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Herbert Gintis – Samuel Bowles – Their Distribution Preferences, and That They Robert Boyd – Ernst Fehr (Eds.): Moral Do So Differently in Different Situations

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Herbert Gintis – Samuel Bowles – Their Distribution Preferences, and That They Robert Boyd – Ernst Fehr (Eds.): Moral Do So Differently in Different Situations Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review, 2008, Vol. 44, No. 6 social capital theory, which shows that so- the face of the evolutionary logic in which cial collaboration is built on social networks material advantages can be achieved by that underlie norms of reciprocity and trust- adopting self-interested preferences? worthiness. The development of these pro- social dispositions is in turn enabled in so- Clara Sabbagh cieties that further extra-familial ties and University of Haifa disregard or transcend purely ‘amoral fa- [email protected] milist’ interactions [Banfi eld 1958]. This research project nevertheless References leaves several unresolved problems. First, Banfi eld, Edward C. 1958. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. there is the problem of causality, which de- Camerer, Colin F. 2003. Behavioral Game Theory. rives from a major theoretical dilemma in New York: Russell Sage. the social sciences. To what extent are pro- Deutsch, Morton. 1985. Distributive Justice. New social dispositions the result of structur- Haven: Yale University Press. al constraints, such as market integration, Giddens, Anthony. 1997. Sociology. Cambridge, or rather an active element in structuring UK: Polity Press. these constraints [Giddens 1997]? Joseph Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work. Henrich (Chapter 2) discusses this prob- Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: lem on a theoretical level by explaining the Princeton University Press. different mechanisms through which the Sabbagh, Clara and Deborah Golden. 2007. ‘Jux- structure of interaction affects preferences. taposing Etic and Emic Perspectives: A Refl ec- tion on Three Studies on Distributive Justice.’ Yet only future longitudinal research will Social Justice Research 20: 372–387. be able to empirically ascertain to what Wegener, Bernd and Stefan Liebig. 1995. ‘Domi- extent, and under which conditions, so- nant Ideologies and the Variation of Distribu- cial structure shapes human motivation/ tive Justice Norms: A Comparison of East preferences. Second, the book relies on the and West Germany and the United States.’ questionable idea that the any given indi- Pp. 239–259 in Social Justice and Political Change: vidual is guided by a consistent and uni- Public Opinion in Capitalist and Post-Communist valent body of motives. This entirely dis- States, edited by J. R. Kluegel, D. S. Mason, and B. Wegener. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. regards the possibility that people weigh several (not necessarily consistent) motives at the same time and combine them in var- ious ways in order to arrive at trade-offs in Herbert Gintis – Samuel Bowles – their distribution preferences, and that they Robert Boyd – Ernst Fehr (eds.): Moral do so differently in different situations. Fu- Sentiments and Material Interests. ture research should allow for the possibil- The Foundations of Cooperation ity of ambivalent motives and identify the in Economic Life conditions that give salience to different Cambridge, Massachusetts 2005: types of motives and trade-offs. The inno- MIT Press, xii + 404 pp. vative use of the ethnographic (qualitative) methods in this book, which may unveil Imagine a situation in which you are a different sorts of motives that remain un- member of a group of four. Each member detected by quantitative methods, should has a monetary endowment of €10. Your therefore be deepened in future studies. Fi- task is to decide how much of the money nally, as suggested by Henrich, the book’s to contribute to a common group project, fi ndings stimulate an evolutionary puz- while you keep for yourself what you do zle to be more fully addressed in future not contribute. After everyone has made work: Why do unselfi sh motives evolve in his decision, all contributions to the project 1208 Book Reviews are summed up. Then the money contrib- of egoistic individual motivations does not uted to the project is doubled, and each apply in reality. People frequently devi- group member gets a quarter of the money ate from the predictions of traditional eco- in the project, regardless of the amount he nomic theory, and these deviations exhibit personally contributed. This decision situ- clear patterns. The central claim of the vol- ation constitutes a social dilemma. If you ume is that individual motivations are het- and the other three group members cooper- erogeneous. Some individuals might in- ate fully and contribute your complete €10 deed pursue their own immediate material to the project, everyone will receive a pay- self-interest. But a notable fraction are mo- off of €20. However, traditional economic tivated by strong reciprocity, which is de- theory tells us that you will not reach this fi ned as a predisposition to cooperate with socially desirable state. Homo economicus others, and to punish those who violate the – a rationally acting individual who is ex- norms of cooperation, even when it is im- clusively motivated by material self-inter- plausible to expect that these costs will be est – will keep the entire €10. Irrespective recovered at a later date. The existence of of the contributions of other group mem- strong reciprocators possibly changes the bers, not contributing always maximises a incentives of egoists. If they anticipate pun- person’s own payoff, because €1 contribut- ishments by the strong reciprocators in the ed to the project yields him/her a payoff of case of non-cooperation, and if the costs of €0.50, which is less than just keeping the €1. being punished exceed the benefi ts from Thus, traditional economic theory predicts deviation, cooperation becomes their util- no contributions to the common project, ity maximising strategy. Gintis et al. thus and the group will settle for the inferior argue that there is an intrinsic propensity state in which everyone earns €10 instead to cooperate. They further argue that in- of the possible €20. centives designed to induce cooperation The social dilemma just described is a among egoists often fail to reach a welfare ubiquitous phenomenon in human inter- enhancing effect, as they could crowd out actions, but frequently the pessimistic pre- intrinsic cooperation. diction derived from the paradigm of ho- The book’s second part, ‘The Behav- mo economicus is proven wrong. This is ioral Ecology of Cooperation’, focuses on the central lesson from Moral Sentiments the evolutionary foundations of cooper- and Material Interests. The volume is an ex- ation. Joan Silk’s insightful review of re- ample of truly interdisciplinary work as- search on altruism among non-human sembling thought-provoking overviews of primates shows that monkeys are no ma- research on non-selfi sh behaviour from an- terial egoists at all. Grooming and food thropology, primatology, evolutionary bi- sharing behaviour illustrates that they in- ology, economics, sociology, political sci- cur costs to benefi t others. However, there ence, and social psychology. The authors is no evidence that this behaviour is driv- employ a remarkable variety of methods, en by strong reciprocity. Cooperation is among them laboratory experiments, sur- confi ned to kin and reciprocating others, veys, formal modeling, simulations and while third-party punishment is apparent- extensive fi eld research. ly absent among primates. The same point Overall, the book consists of four parts. holds for the analysis of the evolution of In their introductory chapter, the four edi- food sharing among humans by Hillard tors Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Rob- Kaplan and Michael Gurven. Their study ert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr, review evidence shows that long-term asymmetries of food from laboratory experiments which unam- transfers among relatives were a precon- biguously documents that the assumption dition of the course of human evolution. 1209 Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review, 2008, Vol. 44, No. 6 Nor do Eric Smith and Rebecca Bliege Bird this behaviour decreases the fi tness of the apply the concept of strong reciprocity in punisher compared to non-punishing indi- their chapter. Instead, they use costly sig- viduals. Thus, evolutionary forces should nalling theory, which assumes that altru- lead to the extinction of reciprocators in so- istic behaviour is attributed to information cieties. Robert Boyd, Herbert Gintis, Sam- asymmetries among individuals. Individ- uel Bowles, and Peter Richerson present uals favour other people in order to sig- fi ndings from simulations demonstrating nal certain not directly observable quali- that altruistic punishment can neverthe- ties. Group benefi cial signals are favoured less survive and fl ourish in the course of by the fact that they attract more attention evolution. Group selection plays an impor- than neutral signals. Overall, the chapters tant role here. Groups containing a consid- in part II provide evidence for the preva- erable number of altruistic punishers are lence of non-selfi sh motivations over a long able to exclude defectors. These groups period of human evolution. However, they reach higher rates of cooperation, and do not present evidence for the impact of their resulting superior fi tness levels let strong reciprocity in that process. them grow faster compared to competing In the fi rst chapter of the third part, groups. Thus, group selection can main- ‘Modeling and Testing Reciprocity’, Ernst tain strong reciprocity. Rajiv Sethi and E. Fehr and Urs Fischbacher review further Somamathan use a similar argument. Co- laboratory evidence which undermines operation depends on the ability of recip- the self-interest hypothesis and again high- rocators to make credible commitments to lights the heterogeneity of individual mo- monitor and punish deviating behaviour, tivations. Like the introduction, this chap- even if this is costly to them. Applying a ter underlines the value of controlled labo- formal model to a common pool resource ratory experiments in research on individ- environment, they analyse the conditions ual motivations. Since motivations cannot under which cooperation can be stabilised. be observed directly, it is only possible to Overall, both chapters show that strong infer the underlying motivations from con- reciprocity can survive evolutionary pres- crete behaviour.
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