Evolution leads to Kantian morality

Ingela Alger and Jörgen Weibull

No 14-504, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: We provide a generalized definition of evolutionary stability of heritable types in arbitrarily large symmetric interactions under random matching that may be assortative. We establish stability results when these types are strategies in games, and when they are preferences or moral values in games under incomplete information. We show that a class of moral preferences, with degree of morality equal to the index of assortativity are evolutionarily stable. In particular, selfishness is evolutionarily unstable when there is positive assortativity in the matching process. We establish that evolutionarily stable strategies are the same as those played in equilibrium by rational but partly morally motivated individuals, individuals with evolutionarily stable preferences. We provide simple and operational criteria for evolutionary stability and apply these to canonical examples.

Keywords: evolutionary stability; assortativity; morality; homo moralis; public goods; contests; helping; Cournot competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 D01 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06, Revised 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-evo, nep-gth, nep-hpe and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Evolution leads to Kantian morality (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:28319

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