Motivation

Gintis Reflections

First – to those who went to the Gintis talk yesterday (I had to leave early, so perhaps you have some insight into this), was anybody troubled by his appeal to civic virtue that as of an hour into his talk went unfulfilled?

He began his talk by appealing to Aristotelian notions of civic virtue, but the most he seemed to be saying about it is that political institutions need to assume that people have it – in some as yet to be defined form. Was this virtue tied in at the end to his studies on social reciprocity? Did he go any further than suggesting, as he seemed to be at the beginning, that “liberal” political institutions should expect more of their citizens? I would like to see what mechanisms he proposes for drawing out these virtues.

This sort of model fits in nicely with the current presidential campaign with Obama camp working to style him as the new JFK, as someone who will motivate others to participation through “ask what you can do for your country”-esque rhetoric. But policy-wise, what does this mean for the practice of government, and can we cultivate “civic virtue” (or some subset of virtues) that are generally applicable to all without being stereotypically deterministic by group? Aristotle had the virtues of slaves, women, non-citizens, and citizens as separate things all working toward a common good life. I doubt that would fly with American ideals in 2008.

Money
I enjoyed the explanation Knutson gives for why they used money as an incentive; it’s compelling, scalable, and reversible. That may have been self-evident in the other studies we have read, but I like that they took the time to explain the assumption.