The sign, from an Eat 'n Park that we sometimes eat at on our Pennsic trip, expresses a common sentiment, that it is virtuous to buy from someone who lives close to you instead of from someone farther away, support the economy of your town instead of that of some other town, that it is 'just the right thing to do.' Evolutionary psychology offers a possible answer. In the environment we evolved in, people living nearer us were, on average, more closely related to us. Biasing my actions in their favor makes them more likely to survive and reproduce. My relatives are more likely than others to have the genes I have so increasing the reproductive success of my kin increases the frequency in later generations of genes I have, including the gene for local altruism. That might explain the bias but does not justify it. In the modern world, if I want to bias my actions in favor of my relatives I have better ways of doing it than favoring people who happen to live near me. Further and more...
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