Re: Civilized behavior (Davidson & Gintis)

[Herbert Gintis <gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan Isaac writes:
>Herb, I do not understand what you mean by the need to explain
>integrity. Do you mean that we need to give a sociological
>explanation of how people might develop a taste for
>personal integrity? Shouldn't we then insist on the
>same kind of explanation for why people have a taste
>for things that are in their narrowly defined self-interest?

	This is a long topic. I don't mean a sociological explanation.
I mean a biological/economic explanation. Biological because human
beings are a species 'wired' to have cerain forms of
altruistic/vengeful behavior. Economic because unless the proper
incentives are present, such behavior is not elicited. Honesty, in
short, is both biological and economic, I suspect.

>In the context of thinking about government policy,
>doesn't it make more sense to rely on our experience
>that people have both kinds of motives and to design
>institutions that are robust to this?

	Exactly.

Herb gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx