Religious Liberty and Tax Exemptions (Part 2)

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This post is the second part in a brief series looking at the arguments for and against tax exemptions for religious organisations. The series is inspired by something I read in the book Bargaining with the State by Richard Epstein.

By the end of the previous entry we had derived a principle for assessing the legitimacy of selective changes to government tax policy. That principle was the following:

• Selective changes in taxation must be assessed in terms of just compensation and equal relative gain.

Stated in the abstract the principle makes little sense; stated in the appropriate context it does. The appropriate context is the general theory of the state that was outlined in the previous entry. To recap, the state was seen as the product of a rational bargain (social contract) that created a certain “status quo” or “baseline” consisting of rights and entitlements. Changes to that baseline must also garner rational assent through compensation and equal relative share of gains.

In this post, we apply the principle for assessing tax policy to cases involving tax exemptions that seem to affect rights that are part of the baseline in a liberal democratic society. This will lead us to a consideration of one of Epstein’s arguments relating to tax exemptions for religious organisations. Which will, in turn, lead us to a more general argument against the existence of a right to religious liberty.

1. Free Speech and Tax Exemptions

Epstein begins his chapter on tax exemptions and religious liberty by first considering some cases involving tax exemptions and the right to free speech. We can all agree that a right to free speech is part of the status quo of a liberal democratic state. It follows, given our argument in the part one, that any tax exemption that restricted or compromised one’s right to free speech would be unlikely to pass muster.

Epstein looks at several US cases dealing with this issue. I’ll consider just one of these for illustrative purposes. The case is Speiser v. Randall 357 U.S. 513 (1958). It involved a provision of the Californian Constitution that provided property tax exemptions to WWII veterans, provided they signed an oath to not advocate the overthrow of the U.S. or Californian governments. 

This provision was ruled unconstitutional (under the US constitution - in case you are confused) because it essentially amounted to a fine on a certain class of people for exercising their right to free speech. We can state the argument for this conclusion as follows:

• (1) A right to free speech is part of the baseline (or status quo) in a liberal democratic state.

• (2) Selective changes to tax policy from the status quo must be assessed in terms of just compensation and equal relative gain.

• (3) So changes to tax policy that impact upon the right to free speech must be assessed in terms of just compensation and equal relative gain.

• (4) A tax exemption that is conditional upon professing certain political opinions necessarily redistributes wealth from those of one set of views to those of another.

• (5) This essentially fines certain people for exercising their right to free speech.

• (6) There is no corresponding compensation or share of gains for the people who lose out.

• (7) Therefore, this tax exemption is illegitimate.

There are two things to be said about this argument. First, we might express some suspicion of premise 6. Is it really true that there is no corresponding compensation or gain? Could someone not argue that the tax exemption provides an incentive to loyal citizens to join the army and that we are all better off if loyal citizens are defending us?

That counterargument clearly couldn’t work here since the exemption applied retrospectively to WWII veterans. But even prospectively there would be problems: the right to free speech is often seen as foundational in a liberal society, to compromise it in any way would always be problematic.

The second thing to consider about this argument is whether a tax exemption to veterans could ever be legitimate. We have already hinted at the positive answer to this above, but just to draw out the reasoning: we all benefit from (or "are justly compensated for") having military protection, so an exemption which rewards or incentivises people joining the military does not automatically breach our principle of legitimacy.

2. Tax Exemptions and Religious Liberty

The free speech example was a warm-up. It highlights the basic structure of the analysis we undertake whenever there is a selective tax exemption. We can now apply it to cases involving tax exemptions for religious organisations. We begin with a general argument.

• (8) A right to religious liberty is part of the baseline (or status quo) in a liberal democratic system.

• (2) Selective changes to tax policy from the status quo must be assessed in terms of just compensation and equal relative gain (from previous argument).

• (9) Changes to tax policy that impact upon religious beliefs and practices must be assessed in terms of just compensation and equal relative gain.

• (10) The right to RL includes the right to practice different religions or no religion at all.

• (11) A tax exemption for particular types of religious organisation, in a religiously pluralist society, has serious redistributive consequences viz. it takes money from non-believers, or it privileges one religion over another.

• (12) So you cannot have a discriminatory tax exemption for religious organisations, i.e. one that privileges one type of religion or fails to include non-believers.

This argument is relatively straightforward. I suggest that, given our theoretical assumptions about the nature of the state, it is both true and valid. Some questions may be asked, however, about the implications of the conclusion. Specifically, what exactly would a non-discriminatory tax exemption look like? Epstein suggests that an exemption that merely equalises the status of those who practice a religion, when compared to their secular peers, would be non-discriminatory.

So, for example, a tax exemption for educational religious organisations, when there already is a publicly-funded secular system of education, might be deemed legitimate. Why? Because it merely equalises the religious and secular systems of education.

For the sake of argument, we can go along with this. What matters for my purposes is how Epstein applies this general principle -- i.e. that of non-discriminatory tax exemptions -- to a noteworthy case: Bob Jones University vs. United States 461 U.S. 574 (1978).

3. The Bob Jones University Case

The facts and the decision in the case are easily stated. Bob Jones University (BJU) were, as a charitable organisation, entitled to a tax exemption. However, the BJU, for religious reasons, did not permit interracial dating and marriage among its students. In other words, it practiced a form of racial discrimination. The Supreme Court decided that BJU could not keep its tax exemption under these circumstances.

There are two ways to analyse the decision in BJU-case. The first I shall call the “naive way” and it looks something like this:

• (13) BJU had a charitable tax exemption and practiced a form of racial discrimination.

• (14) The court withheld the tax exemption from BJU but not from other similar religious institutions.

• (15) So the court mandated a discriminatory form of tax exemption policy for religious organisations.

• (12) You cannot have a discriminatory tax exemption for religious organisations (from previous argument).

• (16) So the decision is incorrect.

As it stands, this argument is sound: the decision in the BJU-case did, in effect, create a discriminatory system of tax exemptions for religious institutions. By withholding the tax exemption from BJU, it forced the BJU to subsidise other institutions and it did so without any just compensation or reward for the BJU.

But I doubt anybody would be satisfied with this naive analysis. Why not? Well, because it focuses solely on the impact of the decision on the right to religious liberty. It forgets another important part of the status quo: the right to equal protection (which includes, most obviously, a right to non-discrimination on the basis of race). Surely that must be included in our assessment?

We can remedy the defect as follows:

• (17) Equal protection is part of the baseline (or status quo) in a liberal democratic state.

• (18) To reward a racially discriminatory organisation through a tax exemption would damage the right to equal protection.

• (19) Continuance of the tax exemption to BJU would reward a racially discriminatory organisation.

• (20) The right to equal protection trumps the right to religious liberty.

• (21) Therefore, the decision in the BJU-case was correct.

Although this argument rescues the decision in the BJU-case, it does not do so without controversy. The problem comes in the shape premise (20). Although this must be true to justify the conclusion (otherwise we must engage in some strange sort of balancing act), Epstein thinks we have good reason to think the opposite, i.e. to think that religious liberty actually trumps equal protection (at least in this instance).

4. Epstein Contra the BJU-case

Epstein’s argument is derived from the nature of the right to religious liberty. Epstein contends, and I agree, that a right to religious liberty is meaningless if it does not include a right to practice as well as profess religious beliefs. If it only included the latter, then it would be subsumed within the right to free speech.

Epstein then points out that many religious practices are discriminatory (he cites rules on membership of the Catholic clergy as an example) and so if equal protection were allowed to trump religious liberty in cases like the BJU-case, it would make a mockery of the right to religious liberty.

Formally, the argument looks something like this:

• (22) A right to religious liberty covers more than just a right to profess religious beliefs, it covers the right to practice as well.

• (23) Many religious practices are discriminatory (e.g. sex discrimination in Catholicism).

• (24) So lots of tax exemptions would have to be withdrawn in line with the reasoning in the BJU-case (from 23).

• (25) This would illegitimately undermine the right to religious liberty; it would effectively amount to a fine on religious practice without any just compensation.

• (26) So the decision must be wrong.

5. Contra Epstein and the right to Religious Liberty

Epstein’s argument is, no doubt, attractive to some. But for me it highlights the untenability of the separate right (i.e. over-and-above the right to free speech) to religious liberty. I would spell this out as follows.

• (27) Secular law must not discriminate between different religious beliefs and practices (a more general version of the principle embodied in premise 12).

• (28) At least some religious beliefs and practices will clash with secular law (as proven by the BJU-case).

• (29) So in order not to discriminate between religions, the secular legal system would have to accept (perhaps even reward) practices that are contrary to its provisions.

• (30) This would undermine the secular legal system.

• (31) So the right to religious liberty undermines the secular legal system.

This argument strikes me as being sound, given the general theory that has been expounded here and given the specific arguments outlined above. We can see how it relates to Epstein's argument in the following diagram. It implicitly defeats Epstein's claim that the BJU-case was incorrectly decided.

One thing that is unclear is the implications of the argument contra Epstein. I would suggest that a further conclusion can be drawn from it:

• (32) There should not be a right to religious liberty.

But note that this conclusion does not follow from the argument as presented to this point. A further assumption, to the effect that secular law trumps religious rules, would be required for that. I would submit that this assumption is likely to be acceptable to most people living in pluralistic democracies. 

I would further submit that an argument in favour of this assumption is possible. That argument would highlight the impossibility of rational, intersubjective assent to a system of rules centred on supernatural, faith-based claims. And hence the impermissibility of including such rules among the baseline conditions of the state. To put this another way, it would argue that religion is contrary to the epistemology of the social contract theory outlined in part one.

But that argument would be complex and would have to fend-off many objections from evidentialist religious believers. I will not pursue it here since it is little more than a promissory note in my mind. I am content that the assumption will be attractive to most people.

One final issue must be confronted. Does the argument contra the right to religious liberty have disturbing consequences? Would it mandate extreme intolerance towards religious believers?

I would suggest that it does not. The argument simply removes a special right to religious liberty from the baseline of the liberal democratic state; it does not affect the other rights and entitlements included in that baseline. 

Religious believers could still profess and proclaim their beliefs (in accordance with the right to free speech). They could still engage in all practices that do not violate the harm principle. Religious organisations could even engage in discriminatory practices (in accordance with freedom of contract) provided they are not rewarded by the state for doing so.

So despite the dismissal of the right to religious liberty, things would not be too intolerable for the religious.

Religious Liberty and Tax Exemptions (Part 1)

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What is the correct legal position with respect to religious beliefs and practices in a liberal democracy? Should there be a right to religious liberty? Should religious organisations be granted tax exemptions? Should such exemptions be withheld if they engage in activities that are contrary to the laws of the land?

To non-believers and secularists like myself, the answers to these questions are straightforward: (i) religious beliefs and practices should be granted no special legal protections over-and-above those granted to other beliefs and practices of all citizens; (ii) there should be no tax exemptions for religious organisations; and, of course, (iii) religious organisations should not be rewarded (through tax exemptions or otherwise) for doing things that are contrary to the secular legal system.

These answers sound fine at a theoretical level. In practice, things are little more difficult. In practice, most liberal democracies do afford some special legal status to religious beliefs and practices (i.e. rights to free exercise and conscience). In practice, secularists would like to avoid excessive intolerance or oppression of religious believers. And so, in practice, convoluted balancing acts are undertaken.

In this brief series, I want to take a more in-depth look at some of the issues arising from the special status of religious belief and practice in liberal democracies. I do so by examining an argument from the libertarian legal theorist Richard Epstein relating to religious tax exemptions. I then use that argument as a springboard for questioning the law relating to religious liberty.

The series comes in two parts. In this first part, we develop a basic theoretical conception of the social contract and derive from it a principle for assessing governmental tax policy. In the second part, we will see how the application of this principle to cases involving tax exemptions for religious organisations highlights the implausibility of a robust right to religious liberty. 

1. Bargaining in General

Epstein’s argument concerning tax exemptions and religious liberty occurs in his book Bargaining with the State. The book develops a general theory of the social contract, and then applies that theory to a series of practical legal issues. Although I do not share Epstein’s libertarian sentiments, I do share his basic theoretical vision of the state. This vision is built on the notion of bargaining. This is something I have covered in detail in previous entries but I’ll summarise its essential elements here.

There are occasions on which two or more people can coordinate their activities and create a social surplus. In other words, they can gain more of something than they could if left to their own devices. But in order for this to take place, a bargain must be struck which determines the distribution of the surplus. 

Here’s an example, one of many which could be adduced. Suppose there are two people, A and B. Suppose A is the producer of some good X and that she values (perhaps due to production costs) X at $7. Suppose B is a potential consumer of X who would be willing to pay up to $15 for X.

Given these conditions, any negotiated exchange of X at a price between $7 and $15 would lead to the creation of a social surplus. Why so? Because A would get something more valuable to them than X, and B would get something more valuable to them than any cash-sum up to $15. The bounds of $7 and $15 represent the baselines or status quo over which the surplus is calculated. 

The bargain thus creates a larger pie of assets that is divided among the parties in different proportions.

2. The Creation of the State

The basic idea of the bargain can be used to build a theoretical model of the state. The picture is, roughly, the following: Rational actors left to fend for themselves without the option of cooperation could achieve a certain degree of personal welfare and security. This would be the “pie” or “surplus” that can be achieved in stateless society.

According to some classic theories, the size of the pie in the stateless society is exceptionally small. Thomas Hobbes, for example, argued that in the state of nature man’s life would be “nasty, poor, brutish and short”. He did so because he believed that without a state with a monopoly on the use of violence there is an unending state of war. The deeper reasons for this are explored in the diagram below (click to enlarge).

Whether Hobbes is right in his pessimism, most would agree that the creation of the state does, in general, enlarge the size of the pie (raise the baseline) compared to the stateless society. This enlarging of the pie would make it mutually advantageous (rationally acceptable) for people to agree to be bound by the regulations imposed by the state. In other words, it would be rational to negotiate a social contract that legitimates the state.

What kind of state would be required to enlarge the pie from what it is like in the state of nature? There are different suggestions. 

A libertarian like Epstein would argue that a very minimalistic state is all that is required. Such a state would have basic legal institutions, legal rules on freedom of contract and property, and some sort of police force and army. Hobbes himself argued that a maximal, authoritarian state (the Leviathan) was needed to lift us out of the war of all against all. The liberal democratic state probably falls somewhere between these extremes.

We do not need to engage with the arguments for and against these different possibilities. We assume that a liberal democratic state is required. This state comes with certain rights and entitlements including, usually, a right to freedom of speech and religion. It will also come with some sort of taxation policy because the state needs to raise revenue to perform its basic functions.

3. Bargaining with the State

Now we come to the crux of the issue. Once the state has been created, it becomes an agent in future bargains and negotiations with its citizens. This is because the situation arrived at after the implementation of the social contract is not some stable, unchangeable state of affairs. Changes in government policy could help to enlarge the size of the pie once again. 

If the government chooses to change its policies in order to enlarge the pie, it enters a new round of bargaining with its citizens. The citizens will be operating within the status quo (or baseline) that has been established by the social contract. Given that the working assumption is that government is the product of rational agreement, the government must ensure that its policy changes do not make people worse off than they are under the existing status quo. This requires just compensation for any losses suffered, and equal relative shares of the new surplus.

What are the implications of all this for changes in tax policy? Most forms of taxation are selective. That is to say, they target certain activities (e.g. work and consumption). But some forms are obviously more selective than others. For example, governments often impose higher taxes on the consumption of certain types of goods (alcohol or cigarettes). The same goes for policies relating to tax exemptions, e.g. exemptions for start-up companies but not established companies.

The crucial point here is that selective changes to tax policy, even if they do enlarge to social pie, necessarily involve the redistribution of assets from one group of citizens to another. This means that those changes constitute a deviation from the status quo. Any such changes must be rendered mutually advantageous by some form of just compensation and equal relative share of gains.

We will be considering examples in the next entry in the series.

4. How to Evaluate Tax Policy

There are a lot of ideas embedded in the preceding paragraphs. In the interests of clarity, we can restate them as a formal argument.

• (1) A legitimate government is one that is mutually advantageous for its citizens, i.e. it creates a social surplus and distributes it fairly.

• (2) Any change in government policy from the existing status quo must be assessed in terms of its ability to satisfy the requirements of mutual advantage (from 1).

• (3) One way to satisfy the requirements of mutual advantage is to ensure that there is just compensation for any losses suffered and equal relative shares of gains.

• (4) So changes in government policy from the existing status quo should be assessed in terms of just compensation and equal relative gain (from 2 and 3).

• (5) Selective changes in taxation are deviations from the status quo because they involve the redistribution of assets.

• (6) So selective changes in taxation must be assessed in terms of just compensation and equal relative gain (from 4 and 5).

This argument, working from a principle for legitimate government based on rational assent, gives us a principle with which we can assess the legitimacy of changes to tax policy given their impact on the status quo. We will put this principle into action in the next entry when looking at the topic of tax exemptions for religious organisations.

Surveillance and Moral Character: Kantian and Hobbesian Citizens

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Some variation from the norm today.

I occasionally read a magazine called Philosophy Now. It's actually quite good and I would recommend it to anyone as a repository of short, sometimes incisive, philosophy articles. In the most recent issue, one article in particular caught my eye. It was entitled "Does Surveillance make us Morally Better?" and it was by Emrys Westacott.

Why did this catch my eye? Well, I'm interested in how the design of social systems affects our capacity to be responsible people. (In this instance, I intend "responsible" to describe a positive character trait as opposed to a necessary precondition for punishment.) And the use of surveillance equipment is one of the things that could affect this capacity.

I also think that the paper deals with some concerns about moral character that are philosophically and intuitively appealing. It is an issue on which I am conflicted.

To begin with I'll introduce the basic debate and Westacott's take on it.

1. The Kantian and Hobbesian Citizen
Norms are the intangible infrastructure of society. A society is a network of interacting agents who develop certain standards of behaviour that they expect both themselves and others to adhere to. These standards are what we call norms.

Generally, we want people to comply with the norms, and there are two ways of getting them to do so. The first -- what we might call the Hobbesian way -- is to threaten them with violence or other punitive repercussions. The second -- what we might call the Kantian way -- is to get them to follow the norms because this is the right thing to do. Or, in a more Kantian guise, because this is constitutive of morally good practical rationality.

These two different methods of norm-compliance give rise to two different types of citizen. The Hobbesian citizen is the one who acts largely for prudential, self-regarding reasons; the Kantian citizen is the one who acts for moral or self-actualising reasons.

There are reasons for encouraging both methods of norm-compliance. On the one hand, the Hobbesian method might be more practical and might reduce the level of norm-defiance. On the other hand, the Kantian method might be thought to breed a morally superior and more self-fulfilled citizenry.

2. The Six Stages of Traffic Surveillance
Surveillance can obviously form an important part of a norm-compliance programme. In a previous post, I considered the role that divine surveillance might play in compliance. Westacott opts for a more mundane illustration involving six stages of traffic surveillance.

• Stage One: The state of nature -- it's every driver for himself. There are no rules. Life is nasty, brutish and depressingly short.
• Stage Two: The government introduces some rules dictating which side of the road you should drive on, as well as the maximum speed at which you should drive. The rules are widely ignored due to poor enforcement.
• Stage Three: Highway patrols are started and this limits some of the rule-breaking. But drivers are clever and find ways to avoid the police.
• Stage Four: More police, with radar technology, are put out on the roads. This increases the level of enforcement and speeding becomes imprudent. Still, some drivers learn where the "speed traps" are and use technology that disrupts the police radar.
• Stage Five: Police use speed cameras and satellite monitors. Detection and prosecution becomes automated. Speeding becomes a high cost endeavour.
• Stage Six: All cars are equipped with devices that can detect the speed limit for the road on which they are driving. The car's computer then puts an automatic cap on the speed at which the driver can travel. Near-perfect norm-compliance is achieved.

As we can see, surveillance equipment plays a vital role in the evolution from the state of lawlessness to the state of near-perfect compliance.

But in doing so, a Hobbesian method is prioritised over a Kantian method. People are encouraged to obey the law out of a fear of being caught, not out of a love for "doing the right thing". This may seem to diminish or degrade the rationality and humanity of the members of a society. And if surveillance becomes a pervasive and ever present phenomenon, it could seriously hinder our moral development.

Those, at least, are the concerns of the Kantian.

3. Why the Kantian Might be Wrong

Westacott identifies four reasons for dismissing the Kantian concerns. First, we might be inclined to think that the panopticon-society is an academic fiction: it'll never happen and the opportunities for moral development will never be completely eroded.

Second, we might think that the Kantian concern is based on an outmoded conception of humanity and morality. One that is grounded in Christian ideas of sinfulness and guilt.

Third, the saintly Kantian ideal might be pragmatically deficient. What matters is what people actually do, not how they think about what they do. This would seem to coincide somewhat with the liberal ideal of total freedom of thought and conscience tempered only by the harm principle.

Fourth, it might be that Kantians should embrace increased surveillance. For it is through increased surveillance that the Kantian fetish with duty is made to coincide with self-interest. So surveillance can foster the good habits that the Kantian demands.


4. The Continued Resonance of the Kantian Ideal
This last reason might seem to reconcile the Kantian and Hobbesian views. But Westacott is unconvinced. He asks us to imagine some scenarios. He thinks these scenarios show that the Kantian opposition to surveillance still resonates.

The first scenario involves two different universities. The first, called Scrutiny College, equips its examination rooms with the latest hi-tech surveillance equipment. It prides itself on catching and punishing cheats. The second, called Probity College, operates on a classic honour system. Students sign a pledge not to cheat and there is subsequently no surveillance or monitoring of their activities.

Two further scenarios are presented by Westacott. They are replications of the first but in different arenas. One deals with two different work environments. The other deals with two different parenting styles.

Westacott seems to think it obvious that we would prefer to attend Probity college, to work somewhere without constant surveillance, and to raise children who didn't need intrusive monitoring of their activities. Thus, we obviously still have a hankering for the Kantian ideal.

I'm not entirely sure that these thought experiments do the work Westacott wishes them to do. I'm particularly leery about the university one. I would personally prefer to attend and work at a university that does not tolerate cheating. Maybe this is because (a) I have spent too much time at university and (b) I have spent a some of that time studying game theory and this has taught me that a degree from a university with low standards sends a poor signal on the job market.


5. Different Classes of Relationship
In fairness, Westacott suggests that our attitude toward surveillance can vary depending on the type of relationship that exists between the surveyor and surveyed. He mentions four such relationships: parent-child, student-teacher, employer-employee, and state-citizen.

He thinks that surveillance is less problematic in the state-citizen and employer-employee context. However, he thinks it is problematic in the parent-child and student-teacher context. Why? Because it is within those relationships that the process of moral development really takes place.

For my part, I can understand the lure of the Kantian ideal. I like the idea of living life free from intrusion and surveillance, I like the ideal of personal responsibility, and I worry about excessive regulation and surveillance. Still, my pragmatic streak makes me lean toward the Hobbesian method when thinking -- as I do -- about how the law should be reformed and how social systems should be designed.

Thus, I would prefer if the reconciliation could be effected.

The Psychology of Norms (Part 4): Research Questions

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This post is part of my series How Society Works. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through an article by Sripada and Stich entitled "A Framework for the Psychology of Norms". No prizes for guessing what it is about.

In the first two parts I reviewed some of the data about normative behaviour. In Part 3, I presented Sripada and Stich's model for explaining the psychology of norms, and introduced some of the questions that should guide future research in this area.

In this final part I continue to look at these future research questions. Focusing in particular on the role of the emotions, explicit reasoning and cognitive biases in normative psychology.

1. The Emotions
Philosophical iconoclast David Hume once argued that the emotions had a significant role to play in normative judgement. Sripada and Stich think there is good evidence to suggest that the emotions play a part in generating punitive motivations.

Indeed, research in this area suggests that three phenomena are closely linked: (i) norm-violation; (ii) the experience of emotions such as contempt and disgust; and (iii) the desire to punish the elicitor of the emotion. (Sripada and Stich review some studies by Johnathan Haidt, Joshua Greene and others in support of this).

There is also some speculation to the effect that emotions play an important role in generating compliance motivations. However, Sripada and Stich note a lack of compelling evidence to support this conjecture.

These speculations about the role of the emotions necessitate some additions to the box-and-arrow model presented in Part 3. The arrows with the dotted lines indicate hypothetical links, the solid lines indicate links for which there is good evidence.

2. Explicit-Reasoning
An important question about normative psychology concerns the role of explicit reasoning in normative judgement. The classic Kohlbergian position maintains that people pass through a number of stages in moral development. The later stages of this development involve detached moral reasoning.

In this detached moral reasoning-stage, Kohlberg stresses the importance of "ideal perspective-taking". This refers to our ability to abstract away from personal circumstances to discover general normative principles. This is the type of thing that Rawls was trying to achieve with his original position and the veil of ignorance.

The actual role that detached moral reasoning plays in normative judgement and behaviour is unclear. Sripada and Stich think it is likely that detached reasoning is separate from the mechanism they have been outlining to this point. They argue that this would explain why rational awareness and revision of moral principles is often superficial and ineffective.

Studies by Jonathan Haidt support this contention. Using a technique called moral dumbfounding, Haidt presents subjects with scenarios that elicit strong moral disapproval despite not contravening rational moral principles.

This suggests yet another revision to the model under discussion.

3. Biases and Constraints

The final set of questions for future research relates to the role of biases and constraints in normative acquisition. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that biases feature in other psychological processes but does this carry over?

Sripada and Stich recommend that we begin with the Pac-man Hypothesis. This hypothesis maintains that people can acquire any and all types of norm. We then consider all the ways in which the Pac-man Hypothesis could be wrong.

The first way in which it could be wrong is if at least some norms are innate. This might be true if there were some norms that were shared by all cultures. However, this does not appear to be true: norms do cluster around common themes but there is wide variation and some exceptions.

The second way in which it could be wrong is if moral judgement is constrained by a set of innate principles and parameters. This is exactly what Marc Hauser argues.

The third and final way in which it could be wrong is if some norms are more cognitively attractive or if certain situations are more conducive to moral learning. For example, proponents of gene-culture coevolution, such as Boyd and Richerson, argue that we more readily acquire norms from certain individuals due to a suite of biases:

• Prestige Bias: we emulate those who are more prestigious.
• Age bias: we emulate those who are slightly older.
• Gender bias: we emulate those who are of the same gender.
• Conformity bias: we try to fit in.

There is some evidence for age and gender biases, and lots of evidence for prestige and conformity biases.

That brings us to the end of Sripada and Stich's article.

The Psychology of Norms (Part 3): Psychological Architecture

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This post is part of my series on How Society Works. For an index, see here.

I am currently working my way through an article by Sripada and Stich entitled "A Framework for the Psychology of Norms". The goal of the paper is to provide a framework for research into the cognitive underpinnings of normative behaviour.

In part 1 we reviewed some social level facts about norms. In part 2 we reviewed some individual level facts about norms. In this part we will look at Sripada and Stich's proposed model for the psychological architecture that supports these facts.

The model presented here is described by the authors as a "first pass". They add elements to it later in the article as they consider some open questions for future research. I'll introduce some of those questions at the end of this post.


1. The Psychological Model
The authors argues for a psychological model with two major mechanisms: (a) a norm-acquisition mechanism; and (b) a norm-implementation mechanism.

The norm-acquisition mechanism helps us to pick up on external behavioural cues in our cultural environment. From these cues it infers that a particular set of norms are in existence. The acquisition-mechanism starts to work at an early age and is involuntary in nature.

The implementation-mechanism maintains a database of norms and generates a set of intrinsic motivations to comply with those norms. It may also play a role in detecting norm-violation. More on this later.

The basic model is illustrated in box-and-arrow fashion below.

The authors argue that this model helps to explain the data reviewed earlier in the article, makes substantive claims about innateness, and provides a framework within which future research questions can be pursued.

2. Some Open Questions
In the remainder of the article, Sripada and Stich review some of these questions. I will look at the first three sets of questions here, leaving the remainder for Part 4 of this series.

a. Morality and Normative Psychology
One big set of questions relate to how moral norms are differentiated, if at all, from other norms. There is some evidence suggesting that people process and interpret moral norms in a distinctive way. This suggests that moral norms might constitute a distinct subset within the norm-database or even have their own unique, uncontaminated psychological system.

The authors speculate that since this question overlaps with metaphysics and semantics (metaethics) it is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

b. Proximal Cues
The next set of questions relates to the proximal cues that bring about norms acquisition. It could be that they are acquired in response to displays of punishment, but that seems unlikely given that children seem to acquire norms without exposure to such displays.

The psychologist James Blair suggested that norms are acquired when a parent's "sad faces" are paired with specific actions by a child. This was well-criticised by the philosopher Shaun Nichols.

It could also be that norms are at least partially acquired in response to verbal instructions.

c. Norm-Storage
The third set of questions relates to the storage of norms in the database. This touches on some long-standing debates in the philosophy of mind.

The classic position, associated with the work of Jerry Fodor, is that norms (like other mental concepts) are stored in sentence-like structures in the brain.

There are, however, a number of alternatives to this. According to exemplar theory, a cluster of cases that exemplify a norm are stored. When confronted with a normative decision, a person will search their database of exemplars and use similarity judgements to figure out what to do in the present context.

A question arises as to whether or not the entire database of norms is searched whenever a decision is made. This is unlikely. Recent cognitive and emotional history is apt to make certain exemplars more readily available to decision-making. Stich is himself a fan of this account.

Okay, that's it for Part 3. In Part 4 we will look at some additional research questions on the role of the emotions, explicit reasoning and cognitive biases in normative behaviour.

The Psychology of Norms (Part 2): Individual-Level Facts

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This post is part of my series on How Society Works. For an index, see here.

I am currently looking at an article by Sripada and Stich entitled "A Framework for the Psychology of Norms". The article does exactly what it says on the tin: it provides a framework for investigating the psychology of norms.

In Part 1, I covered the preliminary account of norms and listed some social-level facts about them. To review, norms are principles and rules determining appropriate conduct; they are a cultural universal; they cluster around common themes but have variable content; and there are almost always exceptions to the common themes.

In this part, we will look at some individual-level facts about norms. In other words, we will look at how it is that we become norm-following agents.


1. Norm Acquisition
The most obvious and most evidentially well-supported fact is that people, of all cultures and heritages, seem to acquire norms in a reliable and predictable fashion. Indeed, acquisition occurs relatively early in life. Several studies suggest that children have knowledge of normative rules between the ages of 3-5.

A major cross-cultural study by Henrich et al* focused on norms of cooperation and fairness. It was found that while these norms varied in their content, that content was relatively fixed in people's minds by the age of nine.



2. Motivational Effects
It is very clear that the acquisition of norms has a powerful effect on people's motivations. Classic economic rationality would suggest that people are only motivated to follow norms if there is some clear benefit to themselves. We would call this instrumental rationality.

Several lines of evidence suggest that people follow norms for intrinsic reasons. In other words, people are disposed to follow norms even when there is no obvious personal benefit from doing so. Despite this, it would be wrong to say that instrumental rationality is never a factor: human motivation is complex and it is possible that people act for both intrinsic and instrumental reasons as roughly the same time.

One crucial feature of norms is that they tend to encourage people to take an impartial view of their actions. By abstracting away from personal circumstances, norms try to force upon us unselfish modes of reasoning. David Hume was fond of making this point.

There are several lines of evidence supporting the intrinsic motivation hypothesis. Here is a sampling:

• Anthropology and sociology suggest that people internalise norms, i.e. they display a highly reliable lifelong pattern of compliance that is not dependent on overt coercion.
• Robert Frank, an economist, argues that several everyday behaviours, such as tipping at restaurants and returning lost property, are not plausible on the hypothesis of instrumental rationality.
• Daniel Batson's studies of helping behaviour suggest that people are motivated to secure the happiness of others as an end in itself and not merely as a means to their own happiness.
• Experimental economics has found that people follow fairness norms in one-off prisoners' dilemma-style cases. This is true even when they are told that the encounter will be anonymous.

3. Punishment
Perhaps the most convincing evidence for people's willingness to follow norms irrespective of the impact on personal or societal welfare comes from studies of the motivation to punish.

It is found that people are innate retributivists. They have a strong non-consequentialist desire to punish people who violate norms.

There are some complexities to take note of. First, motivations to punish do not always translate into behaviours, they can be suppressed or overridden by other concerns. Second, not every norm has a punishment associated with it.

The evidence supporting the intrinsic motivation to punish is multifarious. Here is a sample:

• Anthropological and sociological literature suggests that punitive emotions and punitive sanctions are common to all societies.
• Experimental economics has found that people will punish norm-violators even when it is costly to do so. For example, in public goods games (where the norm would be to pay into a common investment fund) people are willing to spend extra money to punish those who do not pay into the common investment fund.
• Other psychology experiments have found that mere observers are willing to punish people for norm-violation. This would seem to be a clear violation of self-regarding norm-compliance.

The results from experimental economics have been widely replicated, which suggests that the findings are robust.

Finally, it is worth noting that developmental psychologists have found that children systematically exhibit punitive attitudes towards those who violate rules without being taught to exhibit these attitudes. This might lend some support to those who see moral learning as analogous to language learning.

To conclude, human beings seem to have some innate cognitive structures that predispose them to the acquisition of norms. Once they acquire these norms, they seem to follow them in a predominantly intrinsic manner.

In the next part we will look at the hypothetical cognitive structures that might be responsible for all of this.

* Henrich, Boyd, Bowles, Camerer, Fehr and Gintis Foundations of Human Sociality (Oxford, University Press, 2001).

The Psychology of Norms (Part 1): Social-Level Facts

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This post is part of my series on How Society Works. For an index, see here.

I am going to kick things off by looking at the following article:

Chandra Sekhar Sripada & Stephen Stich "A Framework for the Psychology of Norms" in Carruthers, Laurence and Stich The Innate Mind (Vol. 2) Culture and Cognition (OUP, 2007).

Let's get straight to it.


1. Why do we need a framework?
Sripada and Stich begin their article by noting the importance of norms to the study of human sociality. Norms make social life possible, and they are frequently mentioned in the psychological literature. Nonetheless, there has been little systematic attention paid to norms in cognitive science. The goal of this article is to provide a systematic framework for the future investigation of normative systems.

The article is divided into five main sections. The first section offers a preliminary account of what a norm is; the second section sets out some social-level facts about norms; the third section sets out some individual-level facts about norms; the fourth section sketches the psychological framework that the authors promised; and the fifth section highlights some key questions for future research.

In this post we will cover sections 1 and 2 of the article.


2. What is a Norm?
A norm, according to Sripada and Stich, is a rule or principle that specifies which actions are required, permitted or forbidden. According to this definition, a norm does not owe its existence to any particular legal or social institution. Norms can and often do exist without institutional support.

Part of the reason for this has to do with relatively fixed psychological traits that we all seem to share. The picture is roughly the following:

• People pursue norms as ultimate ends, not merely as instrumental ends (although they can do this as well).
• Norm violation automatically engenders punitive attitudes like anger, condemnation and blame. These attitudes sometimes, but not always, lead to punitive behaviour.

These psychological traits seem to make normative systems self-sustaining. Think "invisible hand of the market" and you are on the right track. 

3. Social-Level Facts

With the preliminary account of norms under the belts, Sripada and Stich proceed to identify some social-level facts about norms. There are three of them.

The first fact is that norms are a cultural universal. Norms, and sanctions for norms are found in all societies and they govern practically all activities within a society. This suggests that there might be an innate basis for the acquisition and implementation of norms.

Although norms are a cultural universal, they display variable content. In other words, different acts are permitted or outlawed to different degrees, in different societies.

The variability is not indefinite. Indeed, certain types of norm pop up over-and-over again in the ethnographic literature. Sripada and Stich suggest the following as exemplars of this trend:

• Outlawing of incest and other restrictions on sexual activity.
• Outlawing of physical harm and killing.
• Some type of sharing (or equality) norm.

But within these general categories there is considerable variation.

Take the example of incest norms. Sripada and Stich note that every society has incest taboos of some sort but that these norms vary in terms of the sexual activities, and types of family relation to which they apply. 

Most societies have what is known as a core incest norm: all sexual intercourse between members of the nuclear family is forbidden. But societies also vary in how they extend that core norm. For example, in some tribal societies all marriages within the tribe are outlawed. The idea of variable content is illustrated below (note: the diagram is based on absolutely no data and is intended for illustrative purposes only).

This brings us to the final social-level fact about norms. Although norms cluster around general themes, there are usually exceptions to these general themes. Sticking with the example of incest, there is good evidence to suggest that brother-sister marriages have been tolerated in different times and places, e.g. in Egypt during the Roman period.

That's it for social-level facts. In Part 2 we'll cover individual-level facts about norms.