In their fascinating target article, Baumard et al. develop an approach to morality in which morality is seen as a result of adaption to an environment where people compete for partners in mutually advantageous interactions. The core idea is that when there is an efficient market for partners, cooperation between partners takes place only when partners are given the marginal value of their contribution. The authors argue that the observed prominence in many distributive situations of the meritocratic fairness view, where individuals share the benefits from cooperation in proportion to the effort and talent they invest in the interaction, is the result of adaption to such a process of partner choice. An important part of the authors' argument is based on results from economic experiments such as the Dictator Game, and in this commentary we question some of the conclusions they draw on the basis of these results. In particular we shall argue that the observed heterogeneity in fairness views, documented in a number of experiments, poses a challenge to the partner choice theory they develop.
Many of the experiments discussed by Baumard et al. are dictator games where the distribution phase is preceded by a production phase such that the money to be distributed is earned (Cappelen et al. Reference Cappelen, Hole, Sorensen and Tungodden2007; Cherry et al. Reference Cherry, Frykblom and Shogren2002; Konow Reference Konow2000). A key feature of these experiments is that they allow the researchers to study how the participants respond to different types of inequalities in earnings. To illustrate, in Almås et al. (Reference Almås, Cappelen, Sorensen and Tungodden2010) we report the results from a dictator game where each participant's earnings in the production phase is determined by how many points she or he produces and by a randomly determined price. By studying the behavior in the distribution phase, where the dictator distributes the total earnings between herself or himself and the other participant, we are able to estimate the prevalence of three distinct fairness views: egalitarians (who always find it fair to distribute equally), meritocrats (who find it fair to distribute in proportion to production), and libertarians (who find it fair to distribute in proportion to earnings). An important result from this experiment, and numerous other experiments we have conducted with coauthors (Cappelen et al. Reference Cappelen, Hole, Sorensen and Tungodden2007; Reference Cappelen, Sørensen and Tungodden2010; Reference Cappelen, Hole, Sørensen and Tungodden2011; forthcoming), is that there is considerable pluralism in the fairness views that motivate the participants; we consistently find a non-trivial share of participants who choose in accordance with each of the three fairness views. There appears, in other words, to be considerable disagreement about what are legitimate sources of inequality in distributive situations.
In contrast, the mutualistic hypothesis posits that humans are all equipped with the same sense of fairness. Baumard et al. argue that people may still distribute resources differently for two reasons: First, people do not necessarily have the same beliefs about the source of an inequality; second, people do not necessarily face the same distributive situations (and a fairness view may have different implications in different situations). We agree that these two reasons potentially can explain much inter-individual and cross-cultural variability in distributive behavior, but they cannot explain the behavioral variability observed in the economic experiments described above. These experiments are designed so that all participants have the same, and correct, beliefs about the sources of inequalities in earnings and all participants face the same distributive situations. More work is therefore needed to explain how the mutualistic approach can accommodate heterogeneity in distributive behavior even in such situations.
Another important insight from these dictator games with a production phase is that there is a substantial share of the participants who follow a libertarian fairness view, that is, who consider fair even inequalities due to pure luck. In our work we have consistently found that 20−30 percent of the participants hold this fairness view. This result seems to conflict with the claim made by the authors that we all share the same common logic of rewarding people according to their effort and abilities, but not according to luck.
As a final comment we would like to encourage Baumard et al. to address in more detail what they think their model of partner choice implies with respect to inequalities due to pure luck. The authors take great care in explaining why adaption to an environment where people compete for partners in mutually advantageous interactions results in a fairness view that rewards individual effort and talent. They do not, however, explain why the same process does not result in a fairness view that also rewards pure luck. The basic mechanism underlying their partner choice model is that potential partners must be rewarded with the marginal value of their contribution to the interaction as long as partners are mobile. Given this mechanism, it seems to follow that partners should also be rewarded for contributions that reflect pure luck. In other words, it seems that a truly mutualistic process should make us all libertarians.
In their fascinating target article, Baumard et al. develop an approach to morality in which morality is seen as a result of adaption to an environment where people compete for partners in mutually advantageous interactions. The core idea is that when there is an efficient market for partners, cooperation between partners takes place only when partners are given the marginal value of their contribution. The authors argue that the observed prominence in many distributive situations of the meritocratic fairness view, where individuals share the benefits from cooperation in proportion to the effort and talent they invest in the interaction, is the result of adaption to such a process of partner choice. An important part of the authors' argument is based on results from economic experiments such as the Dictator Game, and in this commentary we question some of the conclusions they draw on the basis of these results. In particular we shall argue that the observed heterogeneity in fairness views, documented in a number of experiments, poses a challenge to the partner choice theory they develop.
Many of the experiments discussed by Baumard et al. are dictator games where the distribution phase is preceded by a production phase such that the money to be distributed is earned (Cappelen et al. Reference Cappelen, Hole, Sorensen and Tungodden2007; Cherry et al. Reference Cherry, Frykblom and Shogren2002; Konow Reference Konow2000). A key feature of these experiments is that they allow the researchers to study how the participants respond to different types of inequalities in earnings. To illustrate, in Almås et al. (Reference Almås, Cappelen, Sorensen and Tungodden2010) we report the results from a dictator game where each participant's earnings in the production phase is determined by how many points she or he produces and by a randomly determined price. By studying the behavior in the distribution phase, where the dictator distributes the total earnings between herself or himself and the other participant, we are able to estimate the prevalence of three distinct fairness views: egalitarians (who always find it fair to distribute equally), meritocrats (who find it fair to distribute in proportion to production), and libertarians (who find it fair to distribute in proportion to earnings). An important result from this experiment, and numerous other experiments we have conducted with coauthors (Cappelen et al. Reference Cappelen, Hole, Sorensen and Tungodden2007; Reference Cappelen, Sørensen and Tungodden2010; Reference Cappelen, Hole, Sørensen and Tungodden2011; forthcoming), is that there is considerable pluralism in the fairness views that motivate the participants; we consistently find a non-trivial share of participants who choose in accordance with each of the three fairness views. There appears, in other words, to be considerable disagreement about what are legitimate sources of inequality in distributive situations.
In contrast, the mutualistic hypothesis posits that humans are all equipped with the same sense of fairness. Baumard et al. argue that people may still distribute resources differently for two reasons: First, people do not necessarily have the same beliefs about the source of an inequality; second, people do not necessarily face the same distributive situations (and a fairness view may have different implications in different situations). We agree that these two reasons potentially can explain much inter-individual and cross-cultural variability in distributive behavior, but they cannot explain the behavioral variability observed in the economic experiments described above. These experiments are designed so that all participants have the same, and correct, beliefs about the sources of inequalities in earnings and all participants face the same distributive situations. More work is therefore needed to explain how the mutualistic approach can accommodate heterogeneity in distributive behavior even in such situations.
Another important insight from these dictator games with a production phase is that there is a substantial share of the participants who follow a libertarian fairness view, that is, who consider fair even inequalities due to pure luck. In our work we have consistently found that 20−30 percent of the participants hold this fairness view. This result seems to conflict with the claim made by the authors that we all share the same common logic of rewarding people according to their effort and abilities, but not according to luck.
As a final comment we would like to encourage Baumard et al. to address in more detail what they think their model of partner choice implies with respect to inequalities due to pure luck. The authors take great care in explaining why adaption to an environment where people compete for partners in mutually advantageous interactions results in a fairness view that rewards individual effort and talent. They do not, however, explain why the same process does not result in a fairness view that also rewards pure luck. The basic mechanism underlying their partner choice model is that potential partners must be rewarded with the marginal value of their contribution to the interaction as long as partners are mobile. Given this mechanism, it seems to follow that partners should also be rewarded for contributions that reflect pure luck. In other words, it seems that a truly mutualistic process should make us all libertarians.