Throughout human history, a number of commitment gadgets have
helped solve such problems. In our modern conditions, for instance, a
travel agent could very well take people's money and sell them bogus
tickets, but travel agents set up associations that would immediately
expel any member convicted of having done that. Wherever such an
association exists any agent who is not a member will fall under suspi-
cion and will lose trade. Such legal gadgets are widespread and have
been around for a long time. What they do is paradoxical: they restrict
your freedom of movement in order to make exchange possible. In
other words, a good way to show commitment to honest cooperation
is to put yourself in a situation where you are actually forced to honor [185]
that commitment. You signal your honesty by tying your own hands.^12
Legal binds and reputation maintenance are not the only commit-
ment gadgets. In many situations, as Robert Frank suggests, passions
will do the trick too. Consider another commitment problem. I am a
shopkeeper, you are a sales assistant. If you steal from the till I will fire
you and sue you. This is the standard way of deterring cheaters:
threaten them with a punishment that would make cheating very
costly whatever the potential benefits. However, punishment too has
its costs. I might end up spending vast amounts of money on legal fees.
If I am strictly opportunistic, I will avoid that, so even if you are
caught I will not sue. So my threat is effectively empty. But now imag-
ine that discovering a thief among my staff is known to put me in such
a rage that I will do anything to harm the miscreant at whatever cost.
Everyone around me knows that. In this case I am pushed by a passion
that I cannot control and that does not, apparently, work completely
to my advantage. But the very fact that I cannot control myself
changes the situation. My threat is now much more credible. I will sue
not because it is to my advantage—it is not—but because I just cannot
help it. So to be known as someone who is actually in the grip of such
passionate feelings is a very good thing as long as they are, precisely,
feelings that override rational calculations.
This may explain passionate resentment; but what about other
moral feelings, and especially a disposition toward honesty? Again,
consider the problems faced by a species wherein cooperation is cru-
cial, where you have to demonstrate reliability to find cooperators.
The problem is that being reliable is costly. We are often told that the
straight and narrow is not the easy path and that is true. There is a
price to pay: all these tills left unopened, all these friends' wallets left
WHYDOGODS ANDSPIRITSMATTER?