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Human behaviour

Egalitarian motive and altruistic punishment (reply)

Nature volume 433, pages E1–E2 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Fehr and Gächter reply - Fowler et al. raise an important question1. They correctly argue that the desire to reduce inequality may motivate cooperators who altruistically punish free riders in our experiments2. Also, the evolutionary history of humans suggests that egalitarianism shaped many human cultures3 and that egalitarian motives may, therefore, be a powerful force behind the punishment of free riders. In addition, recently developed proximate theories4, which formalize the notion of inequality aversion, also suggest that egalitarian desires may be important. Fowler et al. contrast their egalitarianism hypothesis with our view that negative emotions against free riders drive punishment.

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Figure 1: Mean expenditure on punishment as a function of the deviation of the punished group member's cooperation from the average cooperation of the other members.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Zürich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Zürich, 8006, Switzerland

    Ernst Fehr

  2. University of St Gallen, FEW–HSG, St Gallen, 9000, Switzerland

    Simon Gächter

Authors
  1. Ernst Fehr
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  2. Simon Gächter
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Correspondence to Ernst Fehr.

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Fehr, E., Gächter, S. Egalitarian motive and altruistic punishment (reply). Nature 433, E1–E2 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03257

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