Ignacio Adrian Lerer has posted The Praxeological Foundations of Extended Phenotype Theory: Mises, Dawkins, and the Micro-Mechanics of Legal Evolution on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In a previous paper (Lerer 2025a), I argued that Richard Dawkins and F.A. Hayek arrived, through different paths, at structurally similar solutions to the same problem: explaining complex order without invoking a designer. This paper extends that synthesis by incorporating Ludwig von Mises’s praxeology.
My argument is straightforward: Hayek explained what emerges from individual behavior but left a gap regarding why individuals adopt certain rules rather than others. Mises provides an answer: purposeful action aimed at substituting a less satisfactory state for a more satisfactory one. If legal institutions are extended phenotypes of memes competing for replication, we need to understand the adoption mechanism. That mechanism is praxeological. A norm spreads not because it serves abstract “social functions” but because concrete individuals perceive it as useful for their ends. The cui bono question receives a praxeological answer: memes benefit those who adopt them as tools for action.
This integration has practical consequences: it explains why legal transplants fail when they ignore adoption logic, why centralized constitutional design tends to produce anomie, and why dysfunctional institutions persist when individual actors sustain them through actions that, from their perspective, make sense.