Christine Clavien

EAGER FOR FAIRNESS OR FOR REVENGE? PSYCHOLOGICAL ALTRUISM IN ECONOMICS

To understand the human capacity for psychological altruism, one requires a proper understanding of how people actually think and feel. This paper addresses the possible relevance of recent findings in experimental economics and neuroeconomics to the philosophical controversy over altruism and egoism. After briefly sketching and contextualizing the controversy, we survey and discuss the results of various studies on behaviourally altruistic helping and punishing behaviour, which provide stimulating clues for the debate over psychological altruism. On closer analysis, these studies prove less relevant than originally expected because the data obtained admit competing interpretations – such as people seeking fairness versus people seeking revenge. However, this mitigated conclusion does not preclude the possibility of more fruitful research in the area in the future. Throughout our analysis, we provide hints for the direction of future research on the question.

Altruistic Emotional Motivation: An Argument in Favour of Psychological Altruism

In this paper, I reframe the long-standing controversy between ‘psychological egoism’, which argues that human beings never perform altruistic actions, and the opposing thesis of ‘psychological altruism’, which claims that human beings are, at least sometimes, capable of acting in an altruistic fashion. After a brief sketch of the controversy, I begin by presenting some representative arguments in favour of psychological altruism before showing that they can all be called into question by appealing to the idea of an unconscious self-directed motive. I will then point out that this argumentative strategy not only debunks the reasons for favouring psychological altruism, but also those for favouring psychological egoism; hence it is no use in settling the dispute between the two views. In the second part of the paper, I will try to break this deadlock by reframing the whole controversy, shifting it away from the concept of motive, towards the broader notion of motivation. As it turns out, this shift enables the debate to centre on altruistic emotions and their motivational power, thereby allowing evolutionary arguments to enter the debate and tilt the balance in favour of psychological altruism.

Choosy moral punishers

The punishment of social misconduct is a powerful mechanism for stabilizing high levels of cooperation among unrelated individuals. It is regularly assumed that humans have a universal disposition to punish social norm violators, which is sometimes labelled “universal structure of human morality” or “pure aversion to social betrayal”. Here we present evidence that, contrary to this hypothesis, the propensity to punish a moral norm violator varies among participants with different career trajectories. In anonymous real-life conditions, future teachers punished a talented but immoral young violinist: they voted against her in an important music competition when they had been informed of her previous blatant misconduct toward fellow violin students. In contrast, future police officers and high school students did not punish. This variation among socio-professional categories indicates that the punishment of norm violators is not entirely explained by an aversion to social betrayal. We suggest that context specificity plays an important role in normative behaviour; people seem inclined to enforce social norms only in situations that are familiar, relevant for their social category, and possibly strategically advantageous.

Gibbard's expressivism: An interdisciplinary critical analysis

This paper examines key aspects of Allan Gibbards psychological account of moral activity. Inspired by evolutionary theory, Gibbard paints a naturalistic picture of morality mainly based on two specific types of emotion: guilt and anger. His sentimentalist and expressivist analysis is also based on a particular conception of rationality. I begin by introducing Gibbards theory before testing some key assumptions underlying his system against recent empirical data and theories. The results cast doubt on some crucial aspects of Gibbards philosophical theory, namely his reduction of morality to anger and guilt, and his theory of “normative governance.” Gibbards particular version of expressivism may be undermined by these doubts.

Kitcher's Revolutionary Reasoning Inversion in Ethics

Abstract This paper examines three specific issues raised by The Ethical Project. First, I discuss the varieties of altruism and spell out the differences between the definitions proposed by Kitcher and the ways altruism is usually conceived in biology, philosophy, psychology, and economics literature. Second, with the example of Kitchers account, I take a critical look at evolutionary stories of the emergence of human ethical practices. Third, I point to the revolutionary implications of the Darwinian methodology when it is thoughtfully applied to ethics.

No Evidence for Moral Reward and Punishment in an Anonymous Context

Human social interactions are regulated by moral norms that define individual obligations and rights. These norms are enforced by punishment of transgressors and reward of followers. Yet, the generality and strength of this drive to punish or reward is unclear, especially when people are not personally involved in the situation and when the actual impact of their sanction is only indirect, i.e., when it diminishes or promotes the social status of the punished or rewarded individual. In a real-life study, we investigated if people are inclined to anonymously punish or reward a person for her past deeds in a different social context. Participants from three socio-professional categories voted anonymously for early career violinists in an important violin competition. We found that participants did not punish an immoral violin candidate, nor did they reward another hyper-moral candidate. On the contrary, one socio-professional category sanctioned hyper-morality. Hence, salient moral information about past behavior did not elicit punishment or reward in an impersonal situation where the impact of the sanction was indirect. We conclude that contextual features play an important role in human motivation to enforce moral norms.

Evolution, Society, and Ethics: Social Darwinism Versus Evolutionary Ethics

Evolutionary ethics (EE) is a branch of philosophy that arouses both fascination and deep suspicion. It claims that Darwinian mechanisms and evolutionary data on animal sociality are relevant to ethical reflection. This field of study is often misunderstood and rarely fails to conjure up images of Social Darwinism as a vector for nasty ideologies and policies. However, it is worth resisting the temptation to reduce EE to Social Darwinism and developing an objective analysis of whether it is appropriate to adopt an evolutionary approach in ethics. The purpose of this article is to ‘de-demonise’ EE while exploring its limits.

Comment comprendre les émotions morales

Cet article a pour objet de questionner la possibilite de l’existence des emotions morales et d’en dechiffrer la notion. Je commence par relever brievement les faiblesses de differentes lectures philosophiques des emotions morales avant de poursuivre sur une voie a premiere vue prometteuse qui consiste a en fournir une explication fonctionnaliste evolutionnaire : les emotions morales auraient pour fonction evolutive de soutenir les relations sociales cooperatives. Apres analyse, il apparait cependant que cette approche presente egalement d’importantes faiblesses. En fin de compte, je propose d’abandonner l’idee d’emotion intrinsequement morale au profit d’une solution «minimale» : la «moralite» est une appellation attribuee aux emotions (ou plus justement aux episodes emotionnels) lorsqu’elles apparaissent dans des contextes moralement pertinents.