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Comment by j_baker | Hacker News Reader

Human beings are irrational and sometimes do things that aren't in their economic best interest out of principle or ethics. Think about it: if I murder somebody, then offer you $100 not to tell anyone, would you take the money? I certainly hope not.

And yet, from a strictly economic perspective, that's a fundamentally terrible decision. Not only will you lose $100, but you'd lose tons of time you could be working talking to the police, testifying in court, etc.

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It seems that no one has mentioned that the effect of relative wealth might be severe also from a rationality point of view. In a more primitive environment, if your neighbor becomes too powerful, he might enslave or even kill you, so better keep him in his place.

Similarly, if you take the $100 and are silent, and protect the killer, you risk severe punishment if you are caught. Even if I agree that the decision is made based on moral conscience for most people rather than economic calculation (which might be the case for sociopaths), there is a rational basis for this. Fundamentally, to make sure that I don't get murdered myself by the murderer later, I better not comply with him, as he is proven to be ruthless. In addition, because other people are moral beings as well, $100 is a very small compensation for risking jail and being shunned for the rest of your life, a very bad economic decision.

    > Human beings are irrational and sometimes do things that
    > aren't in their economic best interest out of principle
    > or ethics.

Humans might be irrational sometimes, but this isn't one of those times. "Rationality" has no meaning outside of the context of a goal . . . the sentence I quoted makes it seem like you're saying people should only care about their economic (do you mean financial/material?) interests.

You also said

    > Think about it: if I murder somebody, then offer you $100
    > not to tell anyone, would you take the money? I certainly
    > hope not.

so it does seem you aren't actually suggesting that.

Talking about these things from a strictly economic perspective is always tricky, because it assumes that the economic value of things like morals and ethics are zero.

I think the problem is that it's somewhat difficult to set a monetary value on the value of abstract concepts such as morals and ethics more than anything else.

Either way, it sounds like we agree that there's a social contract that may cause individuals to act in a manner that isn't immediately economically advantageous.

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