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Reciprocity - Bthical norms and practical cooperation.This is a summary of the core paper. In addition to this paper thereare four separate papers that focus on different questions that are partsof the larger project. The care paper concludes the dissertation as awhole.Chapter 1The main interest of the dissertation is the ethics ofreciprocity. Thetwo main rivals to reciprocity are the ethics of integrity and the ethicsof altruism. The comparison is penetrated from a foundation based inthree disciplines: ethics, sociobiology and game experiments. Theambition is to make contributions with regard to the following threeissues.1/ A theoretical development of the ethics of reciprocity. The mainparts of this contribution are the three articles following this corepaper. The first article discusses the concept indirect reciprocity. Thesecond article penetrates the strength and weaknesses of thearguments against ethical egoism. The third article discusses theimportance of compliance and the necessity of incitements for anethics with serious ambitions. In the core paper there are furthercontributions such as discussions of the relation between reciprocityand the lex talionis (the rule 'an eye for an eye ... ' ) and thecomparability between reciprocity and the golden rule. One task is toclarify and systematize the boundaries between the three ethicalspheres. A second task is to expand the questions of ethics from mereopinions on desired behavior to possibilities and effects of itsimplementation. This is essentiaI since implementation considerationsshould influence the choice of ethical rules.2/ An empirical investigation of the connection between behavior andethical norms. Ethics should be manifested in behavior rather thanjust statements of non-revealed preferences. This empirical effort isdescribed in the fourth article in the dissertation ' Ethical norms andbehavior in an economie experiment'.3/ A discussion about the criteria to use in the judgment of norms.According to which standard are different ethical suggestions to beconsidered better or worse than other normative alternatives? Amodel for such an evaluation is suggested in chapter 3 of the corepaper.5