Moral Sentiments and Material Interests
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Moral Sentiments and Material Interests The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life edited by Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. iii) ( 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any elec- tronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 5 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Palatino on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong, and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moral sentiments and material interests : the foundations of cooperation in economic life / edited by Herbert Gintis . [et al.]. p. cm. — (Economic learning and social evolution ; 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-07252-1 (alk. paper) 1. Cooperation. 2. Game theory. 3. Economics—Sociological aspects. I. Gintis, Herbert. II. MIT Press series on economic learning and social evolution ; v. 6. HD2961.M657 2004 3300.0105193—dc22 2004055175 10987654321 (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. iv) To Adele Simmons who, as President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, had the vision and courage to support unconventional transdisciplinary research in the behavioral sciences. (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. v) (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. vi) Contents Series Foreword ix Preface xi I Introduction 1 1 Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: Origins, Evidence, and Consequences 3 Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr II The Behavioral Ecology of Cooperation 41 2 The Evolution of Cooperation in Primate Groups 43 Joan B. Silk 3 The Natural History of Human Food Sharing and Cooperation: A Review and a New Multi-Individual Approach to the Negotiation of Norms 75 Hillard Kaplan and Michael Gurven 4 Costly Signaling and Cooperative Behavior 115 Eric A. Smith and Rebecca Bliege Bird III Modeling and Testing Strong Reciprocity 149 5 The Economics of Strong Reciprocity 151 Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. vii) viii Contents 6 Modeling Strong Reciprocity 193 Armin Falk and Urs Fischbacher 7 The Evolution of Altruistic Punishment 215 Robert Boyd, Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, and Peter J. Richerson 8 Norm Compliance and Strong Reciprocity 229 Rajiv Sethi and E. Somanathan IV Reciprocity and Social Policy 251 9 Policies That Crowd out Reciprocity and Collective Action 253 Elinor Ostrom 10 Reciprocity and the Welfare State 277 Christina M. Fong, Samuel Bowles, and Herbert Gintis 11 Fairness, Reciprocity, and Wage Rigidity 303 Truman Bewley 12 The Logic of Reciprocity: Trust, Collective Action, and Law 339 Dan M. Kahan 13 Social Capital, Moral Sentiments, and Community Governance 379 Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis Contributors 399 Index 401 (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. viii) Series Foreword The MIT Press series on Economic Learning and Social Evolution reflects the continuing interest in the dynamics of human interaction. This issue has provided a broad community of economists, psycholo- gists, biologists, anthropologists, mathematicians, philosophers, and others with such a strong sense of common purpose that traditional in- terdisciplinary boundaries have melted away. We reject the outmoded notion that what happens away from equilibrium can safely be ignored, but think it no longer adequate to speak in vague terms of bounded rationality and spontaneous order. We believe the time has come to put some beef on the table. The books in the series so far are: 0 Evolutionary Games and Equilibrium Selection, by Larry Samuelson (1997). Traditional economic models have only one equilibrium and therefore fail to come to grips with social norms whose function is to select an equilibrium when there are multiple alternatives. This book studies how such norms may evolve. 0 The Theory of Learning in Games, by Drew Fudenberg and David Levine (1998). John Von Neumann introduced ‘‘fictitious play’’ as a way of finding equilibria in zero-sum games. In this book, the idea is reinterpreted as a learning procedure and developed for use in general games. 0 Just Playing, by Ken Binmore (1998). This book applies evolutionary game theory to moral philosophy. How and why do we make fairness judgments? 0 Social Dynamics, edited by Steve Durlauf and Peyton Young (2001). The essays in this collection provide an overview of the field of social dynamics, in which some of the creators of the field discuss a variety (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. ix) x Series Foreword of approaches, including theoretical model-building, empirical studies, statistical analyses, and philosophical reflections. 0 Evolutionary Dynamics and Extensive Form Games, by Ross Cressman (2003). How is evolution affected by the timing structure of games? Does it generate backward induction? The answers show that ortho- dox thinking needs much revision in some contexts. Authors who share the ethos represented by these books, or who wish to extend it in empirical, experimental, or other directions, are cordially invited to submit outlines of their proposed books for con- sideration. Within our terms of reference, we hope that a thousand flowers will bloom. (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. x) Preface The behavioral sciences have traditionally offered two contrasting ex- planations of cooperation. One, favored by sociologists and anthro- pologists, considers the willingness to subordinate self-interest to the needs of the social group to be part of human nature. Another, favored by economists and biologists, treats cooperation as the result of the interaction of selfish agents maximizing their long-term individual ma- terial interests. Moral Sentiments and Material Interests argues that a sig- nificant fraction of people fit neither of these stereotypes. Rather, they are conditional cooperators and altruistic punishers. We show that a high level of cooperation can be attained when social groups have a suffi- cient fraction of such types, which we call strong reciprocators, and we draw implications of this phenomenon for political philosophy and so- cial policy. The research presented in this book was conceived in 1997, inspired by early empirical results of Ernst Fehr and his coworkers at the Uni- versity of Zu¨ rich and the analytical models of cultural evolution pio- neered by Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson. Behavioral scientists from several disciplines met at the University of Massachusetts in October 1998 to explore preliminary hypotheses. We then commissioned a se- ries of papers from a number of authors and met again at the Santa Fe Institute in March 2001 to review and coordinate our results, which, suitably revised and updated, together with some newly commissioned papers, are presented in the chapters below. This research is distinctive not only in its conclusions but in its meth- odology as well. First, we rely on data gathered in controlled labora- tory and field environments to make assertions concerning human motivation. Second, we ignore the disciplinary boundaries that have thwarted attempts to develop generally valid analytical models of hu- man behavior and combine insights from economics, anthropology, (V7(M) 24/2/05 16:13) MIT/U J-1147 Gintis AC1:(CKN)21/2/2005 Pal_L (0).27.02.04 (6"Â9") pp. i–xii FM_P (p. xi) xii Preface evolutionary and human biology, social psychology, and sociology. We bind these disciplines analytically by relying on a common lexicon of game theory and a consistent behavioral methodology. We would like to thank those who participated in our research conferences but are not represented in this book. These include Leda Cosmides, Joshua Epstein, Steve Frank, Joel Guttman, Kevin McCabe, Arthur Robson, Robert Solow, Vernon Smith, and John Tooby. We benefitted from the generous financial support and moral encourage- ment of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which allowed us to form the Network on the Nature and Origins of Norms and Preferences, to run experiments, and to collect and analyze data from several countries across five continents. We extend special thanks to Ken Binmore, who contributed to our first meeting and encouraged us to place this volume in his MIT Press series, Economic Learning and Social Evolution, and to Elizabeth Murry, senior editor at The MIT Press, who brought this publication to its fruition. We extend a special expression of gratitude to Adele Simmons who, as president of the MacArthur Foundation, championed the idea of an interdisciplinary research project on human behavior and worked indefatigably to turn it into a reality.