Abstract
Contemporary philosophers and psychologists seek the roots of ethically sound forms of behavior, including altruism and a sense of fairness, in the basic structure of cooperative action. I argue that recent work on cooperation in both philosophy and psychology has been hampered by what I call “the mutualistic paradigm.” The mutualistic paradigm treats one kind of cooperative situation—what I call a “mutualistic situation”—as paradigmatic of cooperation in general. In mutualistic situations, such as the primeval stag hunt described by Brian Skyrms, every partner in a cooperative action has to do his part in order for the action as a whole to succeed. But many familiar cooperative situations—for example, serving on an academic committee—do not have this structure. Contemporary philosophers and psychologists are right that thinking about cooperation can shed light on how and why ethically sound behavior happens in human beings. But the deep connections between ethics and cooperation only come into view once we have a richer conception of our capacities for cooperation than the mutualistic paradigm provides.
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Notes
Tomasello et al. 2009: 65–6.
Warneken et al. 2006.
There is an ongoing debate in the psychological literature about how best to describe the results of these studies and what they show. I don’t mean to take sides on that issue here. In describing the studies and their implications, I have followed the interpretations given by Tomasello, Warneken, and their co-authors.
Tomasello et al. 2009: 40–41.
Skyrms 2004.
Bratman 1999b: 143.
Bratman 1999a: 121.
My use of this example is indebted to Joan Silk’s reply to Tomasello in Tomasello et al. 2009: 111–122.
See Silk’s reply in Tomasello et al. 2009: 113.
Silk’s reply to Tomasello in Why We Cooperate 120.
The locus classicus of this response on behalf of practice-based accounts is, of course, Rawls 1999. Michael Thompson argues that Rawls’ attempt to isolate considerations “within the practice of promising” from those “outside” it threatens to assimilate the practice too much to a mere game. Thompson 2008: 174–9.
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Acknowledgment
For many helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper, I am indebted to Facundo Alonso, Anton Ford, Nat Hansen, Rafeeq Hasan, Erica Holberg, Candace Vogler, and two anonymous referees for The Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
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Elliott, J.R. Stag Hunts and Committee Work: Cooperation and the Mutualistic Paradigm. Rev.Phil.Psych. 2, 245–260 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-011-0053-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-011-0053-4