ABSTRACT
Egalitarians defend their programs on moral and empirical grounds that many, even among the less well off, find uncompelling. Egalitarian policymaking, no less than the grand projects of constitutional design, risks irrelevance if policymakers ignore the irreducible heterogeneity of human motivations. The strong reciprocity of Homo reciprocans goes considerably beyond those cooperative behaviors that can be fully accounted for in terms of the self-regarding, outcome oriented motives that are the defining characteristics of Homo economicus. An impressive body of experimental evidence, much of it deployed in the first instance to validate the model of the selfish purveyor of market rationality, Homo economicus, in fact has served to undermine this model. The model of Homo reciprocans supports our optimism concerning the political viability of egalitarian policies. Egalitarians have been successful in appealing to the more elevated human motives precisely when they have shown that dominant institutions violate norms of reciprocity, and may be replaced by institutions more consistent with these norms.
