Re: Self-interest

[Herbert Gintis <gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>1) In the matter of actually existing human motivation, most
>empirical research has been done, not by biologists, but by
>educational psychologists. There is no obvious reason (excluding
>biology-envy) why biological theory should be looked to in first
>place.
>
	I don't believe that biologists have done much work in
understanding human motivation--there are several good books and a
couple of hundred articles. There's much more elsewhere. I am arguing
that biological models and analogies may be fruitful sources for
studying human motivation.

>2) Among the paradigms in educational psychology, those of Piaget,
>Kohlberg, and Hoffman form a cluster which have in common a concept
>of progression (during childhood) through stages of [personal]
>moral development, whereby most people [not all] get beyond the
>level of calculated reciprocal altruism (Kohlberg Stage Two)
>which as Gintis says is really self-interest.
>
	I am not arguing that all social interaction can be understood
as reciprocal altruism. In animals, parents sacrifice for their
offspring, and that is not reciprocal at all. It is more reciprocal in
humans, of course (parents expect things from children when the latter
become adults). I said that the phenomena economists investigate (the
firm, markets, exchange, state intervention, etc.) do not need more
than reciprocal altruism (in the form of repeated game interactions. I
am not arguing that humans don't have higher moral senses--only that
we can understand economic activity without invoking such higher moral
senses. Or else I would like to see a counterexample of where they are
necessary.

>...It is not always clear
>(here I have D C North in mind) whether the self-interested
>characterisation is intended as an fair approximation or as an
>intellectual exercise to study an imaginary worst-case.

	I argue for reciprocal altruism, not self-interest. The
grounds are Occam's Razor.

>7) According to Hoffman (one of the cluster mentioned) morality
>springs from empathetic emotions which are biologically wired-
>in. Among these are the empathetic emotions of anger and grief.
>These give rise to the desires for retributive justice and
>distributive fairness respectively. Hence the revenge and
>fairness, mentioned by Gintis as outside the economically
>interesting category, are at the very source of behaviour
>patterns without which both market efficiency and extra-market
>life would be very poor.

	Of course I agree with this. I do think altruism and revenge
play a role, but I'm not sure where. Most cases brought to my
attention can be explained by reciprocal altruism. Obvious exceptions
are voting, giving to charity, carinf for one's children, etc. But
for the theory of the firm, markets, contracts, etc., we don't really
need these 'higher' motivations, as far as I can see. And it's
misleading to say that we do if the simpler explanations work, since
we may be tempted to make false generalizations.

Herb gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx