The Origins of Fairness

INTRODUCTION: Reconciling morality with the natural sciences; Naturalism: The moral sense; Contractualism: The social contract; A naturalistic and contractualist theory of morality; PART 1: THE MORAL SENSE; Chapter 1: A mental organ; 1. An autonomous disposition; Moral judgments and moral intuitions; Moral intuitions and moral ideas; 2. A domain-specific disposition; Morality, a passion among others; The sense of honor; 3. A universal disposition; Variability as a product of the diversity of situations and beliefs; Observed diversity and real diversity; 4. An innate disposition; 5. Non-intuitive moral judgments; Chapter 2: A functional disposition; 1. The competing passions; 2. The moral sense and non-naturalistic theories; The domain specificity of moral judgments; The innateness of moral judgments; 3. The moral sense as adaptation; Functionality and modularity; Efficient causes and final causes; PART 2: MORALITY AS FAIRNESS; Chapter 3: From cooperation to morality; 1. A naturalistic contractualism; 2. From the cooperation market to the sense of fairness; The cooperation market; Cooperation market theory vs. other mutualistic theories; Manipulation on the cooperation market; The cooperation market in the ancestral environment; 3. The sense of fairness; The example of reciprocity and justice; Moral rectitude, or fairness in general; Fairness and power relationships; Framing effects; Chapter 4: Moral principles and the sense of fairness; 1. Getting past principles; 2. The mutualistic logic of moral dilemmas; Actions and omissions; The trolley dilemma; A mutualistic analysis of the trolley problem; Utilitarian interpretations of the trolley problem; 3. Principles and justice; Chapter 5 A cognitive approach to the moral sense; 1. A contract without negotiations: Morality and theory of mind; The importance of others: Mental states vs. interests; Consent has no moral value; A mutualistic approach to responsibility; 2. The evaluation of individual interests; Intuitive axiology and the moral sense; Victimless crimes; Roles and statuses; Moral differences between the sexes; 3. The limits of the moral community; The proper and actual domains of the moral sense; The variability of the actual domain; 4. Disposition and micro-dispositions; PART 3: MORALITY AS SACRIFICE; Chapter 6 Mutualistic morality and utilitarian morality; 1. Utilitarian morality and group selection; 2. Utilitarian societies?; Observed utilitarianism and real utilitarianism; Collectivism and utilitarianism; Social institutions and moral interactions; 3. Utilitarian judgments?; Distributive justice; Retributive justice; Supererogatory actions; Moral dilemmas; 4. Economic games; The ecological validity of economic games; Economic games: moral situations; A mutualistic analysis of economic games; Chapter 7: Punishment: useless and uncertain; 1. A marginal practice in non-state societies; 2. Revenge, ostracism and self-defense: punishments?; 3. A simple question of duty; A mutualistic analysis of apparently punitive actions; Punishment in economic games; 4. Retributive justice and penal systems; PART 4: MORALITY AS EXCELLENCE; Chapter 8: Mutualistic morality and virtue morality; 1. Sympathy; The three faces of Adam Smith; Of sympathy and the other social sentiments; 2. The parental instinct; 3. Disgust; 4. The virtues; Chapter 9: On the state of nature; 1. Morality in animals; Morality: one disposition among many; Primate morality: reality or anthropomorphism?; 2. Morality and social cognition; Understanding others to communicate; Communicating to cooperate; CONCLUSION; 1. The steps in the argument; 2. The scientific implications of a mutualistic theory; 3. The practical implications of mutualistic theory; References