Abstract
Most current attempts to explain the evolution - through individual selection - of pro-social behavior (i.e. behavior that favors the group) that allows for cohesive societies among non related individuals, focus on altruistic punishment as its evolutionary driving force. The main theoretical problem facing this line of research is that in the exercise of altruistic punishment the benefits of punishment are enjoyed collectively while its costs are borne individually. We propose that social cohesion might be achieved by a form of punishment, widely practiced among humans and animals forming bands and engaging in mob beatings, which we call co-operative punishment. This kind of punishment is contingent upon - not independent from - the concurrent participation of other actors. Its costs can be divided among group members in the same way as its benefits are, and it will be favoured by evolution as long as the benefits exceed the costs. We show with computer simulations that co-operative punishment is an evolutionary stable strategy that performs better in evolutionary terms than non-cooperative punishment, and demonstrate the evolvability and sustainability of pro-social behavior in an environment where not necessarily all individuals participate in co-operative punishment. Co-operative punishment together with pro-social behavior produces a self reinforcing system that allows the emergence of a 'Darwinian Leviathan' that strengthens social institutions.
Highlights
1.1 Why most people stop at a read traffic light and pay taxes? Why people normally help a tourist in finding directions? Why a soldier offers his life to help advance his countries interest? Why people donate blood, give money to charities, or spend time helping others? These are fundamental questions we need to answer if we want to understand human society
3.2 Figure 2 shows that when punishment costs and cost to punish are very low or very large, the incentive of punishment to maintain individuals to contribute to the common good dissipates, even with Cooperative Punishment, as it either has no punishment effect (K=0) or is too expensive to be financed by the common pool (Y>4)
4.1 We showed that co-operative punishment is a much stronger stabilizer of pro-social behavior than altruistic punishment
Summary
1.1 Why most people stop at a read traffic light and pay taxes? Why people normally help a tourist in finding directions? Why a soldier offers his life to help advance his countries interest? Why people donate blood, give money to charities, or spend time helping others? These are fundamental questions we need to answer if we want to understand human society. The problem is that altruistic punishment is costly, so rational individuals would, again, be more inclined to let others assume the costs, while still enjoying the fruits of the resulting pro-social behavior. The problem is that altruistic punishment is costly, so rational individuals would, again, be more inclined to let others assume the costs, while still enjoying the fruits of the resulting pro-social altruism This is known as the 'second order public goods problem', which may in turn be addressed by introducing the possibility of second order altruistic punishment, that is, punishment for those who fail to punish free-riders. The model emulates widely used experimental economics game in which each member of a group is provided an endowment, b (food in Sociodynamica) that increases every time-step in 3 units These units can be kept for future consumption and reproduction or can be invested in a public good. When simulating the emergence of sociality, the simulation began with all individuals as free-riders and after 3 time-steps, offspring was allowed to eventually mutate to be a contributor
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