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Cooperation built the Tower of Babel

2007; Elsevier BV; Volume: 76; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.beproc.2007.01.013

1872-8308

Michael Taborsky,

Game Theory and Applications

According to the narrative in the genesis the Tower of Babelwasbuiltinacooperativeeffortbyaunitedhumanitytoreachtheheavens. God, disapproving this intention confused the tonguesof the builders and hindered further cooperation to completetheir aim.West et al. (2007) and Bergmuller et al. (2007)¨ strived to con-fuse our tongues and turn “cooperation” into a faux-pas word.You certainly know the feeling when the pen in your hand is notmoving as required because the word you intend to put down onpaperissonasty,scandalousorpoliticallyincorrectthatyoufearsomeone could suddenly peek over your shoulders and see thecondemnable? The rather innocent and hitherto positively feltterm“cooperation”isindangertomutatetosuchataboo.Westetal. (2007) “prefer that a behaviour is only classed as cooperationifthatbehaviourisselectedforbecauseofitsbeneficialeffectonthe recipient.” Bergmuller et al. (2007)¨ go further and proposethat a distinction should be made between the words “coopera-tion”,whichshouldintheirviewdenote“aninteractionbetweenindividuals that results in net benefits for all of the individualsinvolved” from “cooperative behaviour”, which they define “asan act performed by one individual that increases the fitness ofanother”, allowing to have either a direct positive or negativeeffect on the actor’s fitness. This means that “cooperative inter-action” and “cooperative action” has no similar meaning anymore—in the first case, fitness consequences need to be pos-itive to both parties, while in the second case only one partyneeds to benefit while the other one can be subject to any fitnessconsequences, including none.Now, when your 3-year-old daughter is helping you doingthe dishes, this cannot be called cooperation any more. Itcannot be called a “cooperative behaviour” or “help” either,because ultimately, her well-intended behaviour will probablynot affect the recipient (and perhaps also the donor) in anypositive way. Poor little thing, how can we call her behaviourthen? Byproduct-pseudo-mutualism, or – more simply – spite?