''Sing if you're glad to be gay. Sing if you're happy that way": Modern Sexual Identity and an Interrogation of the 'It's biological!' argument

N.B. This article primarily concerns sexuality, so in most cases I mean ‘gay’ in the sense of alternate sexuality (e.g. LGBQQ etc). While the I and T in LGBTIQQ are very important, they fundamentally rest on different issues.

In 1976 when Tom Robinson sang 'Glad to be Gay', it was an intentionally provocative song about police brutality, anti-gay violence and the need for solidarity amongst gay men against broader social oppression. The gay community at the time was largely focused (as they had to be) on the legalisation of sodomy and stopping particular forms of anti-gay violence. As such, one of the arguments put forward for gay rights at the time was that being gay is/was 'found in nature' or 'genetic', a sort of born-with predisposition to homosexuality (or bisexuality etc.). This argument is trotted out time and again, generally not by activists formally but often enough in informal conversation that I decided to write out my strong objections to it.

I for one think this argument was at best useful for a particular purpose at a particular time and at worst is actively harmful to the cause. I am 'Glad to be Gay' for precisely the reason Tom Robinson puts forward implicitly- no matter what anyone else thinks, it is an important part of who I am, not some genetic disease. I want to discuss two controversies that to me demonstrate the absurdity of what I will call the 'biological determinism argument' (for sexuality and associated rights): the search for the 'gay gene' and an absurd controversy over penguins.

Personally, I'd like homosexual (also bisexual, pansexual etc) love and people of all sexualities broadly to be respected not because of any biological reason but because it is the decent human thing to do. I would like to note that it is almost definitely true that sexuality has a biological component (although along a spectrum and with role for social influences). I just don't think this is a good or relevant argument to the continued debate over social and legal rights.

'Sing if you're glad to be gay': The Curious Case of the Search for the Gay Gene

I should first note, scientists can search for what they like, I am not suggesting that any research into the genetic determinants of sexuality should be stopped (actually such papers are very interesting). What concerns me is the obsession in some quarters with stating that there is a ‘genetic predisposition to homosexuality’- yes, this is true but an unhelpful political argument.

The first reason for this is such research is easily used by opponents of gay rights against gay people- for instance when a National Organisation of Marriage (an American group opposed to gay marriage) board member said that “our scientific efforts in regard to homosexuality should be to identify genetic and uterine causes... so that the incidence of this dysfunction can be minimized”. This is particularly a problem when gay rights activists use language that predicates the idea of tolerance on acceptance of this biological argument. Now, this is not to argue that sexuality is so fluid that through some sort of conversion therapy that people would be able to change it. There is significant evidence that sexuality is partly genetically determined and that to an extent it is largely unchanged over a person’s adult life. Regardless, we should allow people to sexually identify how they like- whether that be gay or queer or pansexual or bisexual – because the meaning of the Sexual Revolution broadly was meant to be more freedom not consignment to a Foucault-style cage.

Secondly, this argument isn’t very persuasive prima facie and can even lead to divisions within the queer community. Saying that something is biological destiny isn’t a particularly good argument for legalising the behaviours, relationship and family structures etc. that are associated with that biological predisposition. Take for example, most of the paraphilias (the ‘atypical and extreme’ sexualities e.g. non-human objects or children) – there is some (though conflicting) evidence that such sexuality has a biological component and we should never, ever legalise the behaviour associated with such mindsets. This is particularly true because adults can rationally consent to homosexual acts. To do so would be to commit the naturalistic fallacy- that is to confuse what is biologically with what ought to be morally.

In a similar vein, the reason that homosexuality and bisexuality are socially valid and should be allowed legally is that there is no harm to anyone involved. Even if it were true that people chose to be gay (which I am not suggesting is true), it should still be true that we allowed people to sleep with their own gender and form relationships with their own gender if they wished because that love/those sexual acts are fundamentally not harmful and those acts/relationships bring utility to people. Further, the line of argument has even been turned at times on bisexual people to claim that they ‘just aren’t gay yet’ or are ‘self-hating’, which is to confuse sexuality (and romantic feelings) with an awful, narrow binary between heterosexuality and homosexuality.

But how did penguins become involved, you ask?

‘And Tango Makes Three’: How Two “Gay” Penguins became an Absurd Political Issue

Roy and Silo were two male Chinstrap Penguins at the Central Park Zoo, who in 1998 formed an all-male couple and were eventually given an egg to hatch together by zookeepers after they attempted to hatch a rock. Now, like all penguins they are pretty adorable- but they became mired in political controversy for two reasons: 1) there was a farcical debate between the Christian Right and the liberal Left about whether this situation was ‘moral’ and 2) a (very good) children’s book was made about the pair called And Tango Makes Three.

In the first instance, controversy erupted over whether the pair constituted evidence that homosexuality is found in nature. Now, calling penguins gay is queer in the very old sense of the term as odd, while animals may have homosexual sex (although there is no record of Roy & Silo doing this), this doesn’t make them any more gay than an otherwise heterosexual human male who has sex with a man once. Because animals don’t define themselves they by definition cannot be ‘gay’, merely they might form pairings of the same gender or have sexual relations with members of their own gender. It would be truly bizarre if homosexual behaviour had evolved in penguins and humans for the same reasons- it would more likely be a case of convergent evolution, where the same trait is acquired by different lineages (for example bats and pterosaurs both evolved wings for flying).

But this was nothing compared to the reactions when the couple split up and Silo found a female partner called Scrappy. Focus on the Family declared “for those who have pointed to Roy and Silo as models for us all, these developments must be disappointing. Some gay activists might actually be angry”. Luckily, the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce responded that the “actions of two penguins is not a good way of answering the question of whether sexual orientation is a choice or a birthright”—but to me this demonstrates the danger of this argument.

And then in 2005, Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson authored And Tango Makes Three, a children’s book based on the two birds (their chick was named Tango), which was intended to explain same-sex parenting to kids. The point here wasn’t that sexuality was found in nature, as both some pro- and anti-gay groups supposed, it was just a fun way to explain same-sex parenting to kids!

So, as this particular controversy demonstrates any nature-based arguments surrounding homosexuality are quite silly.

Conclusion

I believe that arguments for gay rights should solely focus on the necessity and utility of freedom for LGBTIQQ people rather than commit a naturalistic fallacy of discussing whether being queer is ‘natural’. Because I’m glad to be gay, whether I was genetically made this way or not. 

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Dan Gibbons is a third year Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) student at the University of Melbourne. He has a forthcoming publication in Intergraph: A Journal of Dialogic Anthropology (about memory and nationalism) and is currently submitting papers on the rise of modern consumerism, the role of criminology theory in literary criticism and the institutional theory of nationalism. Dan is a keen debater and public speaker.

'An unjust law is no law at all': Homophobia and QLD's Defence of Provocation

In 2008, when Wayne Ruks made sexual advances towards two men outside a church in Gympie, he was unaware that his actions would invoke a response that would cost him his life. The defence that was successfully relied upon to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter is known as the homosexual advance defence, which is a form of provocation.

In 2003, Tasmania abolished the defence of provocation for murder with Victoria doing the same in 2005. Although all other Australian jurisdictions still allow this defence, New South Wales and the Northern Territory have excluded non-violent sexual advances from this defence. The current law in Queensland is stated in section 304(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld):

“When a person who unlawfully kills another under circumstances which, but for the provisions of this section, would constitute murder, does the act which causes death in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation, and before there is time for the person’s passion to cool, the person is guilty of manslaughter only.”

Critics of the defence argue that it was relevant prior to the defence of manslaughter being introduced so that those accused could escape the previous punishment of the death penalty. This being the case, the question raised is whether or not this defence serves a purpose in modern criminal law and whether it’s application in cases such as Green v R (1997) is extending the definition too far.

The Reasonable Person

The general test that has been applied throughout common law (R v Sabri Isa [1952]) is that of the reasonable person. More specifically, what was the effect of the provoking actions, not on the individual but rather on a reasonable and objective person? Gibbs J extended this in Moffa v R (1977) to say that the reasonable person is not one who acts reasonably, but rather one who has reasonable powers of self-control. Basically, would an objective third party believe that it was reasonable for the accused to act in that manner?

The opposition to this is that it is impossible to create a model of reasonableness when it comes to provocation, as one must be able to view the characteristics of the accused in order to truly understand why they acted in the way that they did. Although it is reasonable to suggest that the characteristics of the accused be taken into account, a major issue that arises is does this defence protect people who are inherently violent and easily provoked? When someone is easily provoked due to any number of characteristics, the chances of this defence being used are increased. Additionally, it is very difficult to prove and understand how each individual person reacts to different actions. This then has a negative impact on the victim because their killer is given a lesser sentence due to the fact that they reacted to words or actions differently to what a reasonable person generally would.

Although the reasonable person test may go against the rights of the accused, the objective test is the most suitable test to apply due to the fact that it is generally consistent with the views of wider society.

The Homosexual Advance Defence

The homosexual advance defence is a form of provocation in that following a sexual advance; the accused loses control and kills the person who made the advance. Although being used in a handful of New South Wales cases previously (R v McKinnon (1993) and R v Bonner (1995)) the full extent of the homosexual advance defence was seen when it was upheld by the High Court in a 3:2 split in Green v R (1997). In this case, a close friend made a gentle advance (rubbing the groin and backside) towards the accused and this then evoked memories of sexual abuse that occurred between his father and sisters. Because of this, the accused lost control and repeatedly punched the victim’s face and then proceeded to smash his head against a wall causing large cuts on the victim’s head. As if this wasn’t enough, the accused then grabbed a nearby pair of scissors and stabbed him upwards of ten times. During this attack the victim was never able to defend himself. This attack was in no way proportional to the actions of the victim. This mans homophobia caused him to kill one of his friends, and then because of the reasons behind the death, he was able to reduce his charge. The most famous line from this case is when the accused said “yeah I killed him, but he did worse to me” and upon being asked why he killed him the response was “because he tried to root me.” 

On the issue of the reasonable person, McHugh J commented that in this instance it should be viewed as a reasonable person who was subjected to a sexual advance by a close friend that was aggravated by the attackers sensitivity to sexual assaults. From the dissenting view, Gummow J argued that as the acts of sexual abuse we towards his sisters rather than himself, the actions were insufficiently related to the actions of the deceased that caused the provocation. This then raises again the question of whether or not the characteristics of the accused should be taken into account. On this, the other dissenter, Kirby J argued that as a society, Australia is not that homophobic that the response to a non-violent advance would be to brutally murder the victim. Although there are members of society who are genuinely that homophobic, as a whole, most Australians would not see this as a proportionate response.

More recently, in 2008 two men outside a church in Gympie beat a man to death. As the man had made sexual advances towards them, they successfully used the homosexual advance defence. Following the attack outside his church, Father Paul Kelly began a petition to eliminate the gay panic defence from Queensland law. This petition as garnered much support much support including that of British comedian Stephen Fry. The growing public support against the defence shows as a society, views towards homosexuals have improved dramatically and the reasonable person test would not extend to this form of provocation.

Those who oppose the homosexual advance defence claim that it is only used to protect homophobes and there could not be a reasonable justification for allowing it. The defence of provocation is also available for charges of assault, and although the same issues apply, it is more reasonable to see how someone could lose control to the extent of assault. Because even though they have lost control, they still have the self-control to know when to stop, however this is still bad. When the homosexual advance defence is used, it has been in cases of non-violent sexual advances; it has not been in cases where the actions of the victim have been enough to incite a violent response. 

This then raises the question of, is it possible for someone to be so overcome with panic upon being ‘hit on’ that they lose control to the extent that the result of their actions is death? Although there are still many instances of homosexuals being attacked, it is mostly done out of pure homophobia as opposed to responding to sexual advances. It is difficult to say whether or not it is impossible for this level of panic to occur; however even if it is possible for an accused to legitimately lose control and beat someone to death because of homosexual advances, this is not something that society accepts as reasonable or acceptable behaviour. 

It was raised in the dissenting judgement of Green v R that the defence should be abolished “because it reinforces the notion that fear, revulsion or hostility are valid reactions to homosexual conduct.” When allowing a defence like this to exist, it sends the message that this type of reaction is acceptable and this is a contradiction of the views that are held by our modern society.

Kirby J raised one of the biggest arguments surrounding this defence in his dissenting judgement. It was put forward that this defence seems to only apply to homosexual advances as opposed to advances by heterosexuals. He argued that if a woman who had non-violent sexual advances made against her, tried to use provocation as a defence for murder, it would extend the definition of provocation would be unreasonably extended. If it is unreasonable to extend the definition of provocation to non-violent heterosexual advances then why do we continue to allow this defence to be used for homosexual advances? The fact of the matter is that provocation should extend to neither as it is extremely unreasonable that someone should be able to claim that they lost control of their actions when the supposed provoking actions were non-violent sexual advances.

What are the alternatives?

Although there are major problems with the provocation defence, some say that there are certain crimes where the defence should be allowed; such as domestic violence where the accused is reacting to violent situations. In response to this I still recommend that the defence of provocation for murder be removed however in addition to this, I suggest the, what some would call controversial, step be taken and the mandatory life sentence be removed from the charge of murder and allow for the judge to use his or her discretion when it comes to sentencing. In doing so it allows for judges to take into account mitigating factors but without reducing the sentence of murder to manslaughter. It is completely reasonable to charge this people with murder because even if they have ‘lost control’, when one viciously attacks a person to the point of death it is difficult to argue that they lacked the required intent to cause death or grievous bodily harm.

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Andrew Suffern is a 2nd year Law/Justice student at Queensland University of Technology. He previously took a year of Film, of which he retains a keen interest. He is particularly interested in questions of legal ethics, especially surrounding the death penalty debate in the US. He is a keen debater.

The "Fairness Instinct" and the Biosocial Contract by Peter Corning

It seems that fairness is an idea whose time has come.

True, some cynics view fairness as nothing more than a mask for self-interest.  As the playwright George Bernard Shaw put it, “The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.”  But the cynics are wrong.  One of the important findings of the emerging, multi-disciplinary science of human nature is that humans do, indeed, have an innate sense of fairness.  We regularly display a concern for others’ interests as well as our own, and we even show a willingness to punish perceived acts of unfairness.

The accumulating scientific evidence for this distinctive human trait, which is reviewed in my new book The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice, suggests that it has played an important role in our evolution as a species.  It has served to facilitate and lubricate the close-knit social organization that has been a key to our success as a species.

Among other things, the evidence for this trait includes anthropologist Donald Brown’s finding, reported in his landmark study, Human Universals, that altruism, reciprocity, and a concern for fairness are cultural universals.  Likewise, in the field of behavior genetics, many studies have documented that there is a genetic basis for traits that are strongly associated with fairness, including altruism, empathy and “nurturance.”

In the brain sciences, the experiments of Joshua Greene and his colleagues have identified specific brain areas associated with making moral choices.  Another team, headed by Alan Sanfey, pinpointed a brain area specifically associated with feelings of fairness and unfairness when subjects were participating in the so-called “ultimatum game” in his laboratory. 

There is also the extensive research by evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmedes and John Tooby and a number of their colleagues on what they term “social exchange” (or reciprocity) – which they point out exists in every culture.  Cosmedes and Tooby have concluded that humans possess a discreet “mental module” -- a dedicated neurocognitive system – for reciprocity behaviors.

In a similar vein, the work on “strong reciprocity theory” in experimental and behavioral economics has repeatedly demonstrated that even altruistic behaviors can be elicited in cooperative situations if there is a combination of strict reciprocity and punishment for defectors.

Finally, it has been shown that even some nonhuman primates display in a rudimentary form some of the traits associated with fairness behaviors in humans.  For instance, primatologist Frans de Waal, in a classic laboratory experiment, clearly demonstrated the existence of reciprocity behaviors in capuchin monkeys.

It seems evident that a sense of fairness is an inborn human trait.  It means, quite simply, that we are inclined to take into account and accommodate to the needs and interests of others.  However, it is equally clear that our sense of fairness is labile.  It can be subverted by various cultural, economic and political influences, not to mention the lure of our self-interests.  And, of course, there are always the “outliers” – the Bernie Madoffs.

In fact, our predisposition toward fairness, like every other biological trait, is subject to significant individual variation.  Numerous studies have indicated that some 25-30 percent of us are more or less “fairness challenged.” Some of us are so self-absorbed and egocentric that we are totally insensitive and even hostile to the needs of others.  Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” and the banker Henry F. Potter in Frank Capra’s timeless Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” were caricatures, of course, but many of us have seen likenesses in real life.

Thus fairness is not a given.  It’s an end that can only be approximated with consistent effort and often in the face of strong opposition.  And in the many cases where there are conflicting fairness claims, compromise is the indispensable solvent for achieving a voluntary, consensual outcome.

At the individual level, fairness is an issue in all of our personal relationships -- in our families, with our loved ones, with friends, and in the workplace. We are confronted almost every day with concerns about providing, or doing, a “fair share,” reciprocating for some kindness, recognizing the rights of other persons, being fairly acknowledged and rewarded for our efforts, and much more.

However, fairness is also an important, “macro-level” issue in our society, and the debate about what is often referred to as “social justice” can be traced back at least to Plato’s great dialogue, The Republic.  For Plato, social justice consists of “giving every man his due” (and every woman, of course).  His great student, Aristotle, characterized it as “proportionate equality.”  Plato also advanced the idea that every society entails a social “compact” – a tacit understanding about the rights and duties, and benefits and costs, of citizenship – and he viewed social justice as the key to achieving a stable and harmonious society.    

The idea that there is a more or less explicit “social contract” in every society is more commonly associated with the so-called social contract theorists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – such as Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke – and more recently, John Rawls.  Rousseau fantasized about free individuals voluntarily forming communities in which everyone was equal and all were subject to the “general will.”  Thomas Hobbes, in contrast, envisioned a natural state of anarchic violence and proposed, for the sake of mutual self-preservation, that everyone should be subject to the absolute “sovereign” authority of the state.  John Locke, on the other hand, rejected this dark Hobbesian vision.  He conjured instead a benign state of nature in which free individuals voluntarily formed a limited contract for their mutual advantage but retained various residual rights.

The philosopher David Hume, and many others since, have made a hash of this line of reasoning.  In a devastating critique, A Treatise of Human Nature (published in 1739-40), Hume rejected the claim that some deep property of the natural world (natural laws), or some aspect of our past history, could be used to justify moral precepts.  Among other things, Hume pointed out that even if the origins of human societies actually conformed to such hypothetical motivations and scenarios (which we now know they did not), we have no logical obligation to accept an outdated social contract that was entered into by some remote ancestor.

With the demise of the natural law argument, social contract theory has generally fallen into disfavor among philosophers, with the important exception of the work of John Rawls.  In his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice, Rawls’ formulation provoked a widespread reconsideration of what constitutes fairness and social justice and, equally important, what precepts would produce a just society.  Rawls proposed two complementary principles: (1) equality in the enjoyment of freedom (a concept fraught with complications), and (2) affirmative action, in effect, for “the least advantaged” among us.  This would be achieved by ensuring that the poor have equal opportunities and that they would receive a relatively larger share of any new wealth whenever the economic pie grows larger.  Although Rawls’ work has been exhaustively debated by philosophers and others over the years, it seems to have had no discernable effect outside of academia.

However, there is one other major exception to the general decline of social contract theory that is perhaps more significant.  Over the past two decades, a number of behavioral economists, game theorists, evolutionary psychologists and others have breathed new life into this venerable idea with a combination of rigorous, mathematically-based game theory models and empirical research.  Especially important is the work of the mathematician-turned-economist Ken Binmore, who has sought to use game theory as a tool for resuscitating social contract theory on a new footing.  In his 2005 book, Natural Justice, Binmore describes his approach as a “scientific theory of justice,” because it is based on an evolutionary/adaptive perspective, as well as the growing body of research in behavioral and experimental economics regarding our evolved sense of fairness plus some powerful insights from game theory.

Briefly, Binmore defines a social contract in very broad terms as any stable “coordination” of social behavior – like our conventions about which side of the road we should drive on or pedestrian traffic patterns on sidewalks.  Any sustained social interaction in what Binmore refers to as “the game of life” – say a marriage, a car pool, or a bowling league -- represents a tacit social contract if it is (1) stable, (2) efficient, and (3) fair.  To achieve a stable social contract, Binmore argues, a social relationship should strive for an equilibrium condition – an approximation of a Nash equilibrium in game theory.  The rewards or “payoffs” for each of the players should be optimized so that no one can improve on his or her own situation without exacting a destabilizing cost from the other cooperators.  Ideally, then, a social contract is self-enforcing.  As Binmore explains, it needs no social “glue” to hold it together because everyone is a willing participant and nobody has a better alternative.  It is like a masonry arch that requires no mortar (a simile first used by Hume).

The problem with this formulation – as Binmore recognizes -- is that it omits the radioactive core of the problem – how do you define fairness in substantive terms?  As Binmore concedes, game theory “has no substantive content…It isn’t our business to say what people ought to like.” Binmore rejects the very notion that there can be any universals where fairness is concerned.  “The idea of a need is particularly fuzzy,” he tells us.  In other words, Binmore’s version of a social contract involves an idealization, much like Plato’s republic, or free market (utopian) capitalism, or Karl Marx’s utopian socialism.  Fairness is whatever people say it is.

I have taken a different approach. What I call a “biosocial contract” is distinctive in that it is grounded in our growing understanding of human nature and the basic purpose of a human society.  It is focused on the content of fairness, and it encompasses a set of specific normative precepts.  In the game theory paradigm, the social contract is all about harmonizing our personal interactions.  Well and good.  But in a biosocial contract, the players include all of the stakeholders in the political community and substantive fairness is the focus. 

A biosocial contract is about the rights and duties of all of the stakeholders in society, both among themselves and in relation to the “state”.  It is about defining what constitutes a “fair society.”  It is a normative theory, but it is built on an empirical foundation.  I believe it is legitimate to do so in this case, because life itself has a built-in normative bias – a normative preference, so to speak.  We share with all other living things the biological imperatives associated with survival and reproduction.  If we do, after all, want to survive and reproduce – if this is our shared biological objective -- then certain principles of social intercourse follow as essential means to this end.

First and foremost, a biosocial contract requires a major shift in our social values.  The deep purpose of a human society is not, after all, about achieving growth, or wealth, or material affluence, or power, or social equality, or even about the pursuit of happiness.  An organized society is quintessentially a “collective survival enterprise.”  Whatever may be our perceptions, aspirations, or illusions (or for that matter, whatever our station in life), the basic problem for any society is to provide for the survival and reproductive needs of its members.  However, it is also important to recognize differences in merit and to reward them accordingly.  Finally, there must also be reciprocity -- an unequivocal commitment on the part of all of the participants to help support the survival enterprise, for no society can long exist on a diet of altruism.  Altruism is a means to a larger end, not an end in itself.  It is the emotional and normative basis of our safety-net.

As discussed at length in my book, a biosocial contract encompasses three distinct normative (and policy) precepts that must be bundled together and balanced in order to approximate the Platonic ideal of social justice.  These precepts are as follows:

(1)    Goods and services must be distributed to each according to his or her basic needs (in this, there must be equality);

(2)    Surpluses beyond the provisioning of our basic needs must be distributed  according to “merit” (there must also be equity);

(3)    In return, each of us is obligated to contribute to the collective survival enterprise proportionately in accordance with our ability (there must be reciprocity).

The first of these precepts involves a collective obligation to provide for the common needs of all of our people.  To borrow a term from the TV series Star Trek, this is our “prime directive.”  Although this precept may sound socialistic -- an echo of Karl Marx’s famous dictum -- it is at once far more specific and more limited.  It refers to the fourteen basic biological needs domains that are detailed in my book.  Our basic needs are not a vague, open-ended abstraction, nor a matter of personal preference.  They constitute a concrete but ultimately limited agenda, with measurable indicators for assessing outcomes.

These fourteen basic needs domains include a number of obvious items, like adequate nutrition, fresh water, physical safety, physical and mental health, and waste elimination, as well as some items that we may take for granted like thermoregulation (which may entail many different technologies, from clothing to heating oil and air conditioning), adequate sleep (about one-third of our lives), mobility, and even healthy respiration, which can’t always be assured.  Perhaps least obvious but most important are the requisites for reproduction and the nurturance of the next generation.  From this perspective, our basic needs cut a very broad swath through our economy and our society.

The idea that there is a “social right” to the necessities of life is not as radical as it may sound.  It is implicit in the Golden Rule, the great moral precept that is recognized by every major religion and culture.  Furthermore, numerous public opinion surveys over the years have consistently shown that people are far more willing to provide support for the genuinely needy than the Scrooges among us would lead one to believe.  (Some of these surveys are cited in my book.) 

Even more compelling, I believe, are the results of an extensive series of social experiments regarding distributive justice by political scientists Norman Frohlich and Joe Oppenheimer and their colleagues, as detailed in their 1992 book Choosing Justice.  What Frohlich and Oppenheimer set out to test was whether or not ad hoc groups of “impartial” decision-makers behind a Rawlsian “veil of ignorance” about their own personal stakes would be able to reach a consensus on how to distribute the income of a hypothetical society. Frohlich and Oppenheimer found that the experimental groups consistently opted for striking a balance between maximizing income (providing incentives and rewards for “the fruits of one’s labors,” in the authors’ words) and ensuring that there is an economic minimum for everyone (what they called a “floor constraint”). The overall results were stunning: 77.8 percent of the groups chose to assure a minimum income for basic needs. 

The results of these important experiments also lend strong support to the second of the three fairness precepts listed above concerning equity (or merit).  How can we also be fair-minded about rewarding our many individual differences in talents, performance, and achievement.  Merit, like the term fairness itself, has an elusive quality; it does not denote some absolute standard.  It is relational, and context-specific, and subject to all manner of cultural norms and practices.  But, in general, it implies that the rewards a person receives should be proportionate to his or her effort, or investment, or contribution. 

A crucial corollary of our first two precepts is that the collective survival enterprise has always been based on mutualism and reciprocity, with altruism being limited (typically) to special circumstances under a distinct moral claim -- what could be referred to as “no-fault needs.”  So, to close the loop, a third principle must be added to the biosocial contract, one that puts it squarely at odds with the utopian socialists, and perhaps even with some modern social democrats as well.   In any voluntary contractual arrangement, there is always reciprocity -- obligations or costs as well as benefits.  As I noted earlier, reciprocity is a deeply rooted part of our social psychology and an indispensable mechanism for balancing our relationships with one another.  Without reciprocity, the first two fairness precepts might look like nothing more than a one-way scheme for redistributing wealth.

As detailed in the book, a greater emphasis on reciprocity in our society would include such things as a more equitable tax code, higher taxes as necessary to support the basic needs of the 30 million (plus) Americans who suffer from extreme poverty, and a lifelong public service obligation beginning with a year of national service for everyone who is able to do so, or two years for those who receive special benefits like educational assistance.  

Some critics might object to such incursions on their freedom, but John Rawls’s definition of fairness under a social contract provides a definitive rebuttal, in my view:  “The main idea is that when a number of persons engage in a mutually advantageous cooperative venture according to rules, and thus restrict their liberty in ways necessary to yield advantages for all, those who have submitted to these restrictions have a right to a similar acquiescence on the part of those who have benefited from their submission.”   

To conclude then, what the biosocial contract adds to Plato’s great vision is the recognition that there are in fact three distinct categories, or types of substantive fairness and that these must be combined and balanced in appropriate ways.  The substantive content of social justice consists of providing for the basic needs of the population, along with equitably rewarding merit and insisting on reciprocity. The biosocial contract paradigm also enlists the growing power of modern evolutionary biology and the human sciences to shed light on the matter, and it identifies an explicit set of criteria for reconciling (if not harmonizing) the competing claims that have been promoted by political ideologues of the Left and the Right.

I believe that this framework offers our best hope for achieving and maintaining that elusive state of voluntary consent that is the key to a harmonious society – a Nash equilibrium writ large.  This is an ideal worth striving for, because our own survival, and more certainly that of our descendants, may well depend upon it.  As the great American public park designer Frederick Law Olmstead put it, “The rights of posterity take precedence over the desires of the present.”  Nothing less than our evolutionary future is at stake.

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Dr. Peter Corning is the Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems. He was Professor in the Interdisciplinary Human Biology Program at Stanford University and is the author of over 150 scientific articles and books, most recently “The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice” (University of Chicago Press 2011).