Baumard et al. make a good case that parts of our sense of fairness are a product of natural selection, an evolutionarily successful response to an environment in which individual human beings competed with others to be chosen. Their argument that how this could have happened is not revealed by typical reciprocity games in which the players do not control who they are playing with, is also plausible. Games with partner choice are more like the environment that selected for a sense of fairness. However, a sense of fairness need not be a moral sense. The authors treat this as a matter of how we choose to define the word “morality” (see sect. 4, para. 4). We think that they inflate the role of fairness in both morality and its evolutionary roots.
First, the motives for being fair originally had nothing to do with doing what is right or good, and often still do not. Often we are fair to avoid being exploited or to keep a partner. Originally, fairness maximized self-benefit. The marginal benefit of their investment [in fairness] was higher than the average benefit they could receive anywhere else (sect. 4, para. 1). This motive is pure self-interest and has nothing to do with being moral. The target article never clarifies how a moral motive, treating people fairly as a good in itself, could have evolved out of being-fair-because-it-pays.
Second, even where behaving morally requires fairness (marking exams, for example) and the motive is right, morality requires further things. An obligation to be fair must be recognized as over-riding almost everything else, so that not meeting the obligation justifies significant sanctions. Could fairness becoming an obligation be a result of natural selection? The article does not address the issue.
Third, fairness is never more than part of morality. For example, prohibitions on inflicting harm without justification are at least as central to morality as an obligation to be fair. Even if an evolutionary account of how we came to have harm norms could be given, it would be quite different from any account that would explain how an obligation to be fair evolved.
Fourth, a lot of morality does not involve fairness at all. Behaving virtuously – being courageous, being true to oneself, and the like – are part of many people's morality, yet fairness plays no role in them.
In short, Baumard et al. inflate the role of fairness in morality in at least four ways. Their picture of the evolutionary roots of morality displays the same weakness, in at least three ways:
First, the growth of a good proportion of the content of current morality was related to emotional reactions. As Nichols (Reference Nichols2004) argues, if we find something disgusting, for example, we will be disposed to find it immoral, too. Why do many consider it immoral to spit into a glass of water at the dinner table but not into a paper handkerchief? It is at least plausible to say that the first action being disgusting to us is related to the difference. Another example is purity norms, a feature of many systems of morality. Purity norms are often related to reactions of disgust – and, notoriously, fairness plays little or no role in how they are applied. In short, emotions have played a role in the evolution of morality, at least as large a role as fairness-because-it-pays.
Also, emotion would have been involved in fairness-because-it-pays evolving into fairness-as-a-good-in-itself. If being cheated in reciprocity games did not make people angry, would fairness have become a good in itself? Not likely. With no anger, surely our ancestors would simply have shrugged their shoulders and moved on.
Second, moral judgments with regard to what we consider fair are context-dependent, even apparently inconsistent, in a way that the mutual advantages of fairness cannot explain. For example, it is part of many people's concept of fairness that individuals who do not cooperate and contribute should not receive the same share as individuals who do. However, our actual judgments depend on the context. Think, for example, of the physically or cognitively disabled. Almost no one holds that fairness requires that we not distribute goods equally to them. How could fairness-because-it-pays have evolved into this?
Third, thinking through exactly what fairness requires in such situations is difficult and calls for a sophisticated, domain-general capacity for moral reasoning. Could such a capacity for moral reasoning have evolved from people being fair because it paid? It is not easy to see how. Yet moral reasoning is at the heart of morality, so much so that it is a main interest of many moral philosophers, Rawls (Reference Rawls1971) being a famous example.
In short, fairness-because-it-pays could be at most part of the evolutionary story for morality of any kind, and it is hard to see how it could be even part of the evolutionary story about the role of emotions or about norms of purity – or norms of virtue or harm – evolving as they did. It is equally hard to see how fairness-because-it-pays could have played a role in the evolution of the context-sensitivity of our morality or of our capacity for moral reasoning.
Finally, something that we have not mentioned, there is the diversity of moral principles across cultures. It poses an additional problem for Baumard et al. On their account, why would norms of purity, harm, virtue, punishment, and the like take such divergent forms from culture to culture?
To conclude: Fairness-because-it-pays can explain the origins of at most a small part of morality as it now exists.
Baumard et al. make a good case that parts of our sense of fairness are a product of natural selection, an evolutionarily successful response to an environment in which individual human beings competed with others to be chosen. Their argument that how this could have happened is not revealed by typical reciprocity games in which the players do not control who they are playing with, is also plausible. Games with partner choice are more like the environment that selected for a sense of fairness. However, a sense of fairness need not be a moral sense. The authors treat this as a matter of how we choose to define the word “morality” (see sect. 4, para. 4). We think that they inflate the role of fairness in both morality and its evolutionary roots.
First, the motives for being fair originally had nothing to do with doing what is right or good, and often still do not. Often we are fair to avoid being exploited or to keep a partner. Originally, fairness maximized self-benefit. The marginal benefit of their investment [in fairness] was higher than the average benefit they could receive anywhere else (sect. 4, para. 1). This motive is pure self-interest and has nothing to do with being moral. The target article never clarifies how a moral motive, treating people fairly as a good in itself, could have evolved out of being-fair-because-it-pays.
Second, even where behaving morally requires fairness (marking exams, for example) and the motive is right, morality requires further things. An obligation to be fair must be recognized as over-riding almost everything else, so that not meeting the obligation justifies significant sanctions. Could fairness becoming an obligation be a result of natural selection? The article does not address the issue.
Third, fairness is never more than part of morality. For example, prohibitions on inflicting harm without justification are at least as central to morality as an obligation to be fair. Even if an evolutionary account of how we came to have harm norms could be given, it would be quite different from any account that would explain how an obligation to be fair evolved.
Fourth, a lot of morality does not involve fairness at all. Behaving virtuously – being courageous, being true to oneself, and the like – are part of many people's morality, yet fairness plays no role in them.
In short, Baumard et al. inflate the role of fairness in morality in at least four ways. Their picture of the evolutionary roots of morality displays the same weakness, in at least three ways:
First, the growth of a good proportion of the content of current morality was related to emotional reactions. As Nichols (Reference Nichols2004) argues, if we find something disgusting, for example, we will be disposed to find it immoral, too. Why do many consider it immoral to spit into a glass of water at the dinner table but not into a paper handkerchief? It is at least plausible to say that the first action being disgusting to us is related to the difference. Another example is purity norms, a feature of many systems of morality. Purity norms are often related to reactions of disgust – and, notoriously, fairness plays little or no role in how they are applied. In short, emotions have played a role in the evolution of morality, at least as large a role as fairness-because-it-pays.
Also, emotion would have been involved in fairness-because-it-pays evolving into fairness-as-a-good-in-itself. If being cheated in reciprocity games did not make people angry, would fairness have become a good in itself? Not likely. With no anger, surely our ancestors would simply have shrugged their shoulders and moved on.
Second, moral judgments with regard to what we consider fair are context-dependent, even apparently inconsistent, in a way that the mutual advantages of fairness cannot explain. For example, it is part of many people's concept of fairness that individuals who do not cooperate and contribute should not receive the same share as individuals who do. However, our actual judgments depend on the context. Think, for example, of the physically or cognitively disabled. Almost no one holds that fairness requires that we not distribute goods equally to them. How could fairness-because-it-pays have evolved into this?
Third, thinking through exactly what fairness requires in such situations is difficult and calls for a sophisticated, domain-general capacity for moral reasoning. Could such a capacity for moral reasoning have evolved from people being fair because it paid? It is not easy to see how. Yet moral reasoning is at the heart of morality, so much so that it is a main interest of many moral philosophers, Rawls (Reference Rawls1971) being a famous example.
In short, fairness-because-it-pays could be at most part of the evolutionary story for morality of any kind, and it is hard to see how it could be even part of the evolutionary story about the role of emotions or about norms of purity – or norms of virtue or harm – evolving as they did. It is equally hard to see how fairness-because-it-pays could have played a role in the evolution of the context-sensitivity of our morality or of our capacity for moral reasoning.
Finally, something that we have not mentioned, there is the diversity of moral principles across cultures. It poses an additional problem for Baumard et al. On their account, why would norms of purity, harm, virtue, punishment, and the like take such divergent forms from culture to culture?
To conclude: Fairness-because-it-pays can explain the origins of at most a small part of morality as it now exists.