An Economic Analysis To Morality's Origin, Evolution And Function

Economic activity is the foundation of human social activities.As social consciousness of morality can also from the foundation. Economists have never neglect of morality. Economics foremother Adam Smith was published the《The Theory of Moral Sentiments》before he wrote the《An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations》. After Smith,many famous economists such as Mises, Hayek, Becker, Sen had reached the moral problems deeply and effectively. The earliest economics research usually put moral as a variable, the moral is given hypothesis Economists do economic analysis under the given moral level. This method was similar to the method that the economists treat the institution earlier. However, with the theory of economics and related disciplines theory development, we will found that if the moral just as exogenous variables, then many humans irrational behavior is difficult to explain.Later, with the development of the behavioral economics, experiments with economic principles and Neuroeconomics, morality and economics research tends to be a interdisciplinary paradigm.Economists more and more used biological, brain science and social psychology knowledge for moral research..Today, the research on moral economics has been very comprehensive and thorough.Moral originated from human cooperation.The paper discusses the moral which with cooperation,because those groups that appear the immoral behaviour was at a disadvantage in the evolutionary process. Finally by natural selection,they would be eliminated. So the moral-system without cooperation for this research has no meaning. The earliest cooperation in human society,The conclusion is given by paleoanthropologists,they thought that environmental degradation caused the cooperation. This kind of cooperation mode is a passive mode, which is under the pressure of human survival and cooperation.In two million years ago, earth began to enter the glacial epoch, abundant,food and resources became shortage. The human ancestors appear the survive crisis for the four feet simian.Part of four feet simian run down from the tree, and then they became the two feet simian.The two feet simian at a disadvantage on body force and childbearing,but they did not extinction. Instead, the two feet simian eventually became our really ancestors.Because of they have a great advantage:the plain face.This makes them easier to co-operate. And the Cooperation surplus make them a genetic advantage in their evolutionary process. In these cooperation tribe, tribal internal formed many behavior criterion which by nature of cooperation. This will include the fairness and equality in original social period. While these criteria for a long time in a community, the group members will gradually make the criterion to their preference. When a certain proportion of the tribes formed individual moral preferences,then these standards will be external moral standards in the tribe.So we can see that almost all of tribe have the fair and equal ethics in the period of primitive society. This process is the origin of moral.Moral evolution can be seen as an informal institutional change, when we analysed the evolutionary path of moral, we will encounter a problem:in a gorup,thees one who was moral will be at a disadvantage,and the immoral one will be at a advantage. So,how the moral one can continue to be evolution? The Santa Fe Institute use ESS(stability of biological evolution strategy) to solve the problem. They use a game model to get the conclusion:When the proportion of moral and immoral people in a group reach a certain threshold ratio, this structure of the group will be stable in the proportion. That is to say that the ESS of the people in the group is stable in the proportion of moral and immoral to make decisions. Religion and law are the certain stage of the morality evolution. They are appeared with the development of society. They maintain a cooperative order. In a modern society, morality and religious and legal common maintains a social order of cooperation.Professor Gintis use the most simple mathematical model to reveals another important conclusions,it was called "sociology basic theorems".It said that if a society without do moralizing,then in the long-term, the society will be completely collapse. This theory is particularly useful for our society. China today is in a big change times, various trends of thought strike our traditional culture and traditional morality. In the construction of market economy in China also appeared many immoral behaviors. This led to China's market economy system is hard to play all the function of allocation of resources. Therefore, China also needs to strengthen moral construction, For our economic development to construct a good moral environment.There is only so, our economic development will achieve a new height and speed.