Individuality and Entanglement : The Moral and Material Bases of Social Life

In this book, acclaimed economist Herbert Gintis ranges widely across many fields--including economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, moral philosophy, and biology--to provide a rigorous transdisciplinary explanation of some fundamental characteristics of human societies and social behavior. Because such behavior can be understood only through transdisciplinary research, Gintis argues, __Individuality and Entanglement__ advances the effort to unify the behavioral sciences by developing a shared analytical framework--one that bridges research on gene-culture coevolution, the rational-actor model, game theory, and complexity theory. At the same time, the book persuasively demonstrates the rich possibilities of such transdisciplinary work. Everything distinctive about human social life, Gintis argues, flows from the fact that we construct and then play social games. Indeed, society itself is a game with rules, and politics is the arena in which we affirm and change these rules. Individuality is central to our species because the rules do not change through inexorable macrosocial forces. Rather, individuals band together to change the rules. Our minds are also socially entangled, producing behavior that is socially rational, although it violates the standard rules of individually rational choice. Finally, a moral sense is essential for playing games with socially constructed rules. People generally play by the rules, are ashamed when they break the rules, and are offended when others break the rules, even in societies that lack laws, government, and jails. Throughout the book, Gintis shows that it is only by bringing together the behavioral sciences that such basic aspects of human behavior can be understood. Contents Overview 1. Gene-Culture Coevolution 1.1 Culture Determines Biological Fitness 1.2 Reciprocal Causality 1.3 The Physiology of Human Communication 2. Zoon Politikon: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Socio-political Systems 2.1 Accounting for Human Exceptionalism 2.2 Models of Political Power 2.3 The Moral Basis of Modern Political Systems 2.4 The Socio-political Structure of Primate Societies 2.5 The Evolutionary History of Primate Societies 2.6 Fire and Social Sharing 2.7 From Gatherer to Scavenger 2.8 Primitive Lethal Weapons 2.9 Warfare 2.10 Dominance and Reverse Dominance Hierarchies 2.11 Are There Egalitarian Nonhuman Primates? 2.12 Governance by Consent 2.13 Cooperative Mothering: The Evolution of Prosociality 2.14 Lethal Weapons and Egalitarianism 2.15 The Long-Term Evolution of Human Sociality 3. Distributed Effectivity: Political Theory and Rational Choice 3.1 Public and Private Spheres 3.2 Private and Public Persona 3.3 Social Rationality 3.4 The Social Rationality of Voter Turnout 3.5 The Logic of Distributed Effectivity 3.6 Situating Distributed Effectivity 4. Power and Trust in Competitive Markets 4.1 The Short-Side Power Principle 4.2 Power in Competitive Markets 4.3 Trust and Integrity 4.4 Reputational Equilibrium 4.5 Contingent Renewal Labor Markets 4.6 I’d Rather Fight than Switch 4.7 Regulating Market Power 5. Rational Choice Revealed and Defended 5.1 The Axioms of Rational Choice 5.2 Choice Under Uncertainty 5.3 Bayesian Updating with Radical Uncertainty 5.4 State-Dependent Preferences 5.5 Networked Minds and Distributed Cognition 5.6 Limitations of the Rational Actor Model 6. An Analytical Core for Sociology 6.1 Game Theory 6.2 Complexity 6.3 Roles, Actors, and the Division of Social Labor 6.4 The Socio-psychological Theory of Norms 6.5 Socialization and the Internalization of Norms 6.6 A Model of Norm Internalization 6.7 The Evolution of Social Conventions 6.8 The Omniscient Choreographer and Moral Preferences 6.9 The Evolution of Norm Internalization 6.10 Modeling Networked Minds 6.11 Class Structure in General Social Equilibrium 6.12 Resurrecting Sociological Theory 7. The Theory of Action Reclaimed 7.1 The Moral and Material Bases of Choice 7.2 Carving an Academic Niche for Sociology 7.3 The Parsonian Synthesis 7.4 The Attempt to Separate Morality from Rationality 7.5 Why Did Parsons Fail? 7.6 The Flourishing of Middle-Range Theory 7.7 High Theory as Interpretation 8. The Evolution of Property 8.1 The Endowment Effect 8.2 Territoriality 8.3 Property Rights in Young Children 8.4 Respect for Possession in Nonhuman Animals 8.5 Conditions for a Property Equilibrium 8.6 Property and Antiproperty Equilibria 8.7 An Antiproperty Equilibrium 8.8 Property Rights as Choreographer 9. The Sociology of the Genome 9.1 The Core Genome 9.2 Inclusive Fitness and Hamilton’s Rule 9.3 Kin Selection and Inclusive Fitness 9.4 A Generalized Hamilton’s Rule 9.5 Harmony and Disharmony Principles 9.6 The Utterly Selfish Nature of the Gene 9.7 Prosocial Genes Maximize Inclusive Fitness 9.8 The Boundaries of Inclusive Fitness Maximization 9.9 The One Mutation at a Time Principle 9.10 The Phenotypic Gambit 9.11 The Anatomy of the Core Genome 9.12 Explaining Social Structure A1 Hamilton’s Rule with General Social Interaction 10. Gene-Culture Coevolution and the Internalization of Norms 10.1 Norms and Internalization 10.2 Socialization and Fitness-Enhancing Norms 10.3 Altruism 10.4 Copying Phenotypes: The Replicator Dynamic 10.5 Why is Altruism Predominantly Prosocial? 10.6 The Power of Altruistic Punishment 10.7 Final Considerations 11. The Economy as Complex Dynamical System 11.1 The General Equilibrium Model Explained 11.2 The Fundamental Theorems of Welfare Economics 11.3 The Market Economy as a Dynamic Game 11.4 The Walrasian Economy 11.5 Exchange Processes with Private Prices 11.6 Strict Nash Equilibria and Stability 11.7 The Characterization of Stable Exchange Processes 11.8 A Markov Implementation of Walrasian Dynamics 11.9 Complex Dynamics 12. The Future of the Behavioral Sciences 12.1 What are Analytical Foundations? 12.2 Cross-Disciplinary Conflicts in the Behavioral Sciences Acknowledgments References Subject Index Author Index A richly transdisciplinary account of some fundamental characteristics of human societies and behavior In this book, acclaimed economist Herbert Gintis ranges widely across many fields—including economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, moral philosophy, and biology—to provide a rigorous transdisciplinary explanation of some fundamental characteristics of human societies and social behavior. Because such behavior can be understood only through transdisciplinary research, Gintis argues, Individuality and Entanglement advances the effort to unify the behavioral sciences by developing a shared analytical framework—one that bridges research on gene-culture coevolution, the rational-actor model, game theory, and complexity theory. At the same time, the book persuasively demonstrates the rich possibilities of such transdisciplinary work. Everything distinctive about human social life, Gintis argues, flows from the fact that we construct and then play social games. Indeed, society itself is a game with rules, and politics is the arena in which we affirm and change these rules. Individuality is central to our species because the rules do not change through inexorable macrosocial forces. Rather, individuals band together to change the rules. Our minds are also socially entangled, producing behavior that is socially rational, although it violates the standard rules of individually rational choice. Finally, a moral sense is essential for playing games with socially constructed rules. People generally play by the rules, are ashamed when they break the rules, and are offended when others break the rules, even in societies that lack laws, government, and jails. Throughout the book, Gintis shows that it is only by bringing together the behavioral sciences that such basic aspects of human behavior can be understood. In this book, acclaimed economist Herbert Gintis ranges widely across many fields--including economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, moral philosophy, and biology--to provide a rigorous transdisciplinary explanation of some fundamental characteristics of human societies and social behavior. Because such behavior can be understood only through transdisciplinary research, Gintis argues, Individuality and Entanglement advances the effort to unify the behavioral sciences by developing a shared analytical framework--one that bridges research on gene-culture coevolution, the rational-actor model, game theory, and complexity theory. At the same time, the book persuasively demonstrates the rich possibilities of such transdisciplinary work. Everything distinctive about human social life, Gintis argues, flows from the fact that we construct and then play social games. Indeed, society itself is a game with rules, and politics is the arena in which we affirm and change these rules. Individuality is central to our species because the rules do not change through inexorable macrosocial forces. Rather, individuals band together to change the rules. Our minds are also socially entangled, producing behavior that is socially rational, although it violates the standard rules of individually rational choice. Finally, a moral sense is essential for playing games with socially constructed rules. People generally play by the rules, are ashamed when they break the rules, and are offended when others break the rules, even in societies that lack laws, government, and jails. Throughout the book, Gintis shows that it is only by bringing together the behavioral sciences that such basic aspects of human behavior can be understood.-- ǂc Provided by Publisher Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Overview -- 1 Gene-Culture Coevolution -- 1.1 Culture Determines Biological Fitness -- 1.2 Reciprocal Causality -- 1.3 The Physiology of Human Communication -- 2 Zoon Politikon: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Socio-political Systems -- 2.1 Accounting for Human Exceptionalism -- 2.2 Models of Political Power -- 2.3 The Moral Basis of Modern Political Systems -- 2.4 The Socio-political Structure of Primate Societies -- 2.5 The Evolutionary History of Primate Societies -- 2.6 Fire and Social Sharing