Minimal cooperation: insights from autism

Abstract

In this article, I aim to elucidate minimality in cooperation by drawing on a previously developed multi-dimensional approach to cooperation. This approach provides a useful framework to locate any cooperative phenomenon at a specific point on the continua of different dimensions. That point, in turn, determines the criteria for a particular cooperative phenomenon to emerge. Thus, on one hand, the analysis provides a contribution to the philosophical debate on minimal cooperation by elucidating different kinds of minimalism in cooperation that are characterized by the lowest point of the continua of either dimension, including (1) cognitive minimalism, (2) behavioural minimalism, (3) affective minimalism, (4) social minimalism and (5) contextual minimalism. On the other hand, it facilitates the dialogue among disciplines insofar as it helps determining whether the skills and capacities that are required for particular cooperative activities (e.g. cooperative games like the Joint Simon task or the prisoner’s dilemma) are not only present in typically developing individuals but also individuals with developmental disorders like autism. Drawing on an externalist/internalist distinction, the analysis shows that high-functioning individuals with autism perform particularly well in cooperative activities that amount to externalism and are highly defined by an institutional context, social rules and regularities as well as the roles of the agents.