Origins of Unfairness

Social Categories and Cultural Evolution
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-0-19-878997-0
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 139 mm x 223 mm, Gewicht: 429 g

In almost every human society some people get more and others get less. Why is inequity the rule in these societies? In The Origins of Unfairness, philosopher Cailin O'Connor firstly considers how groups are divided into social categories, like gender, race, and religion, to address this question. She uses the formal frameworks of game theory and evolutionary game theory to explore the cultural evolution of the conventions which piggyback on these seemingly irrelevant social categories. These frameworks elucidate a variety of topics from the innateness of gender differences, to collaboration in academia, to household bargaining, to minority disadvantage, to homophily. They help to show how inequity can emerge from simple processes of cultural change in groups with gender and racial categories, and under a wide array of situations. The process of learning conventions of coordination and resource division is such that some groups will tend to get more and others less. O'Connor offers solutions to such problems of coordination and resource division and also shows why we need to think of inequity as part of an ever evolving process. Surprisingly minimal conditions are needed to robustly produce phenomena related to inequity and, once inequity emerges in these models, it takes very little for it to persist indefinitely. Thus, those concerned with social justice must remain vigilant against the dynamic forces that push towards inequity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

O'Connor, Cailin

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gewalt und Diskriminierung: Soziale Aspekte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Sozialpsychologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Verhaltensökonomik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- Part I: The Evolution of Inequity Through Social Coordination

- 1: Gender, Coordination Problems, and Coordination Games

- 2: Social Categories, Coordination, and Inequity

- 3: Cultural Evolution with Social Categories

- 4: The Evolution of Gender

- Part II: The Evolution of Inequity Through Division of Resources

- 5: Power and the Evolution of Inequity

- 6: The Cultural Red Queen and the Cultural Red King

- 7: Discrimination and Homophily

- 8: The Evolution of Household Bargaining

- 9: Evolution and Revolution

- 10: Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Cailin O'Connor is an Associate Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and a member of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science at the University of California, Irvine. She is a philosopher of science and evolutionary game theorist. O'Connor engages in both theoretical and experimental work on topics ranging from scientific communities, to false beliefs, to moral emotions, to signalling. She is the co-author of The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread (Yale 2019, with James Owen Weatherall)