Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Hotheads 413tecture of the brain; it has been programmed in deliberately, because onlyif the passions are in control can they be credible guarantors.The doomsday-machine theory has been proposed independently bySchelling, Trivers, Daly and Wilson, the economist Jack Hirshleifer, andthe economist Robert Frank. Righteous anger, and the attendant thirstfor redress or vengeance, is a credible deterrent if it is uncontrollable andunresponsive to the deterrer's costs. Such compulsions, though useful inthe long run, can drive people to fight far out of proportion to the stakes.In 1982 Argentina annexed the British colony of the Falklands, desolateislands with virtually no economic or strategic importance. In earlierdecades it might have made sense for Britain to defend them as animmediate deterrent to anyone with designs on the rest of its empire, butat that point there was no empire left to defend. Frank points out that forwhat they spent to reclaim the islands, Britain could have given eachFalklander a Scottish castle and a lifetime pension. But most Britonswere proud that they stood up to the Argentinians. The same sense offairness makes us sue expensively for small amounts or seek a refund fora defective product despite red tape that costs us more in lost wages thanthe product was worth.The lust for revenge is a particularly terrifying emotion. All over theworld, relatives of the slain fantasize day and night about the bittersweetmoment when they might avenge a life with a life and find peace at last.The emotion strikes us as primitive and dreadful because we have contractedthe government to settle our scores for us. But in many societiesan irresistible thirst for vengeance is one's only protection against deadlyraids. Individuals may differ in the resolve with which they will suffercosts to carry out vengeance. Since that resolve is an effective deterrentonly if it is advertised, it is accompanied by the emotion traditionallyreferred to as honor: the desire to publicly avenge even minor trespassesand insults. The hair-trigger of honor and revenge can be tuned to thedegree of threat in the environment. Honor and vengeance are raised togodly virtues in societies that lie beyond the reach of law enforcement,such as remote horticulturalists and herders, the pioneers of the WildWest, street gangs, organized crime families, and entire nation-stateswhen dealing with one another (in which case the emotion is called"patriotism"). But even within a modern state society where it serves nopurpose, the emotion of vengeance cannot easily be turned off. Mostlegal theories, even from the highest-minded philosophers, acknowledgethat retribution is one of the legitimate goals of criminal punishment,