosophical Association in San Francisco, 2007 where we presented a draft of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    André Ariew & Zachary Ernst

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  1. André Ariew
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  2. Zachary Ernst
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Correspondence to André Ariew.

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Ariew, A., Ernst, Z. What Fitness Can’t Be. Erkenn 71, 289–301 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9183-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9183-9

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