Homo Moralis: Preference Evolution under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching

Ingela Alger and Jörgen Weibull

No 12-01, Carleton Economic Papers from Carleton University, Department of Economics

Abstract: What preferences will prevail in a society of rational individuals when preference evolution is driven by their success in terms of resulting payoffs? We show that when individuals’ preferences are their private information, a convex combinations of selfishness and morality stand out as evolutionarily stable. We call individuals with such preferences homo moralis. At one end of the spectrum is homo oeconomicus, who acts so as to maximize his or her material payoff. At the opposite end is homo kantiensis, who does what would be “the right thing to do,” in terms of material payoffs, if all others would do likewise. We show that the stable degree of morality - the weight placed on the moral goal - equals the index of assortativity in the matching process. The motivation of homo moralis is arguably compatible with how people often reason, and the induced behavior agrees with pro-social behaviors observed in many laboratory experiments.

Keywords: evolutionary stability; preference evolution; moral values; incomplete information; assortative matching. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2012-02-06, Revised 2012-05-14
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published: Carleton Economic Papers

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Related works:
Journal Article: Homo Moralis—Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching (2013)
Working Paper: Homo Moralis-Preference evolution under incomplete information and assortative matching (2012)
Working Paper: Homo Moralis-Preference evolution under incomplete information and assortative matching (2012)
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