Moral norms in a partly compliant society

The article investigates social interaction among individuals who differ in their privately known motivation to comply with moral norms that are collectively rational in the sense that they maximize welfare given the distribution of moral motivation in the society. This yields tractable models of rule-consequentialism that can be tested with experimental data. The analysis focuses on two welfare principles: utilitarianism and complier optimality. The latter puts explicit welfare weight only on the type with the highest moral motivation. Already a simple model with two types is in line with a wide range of experimental stylized facts, like conditional cooperation, costly punishment, the role of intentions, or concerns for social efficiency.