Fairness Ideals, Hidden Selfishness, and Opportunistic Behavior: An Experimental Approach

Tokumaru, Natsuka

doi:10.1007/978-981-10-0137-6_2

Social Preference, Institution, and Distribution

2016

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-0137-6_2

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Fairness Ideals, Hidden Selfishness, and Opportunistic Behavior: An Experimental Approach

Natsuka Tokumaru

Abstract: Economic experiments have shown that human incentives are not only limited to the profit-maximizing principle but also motivated by fairness. Those studies presuppose that individuals commit to fixed value systems and that experimental institutions invoke fairness ideals. This paper shows that participants strategically select fairness ideals advantageous for self-distribution. Participants whose relative earnings are higher than those of their pairs adhere to a liberalist fairness ideal, whereas those with lo… Show more

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Cited by 2 publications

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“… 20 In contrast to Mises, fellow Austrian economist Friedrich Wieser defends an epistemological status for thought experiments closer to Brown’s Platonism (see Tokumaru 2016 , 133–153). In any case, Wieser gave prominence to the method of variation in (Austrian) economics.…”

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Otto Neurath’s Scientific Utopianism Revisited-A Refined Model for Utopias in Thought Experiments

Linsbichler

Cunha

2023

J Gen Philos Sci

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Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to political economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dystopias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neurath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowledge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We conclude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discussion avert a technocratic outlook in social science.

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confidence: 99%

Otto Neurath’s Scientific Utopianism Revisited-A Refined Model for Utopias in Thought Experiments

Linsbichler

Cunha

2023

J Gen Philos Sci

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A Matter of Perspective: How Failure Shapes Distributive Preferences

Cassar

Klein

2019

Management Science

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People vary in what they view as a fair distribution of earnings in organizations and, more generally, society. Where do these different views originate? We study the question of whether the experience of failure or success in a winner-take-most competition shapes people’s perspectives about distributive justice. In a laboratory experiment, subjects generated a high or low income either through a lottery or through a performance-based tournament. A subset of subjects could then redistribute the income of another subset of subjects. We find that the tournament losers redistribute significantly more than all of the other distributors when the inequality is generated by the tournament, whereas the lottery losers redistribute significantly more than all of the other distributors when the inequality is generated by the lottery. The effect still holds when controlling for potential self-selection into different outcomes of the tournament. We replicate the results in a second experiment and show that the underlying psychological mechanisms include an in-group bias and a self-serving bias in responsibility attribution. These findings have implications for the design of compensation schemes in organizations and for public policies in general. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, decision analysis.

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Fairness Ideals, Hidden Selfishness, and Opportunistic Behavior: An Experimental Approach

Cited by 2 publications

References 22 publications

Otto Neurath’s Scientific Utopianism Revisited-A Refined Model for Utopias in Thought Experiments

Otto Neurath’s Scientific Utopianism Revisited-A Refined Model for Utopias in Thought Experiments

A Matter of Perspective: How Failure Shapes Distributive Preferences

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