How did humankind ever get out of what Thomas Hobbes called the state of nature? That’s the place where life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Suppose you and I meet in some primitive place where there is no rule of law, no property rights and no common ethical code. We sheathe our swords and temporarily cooperate to achieve some goal — say, gathering fruit from a tree. The task having been accomplished, how do you know that when your back is turned, I won’t draw my sword, slay you and grab the bounty all for myself? How do I know you won’t do the same to me?
If this is a one-time-never-to-be-repeated encounter, isn’t it in our rational self-interest (narrowly construed) to grab all we can get when opportunity arises? Shouldn’t we assume that others will do the same? And, if so, doesn’t self-interested behavior imply periodic warfare? Even if we agree to temporary truces, how could anybody be trusted to keep the peace if some advantageous opportunity to break it were to arise?
In Hobbes’ version, the problem is solved by a Leviathan (or state) that imposes order by force on everyone else. But that surely is not how the problem was historically solved. For one thing, no one person is powerful enough to impose his will on everyone else. Of course, a coalition of people conceivably could overpower everyone else. But that coalition would be no more stable or lasting than any other voluntary agreement in the Hobbesian world. (More about that in Part II.)
The answer to the problem is that our ancestors probably never were in a Hobbesian jungle. And even if some were, evolution favored those genes and those cultures that produced behavior very different from what I described above. Most modern humans act differently — not because we choose to act differently, but because we are “hard-wired” to do so.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RHOsykKFj0
Look at that Caveman Go!
How do we know this? Because of the fascinating discoveries in a not-very-well-known field called “experimental economics.” Most of the experiments are conducted with college students and the results have been confirmed again and again with many different students on many different campuses, with varied backgrounds and cultures.
One of the experiments is called the “Ultimatum Game,” and it works like this. You and I are sitting in front of computer terminals in different rooms. We do not know each other’s identities and we never will — so no reason to worry that we’ll meet the next day and you will have to defend your actions.
To begin, you are given the opportunity to divide $100 between the two of us. After you propose a division I can either accept or reject. If I accept, we both get to keep the amount of money you propose. But if I reject your offer, we both walk away with nothing.
Before going on, let’s stop and note that the Ultimatum Game has a lot of the characteristics of a Hobbesian jungle. There are no property rights, no rule of law, no agreed on ethical rules. There is simply an opportunity for you to get some part of $100, but you need my cooperation to get it.
Now if we both were purely self-interested, this problem has a straightforward solution. You should offer me $1 and propose to keep $99 for yourself. After all, you’re giving me the opportunity to have a dollar I would not otherwise have. How could I refuse?
But it turns out, I do refuse. And just about everyone else who plays this game would refuse as well. In fact, any split worse than $60/$40 tends to be rejected routinely.
Why is that? Apparently, people have an underlying sense of fairness and an offer, say, of $61/$39 is perceived as so unfair that the responder will give up the opportunity to have $39 in order to punish the offerer and prevent him from getting $61. Perhaps anticipating that kind of response, most initial offers tend to be within the $60/$40 range — way away from the $99/$1 offer.
There are many other variations on this theme. In some games, A can walk away with a sum of money — no questions asked. Or he can let B make a decision (an offer to cooperate) that will make both A and B better off (reciprocation) or will give almost all the spoils to B and leave A with almost nothing (a predatory response that rejects A’s offer to cooperate). In some games, A is allowed to respond to B’s predatory response by choosing an option that leaves both players with very little pay off (thus, punishing B for his predatory behavior).
Here’s the bottom line: Most people have a basic sense of fairness and they act on that sense in how they play these games. In particular, people seem to be preprogrammed to (1) offer to cooperate with others to achieve mutually beneficial goals, even when the offer entails some risk; (2) reciprocate the offers of others, even when reciprocation entails some risk; (3) not take undue advantage of the vulnerability of others in such trust relationships; and (4) be willing to punish those who betray their trust.
Moreover, these ingrained inclinations are not only true of college students. Similar behavior can be observed among primitive tribes around the world — where peoples’ lifestyles are thought to be closest to those of our distant ancestors.
Note: These are the very characteristics that also are needed in order for people to engage in any kind of trading relationships beyond the most simple form of exchange. Matt Ridley wrote in The Wall Street Journal the other day that the reason our ancestors succeeded, whereas the Neanderthals did not, was specialization and exchange. But in an environment with no world government, no international law, no courts, etc., complex trading relationships among diverse people over considerable periods of time require trust, cooperation and reciprocation — the very type of behavior we are describing here.
Much of the original work discovering those principles was done by NCPA author and Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith, who has a good review of the literature in Rationality in Economics. (See also Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, Robert Frank, Passions Within Reasons and Michael Taylor, The Possibility of Cooperation.) Here is my summary of Smith’s description of “fairness principles” that seem to be hard-wired in most people:
- The other people matter principle. We are not indifferent to the welfare of others.
- The equal sharing of unearned rewards principle. As in the basic Ultimatum Game, rewards that none of us produced should be shared equally.
- The marginal product principle. Rewards produced because of people’s cooperative efforts should be divided proportionately to each individual’s contribution (this is what competitive labor markets do).
- The equality of opportunity principle. People should have an equal chance to contribute to the effort that will produce rewards that are then divided based on individual contribution (no artificial barriers).
- The property rights principle. Thou shall not steal.
- The reciprocity principle. Do unto others…
Note that the notion of hard-wired ethics contradicts the Aristotelian principle of tabula rasa but it is consistent with our previous report that even babies seem to have an innate ethical sense. Note also, that not everyone is ingrained to the same extent. And some people seemed to not be so ingrained at all. Machiavellians – sociopaths and psychopaths (called “Machs” in the trade), who are identified by psychological tests (and I also think by MRI scans), do not share these ethics and do not act on them. Some of the Machs will no doubt end up in Congress some day.
While I think this analysis is vitally important, I don’t think it’s the whole of the story. We’ve said nothing here about attachments to family and extended family and “irrational” attachments to our own group when it comes in conflict with other groups — leading to tribal warfare. This behavior is also probably the product of genetic and cultural evolution.
Whereas human tend to reject splits that are less equal than 60/40, chimpanzees playing the same game using raisins, accept divisions closer to 80/20.
An article in Slate.com uses the Ultimate Game experiment to explain real estate “short” sales when there is a primary and second mortgage.
(http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2010/05/28/monkey-business)
Good analysis and very interesting stuff. I don’t think “tabla rasa” accurately describes Aristotle’s view of ethics, though. That’s more of a Lockean view. Aristtole believed in innate virtues of character which had to be developed and perfected,though,through moral practice and action.
John – I think there are some interesting variations out there on the Ultimatum game showing the different actions when “being observed” is taken out of the equation, and many others as you suggest. I note that the only place you actually touch on what I think is also an important differentiation in the structure of the game is in your list of Smith’s 6 principles, in the second one: The equal sharing of unearned rewards principle. I was surprised you didn’t have more to say about the idea that perhaps our “innate” principles vary on the basis of whether we are asked to share “other people’s money” (such as tax revenues) as opposed to “our own money.” I know there have been attempts to study the game to determine how the results differ under that variation. An interesting choice of posts – are you attempting to show there is a rational basis for a more “compassionate” blog to appease your liberal/progressive critics?
While your premise that most people are fair minded and willing to play by the rules might cover many people, there are still many groups and societies where this is not the case: Criminals, politicians and any of the nihilistic communist/socialist states where religion has been outlawed and replaced by service to the state.
Addressing human nature in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis observed, “First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.”
For the best explication of the falsity of Hobbes’s concept, see Hayek, The Fatal Conciet” page 12: “The savage is not solitary and his instinct is collectivist. There was never a war of all against all”. [Without a tribe/family collective, the individual would not survive.] “Mankind achieved civilization by developing and learning to follwow rules that often forbade him to do what his instincts demanded… These rules in effect constituting a new and different morality…that suppres or restrain the ‘natural morality’…that welded together the small group and securered cooperation within it at the cost of hindering or blocking its expansion.” Bob
Bob
I’ve been delving into some anthropology lately, and I was struck by one of the principles that you listed: property rights.
It’s my opinion that most people that engage in anthropology are left-of-center, and, as such, don’t care as much for property rights as the right-of-center.
Most books on primitive societies stress that there is no such thing as ownership (except perhaps as it relates to group territories or objects owned by the group). In fact, everyone likes to talk about how we’ve been minimalists in both property and personal possessions, for the last 100,000 years.
Which makes us wonder: If everyone was so darn happy not owning anything, then why are we so worried about it today?
Most of what I’ve read points to civilization and the abandonment of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle as the prime motivator in the origin of property rights. Once we were stationary, larger disparities in wealth began to be more evident, and the old method of tribalism was replaced by farming.
Since property rights are the bedrock of capitalism, it’s interesting to think about it on an evolutionary scale.
Virginia:
Property rights are certainly a step in the right direction, over less benign ways of distribution – for example, by force.
However, it is more “right” if property is distributed so that the middle class is a vibrant one.
In today’s economy, the top 10% of households own 72.3% of the financial assets.
This not only can bring out the beast in the have-nots.
It also is a foolish way to risk an economy that is dependent on consumers for 70% of its GDP.
Don Levit
David — while “tabula rasa” in generally associated most closely with John Locke, the concept appears earliest in Aristotle’s De Anima when he compares the mind to an “unscribed tablet.” I believe Thomas Aquinas also explores the idea before Locke “coined the phrase.” Very interesting post.
Woody and Bob:
I am saving your quotes. They are terrific.
Woody:
That quote reminds me of what Paul said in the New Testament – something to the effect that he does whar he doesn’t want to do, and does what he should not do.
That one statement makes him very credible, in my opinion.
But, the saving grace is that greatness is the flip side of humility.
Bob, that quote seems to indicate that Hayek saw the value of oithers, a community, the collective.
Seems to me that he could be suggesting that part of one’s private property is due to the efforts of others.
Maybe private property is not all that “private.”
Don Levit
Unfortunately in Congress when it comes to spending and pork, we have too much “monkey see monkey do.”
Though not always reliable, Wikipedia notes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa):
“In Western philosophy, traces of the idea that came to be called the tabula rasa appear as early as the writings of Aristotle. Aristotle writes of the unscribed tablet in what is probably the first textbook of psychology in the Western canon, his treatise “Περί Ψυχῆς” (De Anima or On the Soul, Book III, chapter 4). However, besides some arguments by the Stoics and Peripatetics, the notion of the mind as a blank slate went much unnoticed for more than 1,000 years.”
Virginia: I wonder how anthropologists explain grave goods in prehistoric burials, if not as the personal property of the deceased.
As noted earlier, the idea of tabula rasa appears earliest in Aristotle, in De Anima, however the idea does not feature prominently if at all in the development of his ethical views.
Aristotle’s moral philosophy is indebted to Plato’s moral philosophy, particularly Plato’s central insight that moral thinking must be integrated with our emotions and appetites, and that the preparation for such unity of character should begin with childhood education. However, Aristotle goes far beyond Plato, offering a systematic examination of the nature of happiness, virtue, voluntariness, pleasure, or friendship.
For Aristotle, ethics is not a theoretical discipline: we are asking what the good for human beings is not simply because we want to have knowledge, but because we will be better able to achieve our good if we develop a fuller understanding of what it is to flourish. Aristotle assumes that it would be relatively easy to provide a list of items that are good, for instance, to have friends, to experience pleasure, to be healthy, to be honored, and to have such virtues as courage at least to some degree. However, for Aristotle the search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.
Aristotle argues that no one tries to live well for the sake of some further goal; rather, being eudaimon is the highest end, and all subordinate goals—health, wealth, and other such resources—are sought because they promote well-being, not because they are what well-being consists in. For Aristotle the ergon (“function,” “task,” “work”) of a human being consists in activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue. One important component of this argument is expressed in terms of distinctions he makes in his psychological and biological works. The soul is analyzed into a connected series of capacities: the nutritive soul is responsible for growth and reproduction, the locomotive soul for motion, the perceptive soul for perception, and so on. The biological fact Aristotle makes use of is that human beings are the only species that has not only these lower capacities but a rational soul as well. The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in. Finally, Aristotle argues, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity. Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that fully realize the virtues of the rational part of the soul.
How this is linked to his view of the humanity’s psychological make up as beginning tabula rasa I leave to true Aristotle scholars, such as Fred Miller http://www.questia.com/library/book/nature-justice-and-rights-in-aristotles-politics-by-fred-d-miller-jr.jsp – my advisor and mentor at BGSU – to describe.
OK. Mea culpa. I was not as careful as I should have been. It appears that Aristotle discussed the idea of tabula rasa but did not clearly endorse it. Thanks to all you philosophy folks for setting the record straight.
Response to Virginia: In primitive hunting tribes, they do not share the bounty equally. The rewards are shared based on the contribution of the hunters. The one (or ones) who make the most important contribution to the kill get the best/most/choicest cut of meat. By implication, there must have been observed property rights. That is, once your share of the kill is determined, what you get is yours to eat. It does not belong to and is not shared by anyone else.
To Dr. Goodman and Mr. Levit,
What I’ve been reading tends to imply that most kills aren’t divided on the basis of which hunters were the best. From what I understand, they use a system whereby all families get a similar amount, and most primitive cultures try not to reward their hunters with too much food. (I’ve also read a theory related to Handicapping that says that the best hunters eat less as a way of proving their strength to the group.)
As far as grave goods go, I would guess that anthropolgists would say that the items belonged to the tribe, and the tribe gave them to the person as a means of sending him to the other world. Which, I’m not sure that I agree with.
To me, it seems like communal sharing of kills is a good idea for most of our history. After all, killing large animals 100,000 years ago was not as simple as it was now, and differences in skill don’t make much difference when you have to club an animal to death (it’s amazing that anthropogists have actually calculated the time it takes to club an animal). Once you get more powerful hunting tools (and the ability to preserve meat so that there is less of an incentive to share with your fellows), it becomes more apparent who the most talented hunters are. I think that’s the beginning of the wealth disparity.
I guess the main point I’m trying to make is that the people who write the history books when it comes to human history hold political views that tend to make tribal living seem downright desirable. It’s written along the lines of: “Look how great and egalitarian these people were! We’ve lost our roots as caring, sharing, humans.” I don’t agree with this, but I haven’t read enough as of right now to be able to refute it.
My own theory is that there is a huge split between this perspective and the perspective of the capitalists (specialize and trade when it makes sense). And that as soon as humanity developed tools and weapons, the gulf between the two views started to widen.
What we know about primitive people’s eating habits we mainly infer from tribal groups who are alive today and whose existence we assume was most similar to our ancestors. When the Inuits kill a polar bear –both for the meat and the skin — they do not share the bounty equally. The Inuit who throws the first spear (takes more risk and contributes the most to the final kill) gets the most favored portion of meat and skin. This is all discussed in Vernon Smith’s book.
The individual versus the community was the main thene of a sermon I recently delivered at 2 Unitarian Universalist congregations.
The main quote I used to demonstrate this “tension” came from Rabbi Hillel:
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?”
Don Levit
John:
I heard you today on the radio – a host I normally don’t listen to – was it Mike Gallagher?
You did a superb job.
Don Levit
Thanks, Don.
You may want to re-think statement that humans are hard-wired to be good–take another look at history.