The evolution of fairness norms: an essay on Ken Binmore's Natural Justice Export

@article{citeulike:847958, abstract = {This article sets out and comments on the arguments of Binmore's Natural Justice, and specifically on the empirical hypotheses that underpin his social contract view of the foundations of justice. It argues that Binmore's dependence on the hypothesis that individuals have purely self-regarding preferences forces him to claim that mutual monitoring of free-riding behavior was sufficiently reliable to enforce cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies, and that this makes it hard to explain why intuitions about justice could have evolved, since in such a society intuitions about justice would have had no adaptive advantage. I argue that it is empirically plausible that human beings display systematic other-regarding preferences (even if these are not always very strong). These could be incorporated into Binmore's general framework in a way that would enrich it and make it more useful for solving practical problems about justice. 10.1177/1470594X06060618}, author = {Seabright, Paul}, citeulike-article-id = {847958}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1470594X06060618}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://ppe.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/1/33}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1177/1470594X06060618}, journal = {Politics Philosophy Economics}, keywords = {binmore, evolution, game, justice, theory}, month = {February}, number = {1}, pages = {33--50}, posted-at = {2006-09-17 14:42:46}, priority = {0}, title = {The evolution of fairness norms: an essay on Ken Binmore's Natural Justice}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1470594X06060618}, volume = {5}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:847958 L3 - citeulike-article-id:847958 N2 - This article sets out and comments on the arguments of Binmore's Natural Justice, and specifically on the empirical hypotheses that underpin his social contract view of the foundations of justice. It argues that Binmore's dependence on the hypothesis that individuals have purely self-regarding preferences forces him to claim that mutual monitoring of free-riding behavior was sufficiently reliable to enforce cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies, and that this makes it hard to explain why intuitions about justice could have evolved, since in such a society intuitions about justice would have had no adaptive advantage. I argue that it is empirically plausible that human beings display systematic other-regarding preferences (even if these are not always very strong). These could be incorporated into Binmore's general framework in a way that would enrich it and make it more useful for solving practical problems about justice. 10.1177/1470594X06060618 IS - 1 JF - Politics Philosophy Economics EP - 50 TI - The evolution of fairness norms: an essay on Ken Binmore's Natural Justice VL - 5 SP - 33 KW - binmore KW - evolution KW - game KW - justice KW - theory AU - Seabright, Paul PY - 2006/02/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1470594X06060618 ER -