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2005 (27) Issue 1
Ernst Fehr on Human Altruism. An Interdisciplinary Debate
Abstracts | Table of Contents
| From the Editors
Ernst Fehr / Urs Fischbacher
Human Altruism – Proximate Patterns and
6-47 Abstract: Are people selfish or altruistic? Throughout history this question has been
answered on the basis of much introspection and little evidence. It has been at the
heart of many controversial debates in politics, science, and philosophy. Some of the
most fundamental questions concerning our evolutionary origins, our social relations,
and the organization of society are centered around issues of altruism and selfishness.
Experimental evidence indicates that human altruism is a powerful force and unique
in the animal world. However, there is much individual heterogeneity and the interaction
between altruists and selfish individuals is key for understanding the evolutionary
dynamics as well as the proximate patterns of human cooperation. Depending on the
environment, a minority of altruists can force a majority of selfish individuals to cooperate
or, conversely, a few egoists can induce a large number of altruists to defect.
Current gene-based evolutionary theories cannot explain important patterns of human
altruism pointing towards the need for theories of cultural evolution and gene-culture
coevolution. Download (470 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Herbert Gintis
Behavioral Game Theory and Contemporary
48-72 Abstract: It is widely believed that experimental results of behavioral game theory
undermine standard economic and game theory. This paper suggests that experimental
results present serious theoretical modeling challenges, but do not undermine two
pillars of contemporary economic theory: the rational actor model, which holds that
individual choice can be modeled as maximization of an objective function subject to
informational and material constraints, and the incentive compatibility requirement,
which holds that macroeconomic quantities must be derived from the interaction and
aggregation of individual choices. However, we must abandon the notion that rationality
implies self-regarding behavior and the assumption that contracts are costlessly
enforced by third parties. Download (293 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Ernst Fehr / Urs Fischbacher
Altruists with Green Beards
73-84 Abstract: If cooperative dispositions are associated with unique phenotypic features
('green beards'), cooperative individuals can be identi ed. Therefore, cooperative individuals
can avoid exploitation by defectors by cooperating exclusively with other
cooperative individuals; consequently, cooperators
ourish and defectors die out. Experimental
evidence suggests that subjects, who are given the opportunity to make
promises in face-to-face interactions, are indeed able to predict the partner's behavior
better than chance in a subsequent Prisoners' Dilemma. This evidence has been
interpreted as evidence in favor of green beard approaches to the evolution of human
cooperation. Here we argue, however, that the evidence does not support this interpretation.
We show, in particular, that the existence of conditional cooperation renders
subjects' choices in the Prisoners' Dilemma predictable. However, although subjects
predict behavior better than chance, sel sh individuals earn higher incomes than conditional
cooperators. Thus, although subjects may predict other players' choices better
than chance evolution favors the sel sh subjects, i.e., the experimental evidence does
not support the green beard approach towards the evolution of cooperation. Download (126 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Robert H. Frank
Altruists with Green Beards: Still Kicking?
85-96 Abstract: In earlier work, I proposed the 'adaptive standard of rationality', according
to which narrow self-interest models can be broadened by positing additional tastes,
but only upon a plausible showing that those tastes do not hamper resource acquisition
in competitive environments. This proposal is related to the green beard hypothesis
from biology, according to which altruism might be adaptive if its presence could be
reliably signaled by some observable feature, such as a green beard. In their contri-
bution to this issue Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher o er theoretical arguments and
describe laboratory experiments whose results they interpret as refuting my version of
the green beard hypothesis. In this response, I argue that their theoretical arguments
and experimental evidence pose no threat to the green beard hypothesis. Download (130 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Christopher Stephens
Strong Reciprocity and the Comparative Method
97-105 Abstract: Ernst Fehr and his collaborators have argued that traditional explanations
of human cooperation cannot account for strong reciprocity. They provide substantial
empirical evidence that strong reciprocity is an important phenomenon that cannot
be explained by the traditional models of kin selection or reciprocal altruism. In this
note, however, I argue that it will be di cult to test speci c adaptive explanations
of strong reciprocity because it is apparently unique to humans. Consequently, it is
di cult to employ the comparative method, which is one of biology's best tools for
testing adaptationist claims. Download (83 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Jason McKenzie Alexander
The Evolutionary Foundations of Strong Reciprocity
106-112 Abstract: Strong reciprocators possess two behavioural dispositions: they are willing
to bestow bene ts on those who have bestowed bene ts, and they are willing to punish
those who fail to bestow bene ts according to some social norm. There is no doubt
that peoples' behaviour, in many cases, agrees with what we would expect if people
are strong reciprocators, and Fehr and Henrich argue that many people are, in fact,
strong reciprocators. They also suggest that strongly reciprocal behaviour may be
brought about by specialised cognitive architecture produced by evolution. I argue that
specialised cognitive architecture can play a role in the production of strongly reciprocal
behaviour only in a very attenuated sense, and that the evolutionary foundations of
strong reciprocity are more likely cultural than biological. Download (84 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Terence C. Burnham / Dominic D. P. Johnson
The Biological and Evolutionary Logic of Human Cooperation
113-135 Abstract: Human cooperation is held to be an evolutionary puzzle because people voluntarily
engage in costly cooperation, and costly punishment of non-cooperators, even
among anonymous strangers they will never meet again. The costs of such cooperation
cannot be recovered through kin-selection, reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity, or
costly signaling. A number of recent authors label this behavior "strong reciprocity",
and argue that it is: (a) a newly documented aspect of human nature, (b) adaptive,
and (c) evolved by group selection. We argue exactly the opposite; that the phenomenon
is: (a) not new, (b) maladaptive, and (c) evolved by individual selection. In
our perspective, the apparent puzzle disappears to reveal a biological and evolutionary
logic to human cooperation. Group selection may play a role in theory, but it is neither
necessary nor sufficient to explain human cooperation. Our alternative solution
is simpler, makes fewer assumptions, and is more parsimonious with the empirical data. Download (421 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Alex Rosenberg / Stefan Linquist
On the Original Contract: Evolutionary Game Theory and Human Evolution
136-157 Abstract: This paper considers whether the available evidence from archeology, biological
anthropology, primatology, and comparative gene-sequencing, can test evolutionary
game theory models of cooperation as historical hypotheses about the actual course of
human prehistory. The examination proceeds on the assumption that cooperation is
the product of cultural selection and is not a genetically encoded trait. Nevertheless,
we conclude that gene sequence data may yet shed signi cant light on the evolution of
cooperation. Download (160 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Anton Leist
Social Relations Instead of Altruistic Punishment
158-171 Abstract: Ernst Fehr's experimental research on altruistic behaviour aims at superseding
the classical homo oeconomicus in micro-economic behaviour theory. This essay
discusses Fehr's results from two points of view: rst, in regard to the understanding
of social action associated with the term "altruism"; second, in regard to the 'anthropological'
strategy of research that is based on the laboratory method. Against
the emphasis on altruism it will be argued that it misleads into providing a distorted
description of social acting, and that, due to insu cient clarity about motives for acting,
Fehr's empirical results give evidence not of altruism but rather of phenomena of
social recognition. The objection against the anthropological strategy will be that it
makes visible only local phenomena within prevailing social conditions and that it thus
assumes more than it explains. Download (129 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Hans Bernhard Schmid
'Nostrism': Social Identities in Experimental Games
172-187 Abstract: In this paper it is argued that a) altruism is an inadequate label for human
cooperative behavior, and b) an adequate account of cooperation has to depart
from the standard economic model of human behavior by taking note of the agents'
capacity to see themselves and act as team-members. Contrary to what Fehr et al.
seem to think, the main problem of the conceptual limitations of the standard model
is not so much the assumption of sel shness but rather the atomistic conception of the
individual. A much-neglected question of the theory of cooperation is how the agent's
social identity is determined, i.e. how individuals come to think of themselves and
act as members of a group. Considering as an example one of Fehr et al.'s third party
punishment experiments, I shall argue that the agents' identities (and thus the result of
the experiment) are strongly in uenced by the way the experiment is presented to the participants, especially by the collectivity-related vocabulary used in the instructions. Download (149 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Mark S. Peacock / Michael Schefczyk / Peter Schaber
Altruism and the Indispensability of Motives
188-196 Abstract: In this paper we examine Fehr's notions of "altruism", "strong reciprocity"
and "altruistic punishment" and query his ascription of altruism. We suggest that, pace
Fehr, altruism cannot be de ned behaviourally because the de nition of altruism must
refer to the motives of actors. We also advert to certain inconsistencies in Fehr's usage
of his terms and we question his explanation of altruism in terms of 'social preferences'. Download (97 KB) Go back | Top of Page
Jon Elster
Fehr on Altruism, Emotion, and Norms
197-211 Abstract: I discuss recent work by Ernst Fehr and his collaborators on cooperation and
reciprocity. (i) Their work demonstrates conclusively the reality and importance of
non-self-interested motivations. (ii) It allows for a useful distinction between trust and
blind trust. (iii) It points to a category of quasi-moral norms, distinct both from social
norms and moral norms. (iv) It demonstrates how social interactions can generate
irrational belief formation. (v) It shows the potential of punishment for sustaining
social norms and for overcoming the second-order free rider problem as well as obstacles
to group selection. (vi) It o ers a provocative experimental basis for the `warm-glow'
explanation of altruistic behavior. I conclude by suggesting some experiments that
might allow for further developments of the theory. Download (136 KB) Go back | Top of Page
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