Belief in others’ trustworthiness and trusting behaviour

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Macko ◽  
Marcin Malawski ◽  
Tadeusz Tyszka

Abstract Data from surveys indicate that people, in general, do not trust others. On the other hand, in one-shot trust games, where the player decides whether to send money to an anonymous partner, the actual rate of trust is relatively high. In two experiments, we showed that although reciprocity expectations and profit maximization matter, they are not decisive for trusting behaviour. Crucial factors that motivate behaviour in trust games seem to be altruism and a type of moral obligation related to a social norm encouraging cooperative behaviour. Finally, we were able to divide participants into specific profiles based on amount of money transferred to the partner, altruistic motivation, and belief in partners’ trustworthiness. This shows that the trust game is differently perceived and interpreted by different participants

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Gagliarducci ◽  
M Daniele Paserman

Abstract This paper uses data on bill cosponsorship in the U.S. House of Representatives to estimate gender differences in cooperative behaviour. We find that among Democrats there is no significant gender gap in the number of cosponsors recruited, but women-sponsored bills tend to have fewer cosponsors from the opposite party. On the other hand, we find robust evidence that Republican women recruit more cosponsors and attract more bipartisan support on the bills that they sponsor. We interpret these results as evidence that cooperation is mostly driven by a commonality of interest, rather than gender per se.


Philosophy ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 24 (91) ◽  
pp. 335-341
Author(s):  
N. H. G. Robinson

Modern ethics has been chiefly concerned with the analysis of the conditions and principles of morality; and, in particular, one of its most important achievements has been the further elucidation of the Kantian dictum that “I ought” implies that I can. On the face of it Kant's contention seems perfectly straightforward, but, on examination, it becomes apparent that the simple word “can” covers a somewhat complicated ambiguity. When it is said that I ought to do act A, it may rightly be taken that I can do act A; but the question arises whether or not this in turn involves that I am aware that I can do act A. There is clearly some significance in the assertion that I can do many acts which, however, never occur to me, either because I am ignorant of certain facts or because I have a mistaken opinion about the facts. On the other hand, it may quite properly be said that I cannot perform any act of the possibility of which I am unaware. The problem then is to determine and examine the sense of the word “can” which is a pre-condition of moral obligation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 471-504
Author(s):  
Daniel Barron ◽  
Yingni Guo

Abstract Communication facilitates cooperation by ensuring that deviators are collectively punished. We explore how players might misuse communication to threaten one another, and we identify ways that organizations can deter misuse and restore cooperation. In our model, a principal plays trust games with a sequence of short-run agents who communicate with each other. An agent can shirk and then extort pay by threatening to report that the principal deviated. We show that these threats can completely undermine cooperation. Investigations of agents’ efforts, or dyadic relationships between the principal and each agent, can deter extortion and restore some cooperation. Investigations of the principal’s action, on the other hand, typically do not help. Our analysis suggests that collective punishments are vulnerable to misuse unless they are designed with an eye toward discouraging it.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Holly M. Smith

In Living with Uncertainty Michael Zimmerman argues against the Objective view and for the Prospective view of morality. He claims that the conscientious agent would always choose the act that maximizes projected value, and that this is incompatible with Objectivism. Peter Graham defends Objectivism against Zimmerman’s attack. He argues that a conscientious agent must balance fulfilling obligations against avoiding the worst wrong-doings, and that this stance is consistent with Objectivism and with the agent’s choosing an act she believes to be Objectively wrong. In Ignorance and Moral Obligation Zimmerman argues that Graham’s “Objectivism” is only terminologically distinct from his Prospectivism. I argue that Graham faces a dilemma: if his theory delivers different prescriptions from Zimmerman’s, those prescriptions are implausible. On the other hand, if his theory avoids such implausible recommendations, it now generates exactly the same recommendations as Zimmerman’s theory, and so does not constitute a serious challenge to it.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-174
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gilbert ◽  
Andrew T. Hayashi

Abstract We explore how adding prosocial preferences to the canonical precaution model of accidents changes either the efficient damages rule or the harm from accidents. For a utilitarian lawmaker, making the potential injurer sympathetic to the victim of harm has no effect on either outcome. On the other hand, making injurers averse to harming others reduces the harm from accidents but has no effect on efficient damages. For an atomistic lawmaker — one who excludes prosocial preferences from social welfare — cultivating a taste for either harm aversion or perfect sympathy can reduce efficient damages, though neither has any effect on the amount of harm from accidents. On the other hand, causing people to act as if they are averse to harm creation, such as out of habit or moral obligation, reduces both the efficient amount of damages and total harm. In general, encouraging either a distaste for, or moral commitment against, harm creation is useful while inculcating sympathy for victims of harm is not.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kamińska

The aim of this article is to examine the stereotypy in Balzac’s novel Cousin Bette, by relying on the scene of a famous confrontation between Célestin Crevel and his metaphysical opposite – Baroness Hulot d’Ervy. José-Luis Diaz underlines that the Balzacian stereotype imposes itself as the imitation of the social norm and all kinds of linguistic, sartorial, behavioral automatisms etc. His research justifies the use of the concept of stereotype in relation to Balzac’s creation, especially because the nineteenth century only knows its meaning in printing. Thanks to the notion of stereotype, we can question on its influence on the behavior of the protagonists. We are also able to identify the character of the social norm of the time and its regulatory mechanisms. On the one hand, the excessively fixed language, like the cliché, allows the writer to imitate the material preoccupations of the bourgeoisie under the July Monarchy by forging, in the reader’s mind, his negative image. On the other hand, this analysis shows that the protagonist’s expression goes beyond linguistic mimicry. The stereotype allows a certain stylistic originality by which the protagonists give the reader a look into their belief systems. In this sense, the stereotype is a mechanism of regulation : it complicates the characters, creates an impression of reality. Finally, this stylistic enity capture the reader’s attention with logically permissible ideas that are morally unacceptable.


1986 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald H. Regan

Like many people these days, I believe there is no general moral obligation to obey the law. I shall explain why there is no such moral obligation – and I shall clarify what I mean when I say there is no moral obligation to obey the law – as we proceed. But also like many people, I am unhappy with a position that would say there was no moral obligation to obey the law and then say no more about the law's moral significance. In our thinking about law in a resonably just society, we have a strong inclination to invest law with a sort of moral halo. It does not feel right to suggest that law is a morally neutral social fact, nor to suggest that law is merely a useful social technique.In this essay, I shall try to account in part for law's moral halo. (Let me emphasize “in part”; I do not purport to say everything that could be said.) Because I share the widespread inclination to invest law with this halo, I shall not be interested in a merely historical account of how we come to see law with a halo – a pure “error theory” of law's halo, if you will. I want to justify the halo. On the other hand, the main way to justify the halo is to get clear just what law's moral significance is. It is unlikely that at the end of the process of clarification the halo will have exactly the shape or luminance that it had at the beginning.


Philosophy ◽  
1945 ◽  
Vol 20 (76) ◽  
pp. 129-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. D. Falk

Butler observes in the Preface to the Sermons that the subject of morals can be approached in two different ways: “One begins from enquiring into the abstract relations of things: the other from a matter of fact, namely what the particular nature of man is, its several parts, their economy or constitution; from whence it proceeds to determine what course of life it is, which is correspondent to his whole nature. In the former method the conclusion is expressed thus, that vice is contrary to the nature and reason of things: in the latter, that it is a violation or breaking in upon our own nature. Thus they both lead us to the same thing, our obligations to the practice of virtue; and thus they exceedingly strengthen and enforce each other.” In making this observation Butler raises the problem of the nature of moral obligation, and of the criteria by which the existence of a moral obligation can be known. He does so by calling attention to the divisions of opinion which existed on this issue in his own days. Samuel Clarke, the fashionable moralist of the period, sought the roots of moral obligation in the “nature and reason of things”: for an agent to know that an act is his duty is to know that it is fitting or suitable to the circumstances in which it occurs. Shaftesbury, on the other hand, and many of the adherents to the doctrine of Natural Law, like Grotius and Pufendorf, sought the roots of moral obligation in the nature of agents: for an agent, to know that an act is his duty is for him to experience a special motive to do it. Butler recognized the fundamental difference between these two approaches.


1979 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 117-125
Author(s):  
Sven Linnér

Characteristic of the modern situation is the lack of any distinction between the languages of belief and non-belief. Thus, over a wide area, a believer on the one hand may use symbols which are in no way recognisable as specifically Christian, and may do so even when he wishes to portray experiences of a profoundly religious character; as reader, he can also recognise such experiences in the symbolism of the non-believer. A non-believer, on the other hand, may use Christian symbols without enabling us to attribute to him any conversion to faith. How then is one to describe the difference between believing and expressing a belief one does not share? The essential difference should be seen as resting in the attitude towards the truth of the symbol or statement of belief. In addition, at least as far as the Christian faith is concerned, there is also a moral obligation which is a consequence of faith. Furthermore, there is the sense of communion with those who embrace the same faith.


Philosophy ◽  
1927 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 365-376
Author(s):  
Olaf Stapledon

Ethics and psychology are apt to look askance at one another. The ethicist warns the psychologist that he cannot “ explain away ” the objective distinction between good and evil merely by describing the process by which we come to apprehend that distinction. Nor can he in any such manner show that moral obligation is illusory. On the other hand, some psychologists do claim that in exposing the psychological sources of moral experience they show that no objective distinction is involved in it.


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