On the Production and Ramification of Cooperation: The Cooperation Afforder with Framing Hypothesis

This paper presents a new proposal for understanding the establishment and maintenance of cooperation: the cooperation afforder with framing hypothesis, producing what can be called cooperation from afforder-framing. Three key moves are present. First, a special variety of the Stag Hunt game, the Cooperation Afforder game, will reliably produce mutualistic cooperation through an evolutionary process. Second, cognitive framing is a credible candidate mechanism to meet the special conditions and requirements of the Cooperation Afforder game. Third, once mutualistic cooperation is established in this way, it will plausibly lead to broader forms of cooperation, even to limited forms of altruism.