Caring for identified versus statistical lives: An evolutionary view of medical distributive justice

Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change

“…For example, although male dominance hierarchies were functional in our hunter-gatherer past (e.g., for warfare and hunting large animals), they often preclude behavior that is adaptive in complex, technologically-advanced societies (e.g., active female participation in mixed-sex groups; Colarelli et al 1999). Similarly, our evolved information preferences impede the use of statistical information, which can be adaptive in large, complex organizations (Moore 1996). Thus, the relationship between base rates of cultural practices and their adaptive value is not straightforward.…”

Stubborn Reliance on Human Nature in Employee Selection: Statistical Decision Aids Are Evolutionarily Novel

“…For most of our evolutionary history, we lived in small bands of about 150 people; we tended to know one another personally, their habits, personalities, and reputations (Megarry, 1995). Information about other people was gathered either through face‐to‐face interaction or by word of mouth (Moore, 1996). People who made faulty judgments about others under these conditions would be less likely to survive and reproduce than those who made more accurate judgments.…”

A cross‐national analysis of affirmative action: an evolutionary psychological perspective

“…Typically, this involves giving members of protected groups some special privileges, particularly in obtaining employment or admissions to universities. However, our sense of fairness and justice evolved while humans were living in small hunter-gatherer bands where everyone knew everyone else and reciprocal altruism was attached to concrete actions linked to particular individuals (Moore, 1996). In modern mass societies, broad social policies, such as AA, are often used to administer justice.…”