Social Relations Instead of Altruistic Punishment
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Anton Leist
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: first, 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 insufficient 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.
© 2005 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Editorial
- Human Altruism – Proximate Patterns and Evolutionary Origins
- Behavioral Game Theory and Contemporary Economic Theory
- Altruists with Green Beards
- Altruists with Green Beards: Still Kicking?
- Strong Reciprocity and the Comparative Method
- The Evolutionary Foundations of Strong Reciprocity
- The Biological and Evolutionary Logic of Human Cooperation
- On the Original Contract: Evolutionary Game Theory and Human Evolution
- Social Relations Instead of Altruistic Punishment
- ‘Nostrism’: Social Identities in Experimental Games
- Altruism and the Indispensability of Motives
- Fehr on Altruism, Emotion, and Norms
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Editorial
- Human Altruism – Proximate Patterns and Evolutionary Origins
- Behavioral Game Theory and Contemporary Economic Theory
- Altruists with Green Beards
- Altruists with Green Beards: Still Kicking?
- Strong Reciprocity and the Comparative Method
- The Evolutionary Foundations of Strong Reciprocity
- The Biological and Evolutionary Logic of Human Cooperation
- On the Original Contract: Evolutionary Game Theory and Human Evolution
- Social Relations Instead of Altruistic Punishment
- ‘Nostrism’: Social Identities in Experimental Games
- Altruism and the Indispensability of Motives
- Fehr on Altruism, Emotion, and Norms
