The source of Trust and Obligation

Shahab Sabahi

Energy and Environment for Development – Policy Analysis Research Group

Game theory suggests that individuals who interact with one another repeatedly tend to gravitate toward cooperation with those who have shown themselves to be honest and reliable and shun those who have behaved opportunistically. But to do this effectively they have to be able to remember each other’s past behaviours and anticipate likely future behaviours based on an interpretation of other people’s motives. This is not so easy to accomplish since it is the appearance of honesty, trust and not honesty itself that is the marker of a potential collaborator. That is, I will agree to work with you if you seem to be honest based on experience. But if you have deliberately built up a fund of trust in the past, you can put yourself in a position to take even greater advantage of me in the future. So while self-interest propels individuals to cooperate in social groups, it also creates incentives for cheating, deceiving, and other forms of bahaviour that undermine social solidarity.

For one, cheating may cause an exit from society and its potential benefits. The EAST adopted the losing face (disgrace) measure which holds the end point for social life of who stands against its OBLIGATIONS. In contrast, the WEST took another value measures such as legal institutions to treat disgraced person who breaches its obligations.

Of course in complicated, cultural-mixed global-scaled systems, the latter measure is favored the most. Yet building a far-reaching global administrative and authoritative body who can effectively impose and police the measure remains a key challenge.   

I am investigating below, the source of trust and social obligations with use of biological evolution framework and game theory. It may be a critical question for someone

Where did human beings’ sociability (cooperation, cheating)) come from?

  

Indeed biologists have identified two natural sources of cooperative behaviour; kin selection and reciprocal altruism. The most basic forms of cooperation predate the emergence of human beings societies. 

William Hamilton formulated the principle of inclusive fitness or kin selection which holds that individuals of any sexually reproducing species will behave altruistically toward kin in proportion to the number of genes they share. (W.D. Hamilton Journal of Theoretical Biology 7 – 1964 and R. Dawkins Oxford Press 1989) So nepotism is not only a socially but also a biologically grounded reality which explains the desire to pass resources on to kin.

Reciprocal altruism is a term referred to cooperation with genetic strangers. It is regarded as the second major biological source of social behaviour of humans after kin selection. Social cooperation depends on an individual ability to solve its life games. (Game theory) In these games individuals benefit potentially by being able to work with their fellow humans. But they can often benefit more if they let other individuals do the cooperating and free ride off of their efforts (R. Axelrod 1980)

Thus human sociability is not a historical or cultural acquisition, but something hardwired into human nature. Some may say other species such as vampires chimpanzees and wolves have shown sociability though their social evolutionary process has not ended into the level of human-like civilizations and advances. This contrasts the cognitive ability of humans which has not advanced into upper level in other species as it has occurred for humans. What is the source of this cognitive ability? At first glance it may appear that cognitive abilities were required for human beings to adapt their physical environments. Greater intelligence offers advantages with regard to hunting and making tools. But it is not the whole story. One may argues other species even do hunting, gathering, surviving harsh climates and the like without having developed anything like a human being’s cognitive abilities.

So what makes all differences between human beings and other intelligent species?

From evolutionary biology perspective, the source of human’s brain advancement must be different from those species such counted above. It is suggested that human being in effect enter into a cooperation and competition with other human beings through which the winners are those groups that could create more complex forms of social organization based on new cognitive abilities to interpret each other’s behaviour. (N. Humphrey, Cambridge university press 1976; R. Alexander, University of Michigan press 1990) It is wise to say that the source of human beings’ brains development is their social interactions, races and the means by which these interactions undertaken such as language.