4 ms·
This is one of those questions which I actually think requires empirical investigation. Fortunately, Jonathan Haidt has excellent papers on the historical form
by AkshatM 7y ago
This is one of those questions which I actually think requires empirical investigation.
Fortunately, Jonathan Haidt has excellent papers on the historical formation of moral systems in culture collision events, and the argument he has is that there are six different types of dichotomies moral taxonomies in societies exhibit, each driven by various kinds of evolutionary challenges individual societies faced. (https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=368001093110092112015018017070013085042059070013063074028008087113119010123125106005124031048107005109046067027010066099112117062013094005002085110004064091001094079061073003012083096102102081086117075065020098124095097031120104090031118070079097078087&EXT=pdf https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=3680010931100921...)
I think the conclusion that societies are built primarily on cooperative rather than antisocial behaviour is a picture based mostly in game theoretic analyses (per that wonderful webpage, The Evolution of Trust) - but empirically societies do really vary in how harshly they punish or value non-cooperative behaviour, which I don't think game theory is sufficient to explain. Some societies hold that maximising personal utility over group utility is a social norm, though usually personal doesn't mean individual but individual and smaller subgroup (such as family), so they're not likely to view non-cooperative behaviour as problematic - these societies tend to be not influenced as much by the fairness/cheating dichotomy but are high on the care/neglect and loyalty/betrayal dichotomy.