richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
T H K R O O "I S O ! ; M O R A M T Y : W H Y A R E \V I: G O () D ? 217in the currency of nectar, for the hire of their wings. Birds calledhoneyguides can find bees' nests but can't break into them. Honeybadgers (ratels) can break into bees' nests, but lack wings withwhich to search for them. Honeyguides lead ratels (and sometimesmen) to honey by a special enticing flight, used for no otherpurpose. Both sides benefit from the transaction. A crock of goldmay lie under a large stone, too heavy for its discoverer to move.He enlists the help of others even though he then has to share thegold, because without their help he would get none. The livingkingdoms are rich in such mutualistic relationships: buffaloes andoxpeckers, red tubular flowers and hummingbirds, groupers andcleaner wrasses, cows and their gut micro-organisms. Reciprocalaltruism works because of asymmetries in needs and in capacities tomeet them. That is why it works especially well between differentspecies: the asymmetries are greater.In humans, IOUs and money are devices that permit delays inthe transactions. The parties to the trade don't hand over the goodssimultaneously but can hold a debt over to the future, or even tradethe debt on to others. As far as I know, no non-human animals inthe wild have any direct equivalent of money. But memory ofindividual identity plays the same role more informally. Vampirebats learn which other individuals of their social group can be reliedupon to pay their debts (in regurgitated blood) and whichindividuals cheat. Natural selection favours genes that predisposeindividuals, in relationships of asymmetric need and opportunity, togive when they can, and to solicit giving when they can't. It alsofavours tendencies to remember obligations, bear grudges, policeexchange relationships and punish cheats who take, but don't givewhen their turn comes.For there will always be cheats, and stable solutions to the gametheoreticconundrums of reciprocal altruism always involve anelement of punishment of cheats. Mathematical theory allows twobroad classes of stable solution to 'games' of this kind. 'Always benasty' is stable in that, if everybody else is doing it, a single niceindividual cannot do better. But there is another strategy which isalso stable. ('Stable' means that, once it exceeds a critical frequencyin the population, no alternative does better.) This is the strategy,'Start out being nice, and give others the benefit of the doubt. Then
218 T H E Ci O D I) E I. U S I O Nrepay good deeds with good, but avenge bad deeds.' In game theorylanguage, this strategy (or family of related strategies) goes undervarious names, including Tit-for-Tat, Retaliator and Reciprocator.It is evolutionarily stable under some conditions in the sense that,given a population dominated by reciprocators, no single nastyindividual, and no single unconditionally nice individual, will dobetter. There are other, more complicated variants of Tit-for-Tatwhich can in some circumstances do better.I have mentioned kinship and reciprocation as the twin pillars ofaltruism in a Darwinian world, but there are secondary structureswhich rest atop those main pillars. Especially in human society,with language and gossip, reputation is important. One individualmay have a reputation for kindness and generosity. Anotherindividual may have a reputation for unreliability, for cheating andreneging on deals. Another may have a reputation for generositywhen trust has been built up, but for ruthless punishment of cheating.The unadorned theory of reciprocal altruism expects animalsof any species to base their behaviour upon unconsciousresponsiveness to such traits in their fellows. In human societies weadd the power of language to spread reputations, usually in theform of gossip. You don't need to have suffered personally from X'sfailure to buy his round at the pub. You hear 'on the grapevine' thatX is a tightwad, or - to add an ironic complication to the example- that Y is a terrible gossip. Reputation is important, and biologistscan acknowledge a Darwinian survival value in not just being agood reciprocator but fostering a reputation as a good reciprocatortoo. Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue, as well as being a lucidaccount of the whole field of Darwinian morality, is especially goodon reputation.*The Norwegian economist Thorstein Veblen and, in a ratherdifferent way, the Israeli zoologist Amotz Zahavi have added afurther fascinating idea. Altruistic giving may be an advertisementof dominance or superiority. Anthropologists know it as thePotlatch Effect, named after the custom whereby rival chieftains of* Reputation is not confined to humans. It has recently been shown to apply toone of the classic cases of reciprocal altruism in animals, the symbiotic relationshipbetween small cleaner fish and their large fish clients. In an ingeniousexperiment, individual cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus, that had beenobserved by a would-be client to be diligent cleaners were more likely to be chosenby the client than rival Labroides that had been observed neglecting to clean.See R. Bshary and A. S. Grutter, 'Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fishmutualism', Nature 441, 22 June 2006, 975-8.
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T H K R O O "I S O ! ; M O R A M T Y : W H Y A R E \V I: G O () D ? 217
in the currency of nectar, for the hire of their wings. Birds called
honeyguides can find bees' nests but can't break into them. Honey
badgers (ratels) can break into bees' nests, but lack wings with
which to search for them. Honeyguides lead ratels (and sometimes
men) to honey by a special enticing flight, used for no other
purpose. Both sides benefit from the transaction. A crock of gold
may lie under a large stone, too heavy for its discoverer to move.
He enlists the help of others even though he then has to share the
gold, because without their help he would get none. The living
kingdoms are rich in such mutualistic relationships: buffaloes and
oxpeckers, red tubular flowers and hummingbirds, groupers and
cleaner wrasses, cows and their gut micro-organisms. Reciprocal
altruism works because of asymmetries in needs and in capacities to
meet them. That is why it works especially well between different
species: the asymmetries are greater.
In humans, IOUs and money are devices that permit delays in
the transactions. The parties to the trade don't hand over the goods
simultaneously but can hold a debt over to the future, or even trade
the debt on to others. As far as I know, no non-human animals in
the wild have any direct equivalent of money. But memory of
individual identity plays the same role more informally. Vampire
bats learn which other individuals of their social group can be relied
upon to pay their debts (in regurgitated blood) and which
individuals cheat. Natural selection favours genes that predispose
individuals, in relationships of asymmetric need and opportunity, to
give when they can, and to solicit giving when they can't. It also
favours tendencies to remember obligations, bear grudges, police
exchange relationships and punish cheats who take, but don't give
when their turn comes.
For there will always be cheats, and stable solutions to the gametheoretic
conundrums of reciprocal altruism always involve an
element of punishment of cheats. Mathematical theory allows two
broad classes of stable solution to 'games' of this kind. 'Always be
nasty' is stable in that, if everybody else is doing it, a single nice
individual cannot do better. But there is another strategy which is
also stable. ('Stable' means that, once it exceeds a critical frequency
in the population, no alternative does better.) This is the strategy,
'Start out being nice, and give others the benefit of the doubt. Then
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