守法行为中的公平偏好:基于实验经济学的启示

The Fairness Preference of Law-abiding Behavior: Based on the Enlightenment of Experimental Economics

法律是一种公共品,其供给过程显示出短期个人利益与长期集体利益相冲突的社会困境。守法作为供给法律这种公共品的个体行为,不能完全依赖于公民的自利动机,因为自利动机在激励守法上容易出现"动机拥挤效应"。人类有着超越自利动机之外的公平偏好,这种公平偏好体现为对不平等的情感厌恶,经济学中的最后通牒博弈实验与独裁者博弈实验均直观地证明了公平偏好的存在。人们从公共品博弈实验和公共池塘资源博弈实验中可以发现,人类的行为会超出自利动机的范围,这体现为人们对互惠公平的追求,即如果他人增加对公共品的贡献,那么,我们也会倾向于增加自己的贡献。公平偏好是一种非理性情感,它表现为,人们为了实现公平,宁愿放弃可得利益,而采取一种"玉石俱焚"的非理性策略。公平偏好也存在于法律秩序建构这种大型的公共品博弈当中。在很多情况下,人们之所以守法不是出于对守法成本和收益的理性计算,而是出于对其他人也都在平等守法的期待和信任。

Law is a kind of public goods, and its supply process shows the social dilemma of the conflict between short-term individual interests and long-term collective interests. As the individual behavior of legal supply, the law-abiding cannot completely rely on the self-interest motive of citizens, which is prone to"the crowding effect of motive"in inspiring law-abiding conduct. Human beings have a preference for fairness beyond self-interest. The ultimatum game experiment and dictator game experiment in economics have proved this point intuitively, which is manifested in the aversion to inequality. In the public goods game experiment or the public pool resource game experiment with multiple participants, human behavior also goes beyond the scope of self-interest motive and is reflected in the pursuit of reciprocity and fairness. In other words, if the contribution of others to the public goods increases, we will tend to increase our own contribution. Fairness preference is an irrational emotion. In order to achieve fairness, people would rather give up the available interests and adopt an irrational strategy of"burning the coals with the golden stone". Fairness preference also exists in the large-scale public goods game like legal order construction. In many cases, people obey the law not out of rational calculation of the cost and benefit of obeying the law, but out of expectation and trust that others are equally obeying the law.