Stevens Blog Post "Lucky Number 13"

In her comments, Elizabeth Anderson expands on Sen’s suggestion that shared identities can build a rational basis for cooperation in collective action problems. If individuals regard themselves as members of a single collective agency, they will ask themselves “What should we do?” instead of “What should I do?”. As Anderson says, “Insofar as I identify with the group, my reason for acting is: to do my part in advancing what we are willing together.” (Anderson 30). While Anderson does not deny the validity of utility maximizing views, she claims that the guiding principles of rational choice will depend on a prior determination of identity.

 

Anderson’s argument for the importance of identity in facilitating cooperation aligns with many of the underlying principles of group evolutionary theory. Many evolutionary theories aim to explain why humans have uniquely evolved to cooperate in large groups with members. In Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, (my favorite book btw) he argues that our moral intuitions on harm, fairness, loyalty, sanctity, and others stem from an evolutionary need to cooperate in groups. For example: a coward may be more likely to survive a battle than his braver peers, but a tribe of cowards will likely lose out on resources to braver and stronger groups. The value of loyalty arose in our ancestors to solve this problem.

 

I, like Haidt, believe Anderson’s conception of identity is hard-wired into our brains; we need some form of group identity to give us meaning (though most of our interactions may well be with outsiders, so we still act as a selfish utility maximizing individual in many circumstances). Identity groups can provide strong benefits to members and create a social safety net for society. In Utah, for example, the LDS church provides a huge web of social connections that create a stronger society (for the most part---we’ll get to the downsides in a second). Many economists think that the presence of the Mormon church helps explain why Utah has the lowest income inequality of all fifty states.

 

The downside to group identification is that it often creates suspicion---sometimes antagonism---towards outsiders that go against the group values. Religion provides meaning to many people, but it also creates hatred towards many others. The Mormon church may create strong social bonds within its members, but it also oppresses LGBTQ+ individuals and members of other religious groups. Politics is another area in which group identification creates toxicity and fuels hatred. I do not think it is a coincidence that political polarization has increased at the same time as religious identification has decreased in the United States. Politics has become the new religion.

 

The best approach to this problem is to try and cast the widest net possible with group identification. The more members, the bigger the collective action problems your group can tackle. In the US, this would be best solved by the return of patriotism, a virtue severely lacking in our national politics today. Liberals seem to have given up on the concept, and conservatives only seem to like patriotism to the extent that they think liberals dislike it. The sentiment expressed in the saying “America does not need a national church, because America is the church” needs to make a comeback for our politics to heal.

The question of how to achieve Kant’s ultimate Kingdom of Ends described by Anderson remains a serious one; even Haidt has admitted that he is not sure universal love is even possible. How can we cast our group identity net wide enough to include all of society? The solution: space travel (don’t laugh). Earth is the one thing that unites all of humanity, and the reason NASA and other space agencies spend so much money is that exploration gives humanity something to strive for. This innate drive unites all of us. US astronaut Edgar Mitchell once remarked on looking back on Earth from the moon: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation… you want to grab a politician by the scruff of his neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles our and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’" We are all stuck on this damn rock, so we might as well learn to get along with each other.