24 July 2010

Racewalking A friend describes her success at the US Masters meet and links to some photos. Her technique is excellent.

Mind: our ideas of “fairness” are not uniquely human and are the probably the product of evolution. Here are snippets of an article by David P. Barash which appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education: (I recommend reading it all)

In a much-noted laboratory experiment several years ago, described in the report “Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay,” the primatologists Sarah F. Brosnan and Frans B.M. de Waal trained capuchin monkeys to perform a certain task for which they received cucumber slices. The monkeys performed just fine, until they were permitted to see others being rewarded with grapes, a higher-value payment. Previously acquiescent, many of the cucumber-receivers promptly stopped participating, sometimes even throwing those measly, unfair cucumber payments out of their cage. Aversion of that sort is well established among Homo sapiens as well—even though, at first blush, it appears irrational and, thus, paradigm-busting for economists trained in the Homo economicus model whereby people are considered to be “rational and utility-maximizing” creatures. Behavioral economists call it “inequity aversion”—the tendency to turn down a perfectly good offer if others are getting a better deal.

Inequity aversion makes sense for a social species like capuchin monkeys, which sometimes engage in cooperative hunting, with food rewards to be distributed when the hunt is successful; if a participant’s payoff is not commensurate with his or her effort—and if others receive a disproportionately generous return—then further participation may well be personally counterproductive. What looks superficially like spiteful grudge-keeping could thus be adaptive equity-insistence. [...]

In the “Ultimatum Game,” a laboratory setup favored by social psychologists and behavioral economists, human beings insist upon fairness, even at the apparent cost of their immediate best interest. In this simple game, one individual is given some money—say $10—and then is instructed to propose a take-it-or-leave-it division with another individual. Thus, Player 1 may propose an equal split ($5 for each), or $9.99 for herself and one cent for Player 2, and so forth, whereupon the other player accepts or rejects the ultimatum; no second chances.

Logically, Player 2 should accept any offer, regardless of its seeming equity, since even a penny is better than nothing. There is considerable cross-cultural variation in the actual responses of individuals on the receiving end of such ultimatums, and yet to the surprise of many scientists, there is a widespread tendency to reject offers in which the recipient gets less than about 30 percent of the total. Most people would prefer to abandon the whole deal, so that no one gets anything, rather than be on the receiving end of an unfair distribution.

In fact, in most cases, the individual who gets to determine the division actually proposes something not too far removed from 50/50, almost never demanding a strongly asymmetric distribution. A generous interpretation is that, in addition to a fairness instinct that generates aversion to being presented with an unfair situation, people are also predisposed to be fair. Alternatively, maybe they are simply being selfish realists who intuit the fairness instinct of others and realize that a blatantly unfair ultimatum is liable to result in getting nothing. It is always possible that people are less predisposed toward genuine fairness than they are to the appearance of fairness, all the while secretly hoping to obtain an unfair share for themselves. Those yelling at political meetings may be angry at large banks receiving millions while small businesses go begging; or they may want the government to bail them out, too. Those incensed at the prospect of federal relief for people upside-down on their mortgages often yell “No fair, No fair!” since they have been paying their debts without comparable assistance. Similarly, anger over proposed immigration reform often revolves around a perceived asymmetry: Why should “they” get leniency when “my people” played by the rules?

For a fairness instinct to have evolved by natural selection, those who possessed it must have been disproportionately successful in projecting their genes for it into the future. How might that have happened? Wouldn’t each individual be more fit taking whatever he or she could get, rather than turning down opportunities simply because they were unfair and thereby sometimes getting nothing at all? Why bother yourself with what others are getting—i.e., with fairness—instead of just trying to maximize your own payoff? [....]

But since evolution favors whatever maximizes relative fitness, it smiles not only upon those who do well, but also upon those who frown on competitors poised to do better. One way to achieve the approval of natural selection, therefore, is not only to strive to maximize one’s own payoff but also to monitor that of others, and to complain loudly if it seems too high, especially if such a complaint is at all likely to better the situation of those who act as Robin Hood or who cheer him on in the name of fairness. [...]

A focus on fairness points, interestingly, to a contradiction in free-market systems: On the one hand, it is only fair that people be given a chance to better themselves, and patently unfair if they are prevented from doing so. But on the other, given the inherent differences among individuals, as well as their socioeconomic discrepancies, the outcome of freedom is certain to be unequal, and thus unfair.

Although most people agree that fairness is a good thing, they disagree as to how it is to be achieved. Hence most of the controversy—and anger—over domestic politics. For the political right wing, it isn’t fair for society to impose taxes, to use one person’s hard-earned money for the betterment of others, to restrict personal freedom (including the freedom to pursue unfettered private enterprise and even, in some cases, the freedom to pollute and destroy the environment). Yet it is fair for government to restrain malefactors. For those on the political left, it goes without saying that equal opportunity is fair. Moreover, for many it is necessary but not sufficient: Equal outcome is the holy grail of social fairness, to which the political right responds that it is unfair to insist on equality of outcome when individuals are not identical, whether in their biology, their effort, or their luck.

Morality: what about it? Here is David Brooks:

Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by.

Moral naturalists, on the other hand, believe that we have moral sentiments that have emerged from a long history of relationships. To learn about morality, you don’t rely upon revelation or metaphysics; you observe people as they live.

Uh, how about natural selection acting over over 100,000 years? Why the “god gave it to us” option is even taken seriously, I can’t understand.
But let’s move on:

People who behave morally don’t generally do it because they have greater knowledge; they do it because they have a greater sensitivity to other people’s points of view. Hauser reported on research showing that bullies are surprisingly sophisticated at reading other people’s intentions, but they’re not good at anticipating and feeling other people’s pain.

The moral naturalists differ over what role reason plays in moral judgments. Some, like Haidt, believe that we make moral judgments intuitively and then construct justifications after the fact. Others, like Joshua Greene of Harvard, liken moral thinking to a camera. Most of the time we rely on the automatic point-and-shoot process, but occasionally we use deliberation to override the quick and easy method. We certainly tell stories and have conversations to spread and refine moral beliefs.

For people wary of abstract theorizing, it’s nice to see people investigating morality in ways that are concrete and empirical.

Ok, that section is pretty good. But unfortunately, David Brooks (who is a smart guy, even if he is a conservative) can’t stay away from giving a nod of credibility to the woo:

At this conference, they barely mentioned the yearning for transcendence and the sacred, which plays such a major role in every human society.

Their implied description of the moral life is gentle, fair and grounded. But it is all lower case. So far, at least, it might not satisfy those who want their morality to be awesome, formidable, transcendent or great.

Of course, on logical grounds he is right; many do “think” that way. But, well, never mind. I am glad that he took this topic on.