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7 - Delegating Punishment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2014

Morris B. Hoffman
Morris B. Hoffman
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Boulder
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Summary

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

Groucho Marx

Consensus Decisions: Bees, Monkeys, Judges, and Jurors

Widespread third-party punishment may be rare or even nonexistent in nonhumans, but it turns out that the problem of third-party punishment is just a special case of the much more general problem of collective action, a problem that faces every group of social animals. Some decisions, by their very nature, will apply to the entire group as long as it remains an entire group, and will therefore require some mechanism for deciding what the group as a whole will do. Examples include where insects build their hives, where flocks of birds go to forage, and where troupes of chimpanzees stop to sleep for the night. Somehow, these decisions need to get made for the entire group. Nothing removes the benefits of group living faster or more fundamentally than getting left behind.

Type
Chapter
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The Punisher's Brain
The Evolution of Judge and Jury
 , pp. 217 - 250
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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  • Delegating Punishment
  • Morris B. Hoffman, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: The Punisher's Brain
  • Online publication: 05 May 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139811873.008
Available formats
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  • Delegating Punishment
  • Morris B. Hoffman, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: The Punisher's Brain
  • Online publication: 05 May 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139811873.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Delegating Punishment
  • Morris B. Hoffman, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: The Punisher's Brain
  • Online publication: 05 May 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139811873.008
Available formats
×