Evolution of empathetic moral evaluation

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Cite this article as: eLife 2019;8:e44269 doi: 10.7554/eLife.44269

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Abstract

Social norms can promote cooperation by assigning reputations to individuals based on their past actions. A good reputation indicates that an individual is likely to reciprocate. A large body of research has established norms of moral assessment that promote cooperation, assuming reputations are objective. But without a centralized institution to provide objective evaluation, opinions about an individual's reputation may differ across a population. In this setting we study the role of empathy-the capacity to form moral evaluations from another person's perspective. We show that empathy tends to foster cooperation by reducing the rate of unjustified defection. The norms of moral evaluation previously considered most socially beneficial depend on high levels of empathy, whereas different norms maximize social welfare in populations incapable of empathy. Finally, we show that empathy itself can evolve through social contagion. We conclude that a capacity for empathy is a key component for sustaining cooperation in societies.

Article and author information

Author details

Arunas L Radzvilavicius

Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States

For correspondence
arunas@sas.upenn.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Alexander J Stewart

Department of Biology, University of Houston, Houston, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Joshua B Plotkin

Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States

For correspondence
jplotkin@sas.upenn.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2349-6304

Funding

David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Joshua B Plotkin

U. S. Army Research Office (W911NF-12-R-0012-04)

Joshua B Plotkin

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

Michael Doebeli, University of British Columbia, Canada

Publication history

Received: December 10, 2018
Accepted: March 19, 2019
Accepted Manuscript published: April 9, 2019 (version 1)
Version of Record published: April 29, 2019 (version 2)

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.