Update [2008-6-3 21:0:49 by architek]:These articles are about the evolution of rationale for moral behavior and the REASONS to apply long-term incentives supporting honesty and cooperation in human behavior. And the reasons to punish those who cheat.

What these papers are about -

Its like the old debate between democracy and fascism. Does might make right? Does crime pay? Different people often have different answers.

One of the responders to this post - the only one who seems to have understood it, (see "Winners don't publish") holds up the contents of a recent letter to the editor of Nature with its justification that the cost to a society of sanctioning morally bankrupt behavior is too great. However, thousands of years of experience and a large body of PUBLISHED research, as well as the behavior of human society suggest otherwise.

Nature 415, 137-140 (10 January 2002)
| doi:10.1038/415137a; Received 5 October 2001; Accepted 5 November 2001

Altruistic punishment in humans

Ernst Fehr1 & Simon Gächter2

  1. University of Zürich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Blümlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006 Zürich, Switzerland
   2. University of St Gallen, FEW-HSG, Varnbüelstrasse 14, CH-9000 St Gallen, Switzerland

Correspondence to: Ernst Fehr1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to E.F. (e-mail: Email: efehr@iew.unizh.ch).
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Abstract

Human cooperation is an evolutionary puzzle. Unlike other creatures, people frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, with people they will never meet again, and when reputation gains are small or absent. These patterns of cooperation cannot be explained by the nepotistic motives associated with the evolutionary theory of kin selection and the selfish motives associated with signalling theory or the theory of reciprocal altruism.

Here we show experimentally that the altruistic punishment of defectors is a key motive for the explanation of cooperation.

(Defectors means people who ignore the morals of the group, say, those who openly steal or cheat.)

Altruistic punishment means that individuals punish, although the punishment is costly for them and yields no material gain. We show that cooperation flourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out.

The evidence indicates that negative emotions towards defectors are the proximate mechanism behind altruistic punishment. These results suggest that future study of the evolution of human cooperation should include a strong focus on explaining altruistic punishment.