Comments on: Did Culture, Not Biology, Develop Humanity’s Sense of Fair Play?

By: Phil Bailey

Phil Bailey — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:02:34 +0000

I would suggest that culture has indeed had a massive bearing on humanity’s sense of fair play, but maybe by making us into political creatures. We are instinctively able to weigh up winners and losers, but in times of uncertainty we tend towards the moral high ground until it becomes clear which side of a particular argument is gaining superiority.

Politics, gang culture, office heirarchy and even families all show the human’s ability to create a moral high ground as a form of argument. It is almost like creating the zero in mathematics, we create it to show neutrality. But human’s rarely stay neutral for long, as the game of chess is played out. We seem almost eager to take a side before the win in conceded, I presume so that we can say that we were always loyal to our chieftans.

So, sense of fair play or a big bluff until we better understand the rules of the current game that we are in ?

By: Prem

Prem — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:46:22 +0000

i agree with J-Frum’s comment above. A simple term as money can create major differences in someone’s defintion of ‘fairness’.

By: Bradyforce

Bradyforce — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:57:44 +0000

They should do the study on children since they adopt their sense of fairness from the culture at large and from imitating their parents and others they are exposed to.Also just recently I heard on Public Radio “Speaking of Faith” program a discussion about whether animals have a sense of morality or fairness and I can’t recall the guest’s comments at the moment but want to say they had studied how animals benefit evolutionarily to a sense of fairness, and that basically he was arguing a for evolutionary basis for the existence of religion and even secular moral codes and policing or enforcement of law and order. I thought that was an interesting take on religion as evolutionary advantage for humans and it also may also explain why such codes are so hard to practice universally, that is to say its a hell of a lot easier to justify killing an enemy in a war for example that to justify a murdr of a child. They are not morally equivalent of course but the commandment does not give much wiggle room by only saying “thou shall not kill children and innocents” but rather just says “thou shall not kill .” So too I would expect the value of being fair to a stranger or outsider is probably lower in a tribal or insular society as there would not be a very high cost to being fair and little reward. But in a more interconnected society the rule of law makes the machine work and so there is more cost like criminal prosecution for example for committing fraud and therefore more incentive not to be unfair to strangers. Likewise an interconnected society is more dependent upon others for their continued comfort so being :nice” and neighborly becomes more useful as your neighborhood grows.

By: Eric Balkan

Eric Balkan — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:58:16 +0000

The ultimatum test has been used for quite a while. Almost always — the exception is business students — the participant who gets less than what he thinks is a fair share will reject the split, ending up with nothing — just the satisfaction of not being taken advantage of.

In a similar test involving monkeys, when one monkey got grapes as a reward and a second monkey just got his regular food for doing the same task, the second monkey threw his bowl at the researcher.

According to neuroscientists, when we perceive something as unfair, the pain center in our brain is activated.

My own conclusion: we have a sense of fairness/unfairness that can be mediated (distorted?) by culture and social group.

By: Deni

Deni — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:29:19 +0000

I agree that the awareness that their actions were being observed – and therefore judged – would necessarily change the subjects’ actions. I further agree, that this fictitious scenario would inevitably not be reflected in a true life scenario where someone’s survival (albeit truly life changing or merely a nicety) be at risk. So many variables will plan into the generosity of an individual (current mood, feeling of security, relationship with the recipient, social expectations) that a true picture would be difficult to come by. That said, there is more than likely a grain of truth in the more educated, and more religious seeing themselves as part of a larger community. This would foment generosity.

By: RussA

RussA — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:26:08 +0000

“The study found that members of a large, complex society had a keener sense of fairness … than the smaller groups.” …
“This may be because smaller communities lack the social norms or informal institutions like markets and religion, causing them to have narrower concepts of fairness.”

These statements might be true for most members of complex and small societies, but a trillion dollars or so of nest eggs disappearing from the stock markets late in 2008 demonstrates not every member of a complex society has a sense of fair play. If that doesn’t work for you, think of the advent of the company store in pre-union mining days. Markets are about profits more so than fair play. Also, history is full of religious folk missing a sense of fairness, as in the Inquisition and 9/11 to name only two.

By: J-Frum

J-Frum — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:37:36 +0000

This article doesn’t mention if the scientists took the different groups relationship with money into account. Students not only have more education and come from more complex societies than hunter gatherers, they are also far more priveliged and thus view a given amount of money as less valuable in relation to what they already “have”. An experiment like this is not a closed system, and one has to take into account the subjects socioeconomic status, even though this is not a stated part of the experiment. A hundred dollars is less valuable to me than to a herder on the serengeti, and thus it is easier for me to share it. Students can afford to lose the money, hunter gatherers may feel that they don’t.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:50:55 +0000

The metacognitive ability to know you are being evaluated (like scientists watching how you play a game) can alter one’s behavior and throw the results.

I don’t doubt that some valid information regarding cultural impact on morals can be gathered from this study, but it would be nice to see more real-life situations studies in addition to games.

(I’m not saying this study does not make sense, just saying that just because something makes sense does not mean it is entirely, or even at all, true.)

By: NewEnglandBob

NewEnglandBob — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:40:50 +0000

This could have biological effects, favoring the development of linguistic and cognitive abilities, but the fundamental driver was culture

I seriously doubt this statement. It goes too far and looks like Lamarckism.