Spontaneous Order

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School of Economics University of East
Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom
Spontaneous Order Lecture 6 Morality Robert
Sugden Fudan University, November 2008
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Up to now, I have assumed that individuals act on
self-interest, and have said nothing about
morality. In this lecture, I consider morality
as spontaneous order.
My approach is very different from most current
work on morality and non-selfish behaviour, in
both economics and philosophy
In moral philosophy, and in normative economics,
the usual approach is to specify abstract moral
principles, based on rational reflection about
what really is moral, or about our intuitions
about morality. Emphasis on rationality,
consistency and impartiality. E.g.
utilitarianism, Rawlss theory of justice, Sen on
capabilities.
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In behavioural economics, the usual approach is
to specify social preferences. These may be
non-selfish, embodying attitudes of -- altruism
(i.e. desire to benefit others) -- malevolence
(i.e. desire to harm others) -- reciprocity
(understood as a persons desire to benefit those
who are kind to her, and to harm those who are
unkind) -- aversion to inequality etc. These
preferences are taken as given (or, in some
versions, explained by biological evolution in
pre-history), and used to explain non-selfish
behaviour in (present-day) social interactions.
This approach sometimes used to explain
cooperation (e.g. Fehr assumes a preference for
altruistic punishment to explain voluntary
contributions to public goods).
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My approach is to explain morality or some
aspects of morality as a form of spontaneous
order. Moral attitudes are explained as emerging
out of conventions.
The aim is to explain the moral beliefs that
people actually hold, not to deliberate about
what beliefs they ought to hold. So, no
presumption that morality is rational, consistent
or impartial.
But morality understood as the product of social
processes, not just hard-wired as part of our
genetic endowment.
This approach is inspired by David Hume
(especially Treatise of Human Nature 1740) and
Adam Smith (especially Theory of Moral Sentiments
1759). Significant that Smith is a founding
father of economics he sees both commerce and
morality as spontaneous orders.
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In chapters 2-6 of ERCW (and in Lectures 1-5), I
have analysed three main forms of spontaneous
order -- conventions of coordination (e.g.
priority rules on the roads, use of money,
standardisation of complementary products)
-- conventions of property (e.g. individuals
rights in physical objects, assignments of
mineral and fishing rights between countries)
-- conventions of reciprocity (e.g. reciprocal
contributions to public goods, mutual aid,
promise-keeping).
These conventions are rules that regulate
interactions, often in cases of conflicts of
interest. They can emerge spontaneously and can
be self-enforcing they are natural laws.
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But conformity to these conventions is often
perceived as virtuous or moral behaviour. This
prompts the question which comes first, the
convention or the sense of morality? E.g. is the
rule against stealing perceived as morally
obligatory because property assignments are fair?
Or are property assignments perceived as fair
because they are well-established conventions?
Following Hume, I argue that (in many cases)
conventions come first.
Implication of this argument there is a
mechanism by which general conformity to a
convention induces the sense that one ought to
conform. If so, we can explain emergence of
conventions by assuming only self-interest (as in
previous lectures), and then explain the sense of
morality as an effect of the convention.
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In typical cases, (or in the situations in which
a convention emerges), self-interest is a
sufficient motivation for conformity to a
convention. The sense of morality is an
additional motivation (belt and braces).
Many people find this feature of Humes theory
surprising. In Western thought (the
Judaeo-Christian tradition? the Protestant
tradition?) morality is often seen as opposed to
self-interest behaviour is only truly moral
when it has no self-interested motivations. In
social preference theories, the social
component of preference is revealed in
willingness to sacrifice material payoffs for
social ends (e.g. equality, others welfare,
punishment). In evolutionary theories, social
preferences/ morality often seen as a solution
to problems of cooperation (e.g. PD) that
self-interested individuals cannot solve.
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But for Hume (and Smith) morality is an affective
response to cues its content is generalised
approval. It emerges spontaneously from more
basic sentiments as people interact it isnt an
institution with a function.
Because of natural selection (or Nature as
designer of human psychology, as in Smiths
theory), we should expect fundamentals of human
psychology to correspond with fundamental human
interests. Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiments)
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With regard to all those ends which, upon account
of their peculiar importance, may be regarded, if
such an expression is allowable, as the favourite
ends of nature, she has constantly in this manner
not only endowed mankind with an appetite for the
end which she proposes, but likewise with an
appetite for the means by which alone this end
can be brought about, for their own sakes, and
independent of their tendency to produce it.
So, we should not be surprised to find that we
have some natural tendency to desire and approve
actions that promote our interests. Redundancy
is not surprising it is robustness.
In typical cases, a person who conforms to a
convention is doing what is good for him and what
is good for others so, we should expect
conformity to be generally approved. (For more on
this, see Sugden, Economics and Philoosphy 2002.)
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So, how do conventions induce the sense that
conforming to them is moral?
First, we need a conception of what morality is.
I follow Hume But can there be any difficulty in
proving, that vice and virtue are not matters of
fact, whose existence we can infer by reason?
Take any action allowed to be vicious wilful
murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights,
and see if you can find that matter of fact, or
real existence, which you call vice. In
whichever way you take it, you find only certain
passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There
is no other matter of fact in the case. .... So
that when you pronounce any action or character
to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from
the constitution of your nature you have a
feeling or sentiment of blame from the
contemplation of it.
i.e. morality is ultimately a matter of
sentiment.
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However, morality is not just an immediate
feeling of approval/ disapproval. It is a
convention of language that we use moral terms to
refer to general tendencies of actions to induce
approval/ disapproval. Analogy compare this
is deep blue and this looks deep blue to me
now. Similarly compare this is very wrong and
at this moment, I feel a strong sense of
disapproval.
Our situation, with regard both to people and
things, is in continual fluctuation ... and it is
impossible we could ever converse together on any
reasonable terms, were each of us to consider
characters and persons, only as they appear from
his peculiar point of view. In order, therefore,
to ... arrive at a more stable judgement of
things, we fix on some steady and general points
of view ...
So, to understand morality, we need to understand
the general mechanisms which induce feelings of
approval/ disapproval.
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Resentment Suppose you want me to perform action
X. You have a confident expectation, based on
your experience of other peoples behaviour in
situations similar to mine, that I will do
X. Instead I do Y. This makes you worse off than
you would have been, had I done X. How do you
feel?
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Example 1 You are a driver at an intersection.
You are on the major road, I am on the minor
road. In our region, drivers on minor roads
almost always give way, so you expect me to give
way. You maintain speed, but I pull out in front
of you. You have to brake sharply to avoid a
crash.
Example 2 You are a taxi-driver in a country in
which passengers almost always give tips of about
10. I am your passenger, and I dont give you a
tip.
How do you feel? I suggest you feel resentment
towards me, i.e. a mixture of pain at the
frustration of an expectation, and hostility
towards the person who has frustrated it (me).
The psychological content of this is something
like (a mild form of?) a primitive inclination to
attack the person resented. (In normal adults in
social settings, this urge is inhibited.)
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Now look at this from the other side. Suppose you
want me to perform action X. You have a
confident expectation, based on your experience
of other peoples behaviour in situations similar
to mine, that I will do X. Instead I do Y. This
makes you worse off than you would have been, had
I done X. How do I feel?
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If we are interacting face-to-face, you may
express your resentment (e.g. a hostile remark
from the taxi-driver). Even of you dont express
it, I can probably sense it. Or (from my
knowledge of how I feel in similar situations,
and/or of how other people react in similar
situations) I can infer that you are probably
feeling resentment towards me. This induces
unease in me.
The psychological content of this unease is
something like (a mild form of?) fear of being
attacked by the person who resents me. In
anticipation, this unease tends to inhibit me
from inducing resentment (i.e. the feeling is
Dont do it!) (If Im right that the
psychological content of resentment is an
inclination to attack, then fear is an
appropriately matching response.)
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Are resentment, and unease about being resented,
moral feelings?
On Humes account Yes. They have negative
valence, i.e. they are negative feelings. The
negativity is attached to the action (Y) by me
which frustrates your expectations, and (in the
case of your resentment) to me as actor. So ...
this is disapproval of my doing Y (felt by you
and by me).
These feelings of disapproval are predictable
they are induced by general mechanisms which most
people have an intuitive understanding of. So,
they are moral sentiments.
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What about the feelings of bystanders?
A key idea in Hume and Smith sympathy,
understood as what psychologists now call
emotional contagion i.e. the tendency for one
persons emotional response to a situation to be
mirrored (usually in a much milder form) in
others. (There is strong evidence of emotional
contagion from psychology, neuroscience mirror
neurons, primate studies e.g. de Waal,
especially for fear and distress. One
explanation for social animals, if one member of
the group senses danger, it is often optimal for
others to respond as if they had sensed it.)
If Y breaches a convention, bystanders were
expecting me to follow the convention (i.e. do
X). They can easily imagine your resentment and
my unease (which they would feel in our places).
So by emotional contagion, a tendency for
bystanders to sympathise with your resentment of
me, and to share my unease about my action.
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Also, if they follow the convention themselves
and are sometimes in your position, they will
perceive my action as an indirect threat to
them. E.g. in the crossroads case if they are
drivers who expect people like me to give way,
people who dont are a danger to them. In the
taxi case if they earn tips, people who dont
tip are harmful to them. (But in this case, many
people do receive tips, so the contagion effect
is likely to be less strong.)
So, some tendency for bystanders to disapprove of
breaches of conventions. This is a further
source of emotional contagion (i.e. your
resentment is stronger if you sense that others
approve my unease is stronger if I sense that
others disapprove).
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When does a rule become moral? By the preceding
analysis, a rule is likely to be perceived as
moral within a population if (i) almost
everyone in the population follows the rule
and (ii) if any individual follows the rule, it
is in his interest that other people follow it
too.
(i) induces the expectation that the rule will be
followed (ii) implies that breaches of the rule
harm others. In combination, (i) and (ii) imply
that breaches of the rule induce resentment.
(The second condition is part of Lewiss
definition of convention Lecture 3, but not
of mine.)
A rule can satisfy these conditions while
discriminating against some people in an
arbitrary way ...
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An example the crossroads game
Bs strategy slow down maintain
speed As strategy slow down 0, 0
2, 3 maintain speed 3, 2 -10, -10
Suppose we are at the asymmetrical ESS A
maintains speed, B slows down. This gives
expected payoff of 3 to A, 2 to B. Suppose the
asymmetry is not cross-cutting (i.e. some people
are always A, some people always B e.g. A
larger vehicle, B smaller vehicle). Then the
established convention discriminates against Bs.
But still, for any B given that the convention
is in place -- he expects everyone else to
follow it -- it is in his interest to follow
it -- it is in his interest that other people
follow it.
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Crucial point the conditions for when does a
rule become moral? refer to unilateral
deviations from a situation in which the rule is
generally followed. They do not refer to the
overall effects of the rule, as compared with
other rules (or no rule). Thus the morality of
conforming to a convention is judged from
within. (Morality is based on empirically
grounded expectations, and resentment at the
frustration of such expectations. These
expectations are induced by general conformity to
a convention. That is why convention precedes
spontaneous-order morality. But )
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Morality versus self-interest Because morality is
generalised approval, it can propagate by analogy
and similarity.
Exceptional cases Sometimes, because of special
features of a particular case, it is in an
individuals interest to deviate from a
convention. (E.g. in a Hawk-Dove contest, the
challenger is very much stronger than the
possessor the burly young man who takes the old
womans seat in a train.) But if the convention
is generally followed, the deviation will induce
resentment and will be the object of general
disapproval (by the mechanism I have described).

Because of emotional contagion, this disapproval
tends to induce unease in the person who deviates
from the convention and so inhibits deviations.
Here, morality may motivate people to act
against self-interest.
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Small groups and large groups If individuals are
motivated only by self-interest, conventions of
reciprocity are more likely to be stable when the
number of people interacting is small (Lecture
5). But if conventions of reciprocity become
established in small groups, they may gradually
spread to progressively larger groups (or the
groups may gradually grow). In the larger
groups, stability depends on mechanisms of
approval/ disapproval.
Hume seems to use a theory of this kind in his
analysis of property (in Treatise of Human
Nature)
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To the imposition then, and observance of these
rules of property, ... people are at first
moved only by a regard to interest and this
motive, on the first formation of society, is
sufficiently strong and forcible. ... But when
society has become more numerous, and has
increased to a tribe or nation, this interest is
more remote nor do men so readily perceive, that
disorder and confusion follow upon every breach
of these rules, as in a more narrow and
contracted society. But though in our own
actions we may frequently lose sight of that
interest, which we have in maintaining order ...
we never fail to observe the prejudice we
receive, either mediately or immediately, from
the injustice of others ... ... When others are
harmed by injustice we partake of their
uneasiness by sympathy ... The general rule
reaches beyond those instances from which it
arose while at the same time we naturally
sympathize with others in the sentiments they
entertain of us.
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So conventions based on self-interest are the
seeds of (or templates for) more general moral
rules.
Spontaneous-order morality is not just a
sub-category of self-interest. But because it
has grown out of conventions, it has certain
distinctive features. These can be summarised in
the following principle ....
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The principle of cooperation Let R be any
strategy that could be chosen in a game that is
played repeatedly in some community. Let this
strategy be such that if any individual follows
R, it is in his interest that his opponents
should do so too. Then each individual has a
moral obligation to follow R, provided that
(almost) everyone else does the same.
This isnt the whole of morality, just that
component that ERCW sets out to explain. My
claim is that there is a strong tendency for us
to subscribe to moral rules that are instances of
this principle. The intuition behind the
principle ...
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The principle of cooperation Let R be any
strategy that could be chosen in a game that is
played repeatedly in some community. Let this
strategy be such that if any individual follows
R, it is in his interest that his opponents
should do so too. Then each individual has a
moral obligation to follow R, provided that
(almost) everyone else does the same.
Intuition Suppose (almost) everyone follows R.
So, if I play a game against you, it is
reasonable for me to expect you to play R. Then,
by playing R, I act in a way that I can
reasonably expect to be in your interests.
Similarly, by playing R (as I expect you to do)
you are acting in a way that you can reasonably
expect to be in my interests.
So, if I play R and you dont, I have acted in
the way best calculated to accommodate you, but
you havent reciprocated. So I have a legitimate
complaint against you.
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This is a morality of reciprocity or mutual
advantage. Each person has obligations to
particular others, conditional on their meeting
their reciprocal obligations to her. It is not a
morality of maximising social welfare, or of
constructing the most just society (which would
be a morality of obligations to no one in
particular).
Reciprocity is defined in terms of mutual
advantage relative to the status quo. (Notice
that the general obligation to follow R is
operative only is a situation in which R is
generally followed the obligation is not to
deviate unilaterally from R in a way which harms
others relative to the status quo.)
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By using the status quo as the reference point,
the principle of cooperation evaluates rules from
within (i.e. from the viewpoint of people who
conform to them).
This is very different from social justice,
i.e. judging the morality of rules from outside
i.e. viewing society from the perspective of a
designer.
The social justice perspective is taken in most
modern economics, political philosophy and moral
philosophy...
... but, for most people, most of the time, the
internal viewpoint seems more natural. In my
own affairs, I dont see it as my responsibility
to aim for the good of society as a whole, only
to cooperate with others on fair terms.
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The idea of cooperating with others on fair
terms can apply to market interactions. So, if
we understand morality in the spontaneous-order
sense, in terms of reciprocity/ mutual advantage,
it becomes possible to see (certain kinds of)
market relationships as moral. If trading
partners act with the intention of mutual
benefit, market exchanges are analogous with
cooperation in the PD and mutual-aid games. (This
argument is presented in Bruni and Sugden,
Fraternity, Economics and Philosophy 2008.)
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Id like to end this series of lectures with a
quotation from another great 18th century
economist, a contemporary of Adam Smith and the
first person to hold a chair in economics at
University of Naples Antonio Genovesi. He gave a
series of lectures on the fundamental principles
of economics Lectures in Civil Economy 1765-67.
The final paragraph of the book, and I like to
think the final words to his students, express a
vision of a free society structured by
reciprocity
Here is the idea of the present work. If we fix
our eyes at such beautiful and useful truths, we
will study not for stupid vanity, nor for the
pride of appearing superior to ignorant people,
or for the wickedness of cheating, but to go
along with the law of the moderator of the world,
which commands us to do our best to be useful to
one another.
Thank you for listening to me.
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