If they give up 10, he gets 30. In the Cox experiment, even with elaborate anonymity procedures, subjects gave up a lot more money. In other words, subjects give more generously when they can get a bigger bang for their buck. You might think that s a pretty heartening result. But that s not what they re saying, and this isn t altruism.
Altruism means personally paying for the privilege of enriching a total stranger.
That s not what these people are doing at all. There s no sense in which that makes the world a richer place. And the subjects do all this without knowing anything at all about either stranger or having any reason to believe that one is more deserving than the other. It scares me to think I m living in the same world with these people. It s hard to imagine their motive, unless they just plain enjoy the capricious exercise of power, bestowing good fortune on some and bad fortune on others without any need for a rhyme or reason.