THE (NEURO-)BIOLOGY OF ALTRUISTIC PUNISHMENT A Philosophical Investigation of a Concept of Human Social Behavior

This paper deals with the experimental model of altruistic punishment and social norm enforcement which has been created in the research field of neuroeconomics recently. By use of this model, neurobiologists and economists investigate the close relationship between neurobiological mechanisms in the brain and specific patterns of human social behavior. They have experimentally shown that the implementation of a punishment tool in social interaction experiments gives empirical evidence for the great impact of nonselfish behavior on social group interaction and individual strategies of cooperation, competition and collective action. The interpretation of this evidence and their impact on social theory is critically questioned in this paper from a philosophical point of view.