After the Fall

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Daniel Batson
Keyword(s):  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types

Like Milton’s couple at the end of Paradise Lost, we find ourselves banished from the Eden of Egoism and needing to reassess what it means to be human. Evidence for empathy-induced altruism, including two prisoner’s dilemma experiments described here, challenges the parsimonious assumption that we only want to maximize self-interest (egoism). And, the world outside Eden is even more challenging because, in addition to egoism and altruism, two more motives must be considered: collectivism (concern for the welfare of a group) and principlism (concern to uphold some moral principle, standard, or ideal). These four types of motivation sometimes conflict, sometimes cooperate. One way to promote a more just and caring society may be to orchestrate motives of different types so that the strengths of one type can overcome the weaknesses of another. Combining an appeal to empathy-induced altruism with an appeal to principle seems especially promising. Examples of such orchestration are provided.

scholarly journals SATO–CRUTCHFIELD FORMULATION FOR SOME EVOLUTIONARY GAMES

2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (07) ◽  
pp. 963-971 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. AHMED ◽  
A. S. HEGAZI ◽  
A. S. ELGAZZAR
Keyword(s):  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Evolutionarily Stable Strategy ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Evolutionary Games ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Battle Of The Sexes ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Evolutionarily Stable ◽  
Rules Of The Game

The Sato–Crutchfield equations are analytically and numerically studied. The Sato–Crutchfield formulation corresponds to losing memory. Then the Sato–Crutchfield formulation is applied for some different types of games including hawk–dove, prisoner's dilemma and the battle of the sexes games. The Sato–Crutchfield formulation is found not to affect the evolutionarily stable strategy of the ordinary games. But choosing a strategy becomes purely random, independent of the previous experiences, initial conditions, and the rules of the game itself. The Sato–Crutchfield formulation for the prisoner's dilemma game can be considered as a theoretical explanation for the existence of cooperation in a population of defectors.

The Effect of Incentives: The Value of Reputation

2021 ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan ◽  
William English ◽  
John Hasnas ◽  
Peter Jaworski
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Reputation Effects

It is useful to model the temptation to act wrongly using the prisoner’s dilemma, one of the most important games in game theory. The prisoner’s dilemma appears to show that the pursuit of self-interest can paradoxically lead to situations in which everyone makes choices they know will undermine their self-interest. However, introducing the possibility of repeated, self-sorting prisoner’s dilemmas with reputation effects reveals something important about the connection between self-interest and morality: We have strong incentives not to cheat because in the long run, we do best by developing the reputation for being honest. However, unfortunately, this also introduces an incentive to exaggerate our moral goodness and to engage in moral grandstanding.

THE MORAL BASIS OF PROSPERITY AND OPPRESSION: ALTRUISM, OTHER-REGARDING BEHAVIOUR AND IDENTITY

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaushik Basu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Collective Interest ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Other Regarding

Much of economics is built on the assumption that individuals are driven by self-interest and economic development is an outcome of the free play of such individuals. On the few occasions that the existence of altruism is recognized in economics, the tendency is to build this from the axiom of individual selfishness. The aim of this paper is to break from this tradition and to treat as a primitive that individuals are endowed with the ‘cooperative spirit’, which allows them to work in their collective interest, even when that may not be in their self-interest. The paper tracks the interface between altruism and group identity. By using the basic structure of a Prisoner's Dilemma game among randomly picked individuals and building into it assumptions of general or in-group altruism, the paper demonstrates how our selfish rationality interacts with our innate sense of cooperation. The model is used to outline circumstances under which cooperation will occur and circumstances where it will break down. The paper also studies how sub-groups of a society can form cooperative blocks, whether to simply do better for themselves or exploit others.

scholarly journals Me, Myself, And You? National Self Interest, Global Social Concern, And The Role Of The WTO In International Trade Policy

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynda D. Vargha
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Social Concern ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Self Interest

This paper presents a teaching method that meshes the theoretical foundation of the prisoner’s dilemma with a student centered problem-solving approach to address the roles of national self-interest and global social concern in the making of trade policy through the WTO.  The in-class activities introduce the student to the underlying incentive structure of the prisoner’s dilemma and require each student to weigh self-interest and group well-being in his/her decision-making process as a member nation of the WTO.  Through these exercises, students discover the importance of international agreements and the need for a binding set of rules and enforcement mechanisms governing global trade.  In addition, these activities are an effective springboard for a discussion of national sovereignty and the expanding role of the WTO.

scholarly journals National parochialism is ubiquitous across 42 nations around the world

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Romano ◽  
Matthias Sutter ◽  
James H. Liu ◽  
Toshio Yamagishi ◽  
Daniel Balliet
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Similar Degree ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The World ◽  
Ingroup Outgroup

AbstractCooperation within and across borders is of paramount importance for the provision of public goods. Parochialism – the tendency to cooperate more with ingroup than outgroup members – limits contributions to global public goods. National parochialism (i.e., greater cooperation among members of the same nation) could vary across nations and has been hypothesized to be associated with rule of law, exposure to world religions, relational mobility and pathogen stress. We conduct an experiment in participants from 42 nations (N = 18,411), and observe cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma with ingroup, outgroup, and unidentified partners. We observe that national parochialism is a ubiquitous phenomenon: it is present to a similar degree across the nations studied here, is independent of cultural distance, and occurs both when decisions are private or public. These findings inform existing theories of parochialism and suggest it may be an obstacle to the provision of global public goods.

The Statesmanship of Harry S Truman

1985 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Coffey
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Truman Doctrine ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Meaning And Purpose ◽  
Containment Policy

President Truman's statesmanship consists in the fact that his administration's foreign policy fused moral principle and national self-interest and that his articulation of foreign policy educated citizens in the principles of the American regime and in the nature of the threat to it. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan address vital strategic interests, but Truman's conception of the national interest contained a lucid sense of political meaning and purpose in his understanding that the perpetuation of freedom in America required a resolute defense of republicanism elsewhere in the world. Like Lincoln, Truman was committed to the prudent containment of an expansionist power, and for Truman, as for Lincoln, the survival of the Union meant above all the preservation of a regime devoted to the principles of the Founders. NSC-68 crystallized containment policy, uniting power with principle in a strategy that matched military means to political ends.

scholarly journals Behavioral Theory of Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma: Generous Tit-For-Tat Strategy

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hitoshi Matsushima
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Games ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Social Preference ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Additive Separability ◽  
Tit For Tat ◽  
Strategic Complexity ◽  
Infinitely Repeated Games ◽  
Psychological Mood

AbstractThis study investigates infinitely repeated games of a prisoner’s dilemma with additive separability in which the monitoring technology is imperfect and private. Behavioral incentives indicate that a player is not only motivated by pure self-interest but also by social preference such as reciprocity, and that a player often becomes naïve and selects an action randomly due to her cognitive limitation and uncertain psychological mood as well as the strategic complexity caused by monitoring imperfection and private observation. By focusing on generous tit-for-tat strategies, we characterize a behavioral version of Nash equilibrium termed behavioral equilibrium in an accuracy-contingent manner. By eliminating the gap between theory and evidence, we show that not pure self-interest but reciprocity plays a substantial role in motivating a player to make decisions in a sophisticated manner.

Collective Rationality and Simple Utilitarian Theories

Dialogue ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-376
Author(s):  
Michael J. Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Individual Rationality ◽  
Preference Ordering ◽  
Collective Rationality ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Collective Preference

Much of recent moral philosophy has been concerned with the relation between individual rationality and individual obligation. Familiar gametheoretic analyses, in particular the Prisoner's Dilemma, at least suggest that unconstrained pursuit of rational self-interest leads to collective ill. The difficulty is nicely illustrated by comparing the preference-orderings of distinct individuals over the possible outcomes of their actions to their collective preference-ordering. Consider the following typical version of the Prisoner's Dilemma, where R2 and C2 represent respectively “R has confessed to the crime” and “C has confessed to the crime,” and Rl and Cl correspond to “It is not the case that R has confessed” and “It is not the case that C has confessed.”

Zu brav oder zu böse? Mobbing-Opfer und Abgelehnte im Prisoner's Dilemma-Paradigma

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 179-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beate Schuster
Keyword(s):  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma

Zusammenfassung: Der soziometrische Status und der Viktimisierungsstatus von 5. bis 11. Klässlern wurde ermittelt, der Status hypothetischer InteraktionspartnerInnen sowie deren angebliche Wahlen variiert, und die Reaktionen im Gefangenendilemma erfaßt. Die Reaktionen wurden sowohl durch die experimentell vorgegebenen als auch durch die erwarteten Wahlen der InteraktionspartnerInnen bestimmt: Kooperative Zuege wurden eher kooperativ, und kompetitive Zuege eher kompetitiv beantwortet. Darüber hinaus vermieden Mobbingopfer kompetitive Züge, während zwei Untergruppen der Abgelehnten gegensätzliche Strategiepräferenzen aufwiesen: Versuchspersonen, die sowohl Ablehnung als auch Mobbing erfahren («Viktimisiert-Abgelehnte») verhielten sich besonders kooperativ; abgelehnte ProbandInnen, die nicht viktimisiert werden («Nicht-viktimisiert-Abgelehnte») dagegen vergleichsweise kompetitiv. Die kooperativen Wahlen viktimisierter Versuchspersonen wurden nicht erwidert: Die Versuchspersonen reagierten gegenüber den Viktimisierten kompetitiver als sich die Viktimisierten ihrerseits gegenüber ihren InteraktionspartnerInnen verhielten. Diese Befunde bestätigen die Notwendigkeit, bei «Abgelehnten» zwei Untergruppen auf der Basis der Viktimisierungsdimension zu unterscheiden. Die Befunde werden ferner vor dem Hintergrund der Hypothese diskutiert, daß die Submissivität potentieller Opfer mit zu ihrer Viktimisierungs-Erfahrung beiträgt.

Facial Likability and Smiling Enhance Cooperation, but Have No Direct Effect on Moralistic Punishment

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 263-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Raoul Bell ◽  
Axel Buchner
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Probability ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma Game ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma Game ◽  
Moralistic Punishment

Abstract. The present study serves to test how positive and negative appearance-based expectations affect cooperation and punishment. Participants played a prisoner’s dilemma game with partners who either cooperated or defected. Then they were given a costly punishment option: They could spend money to decrease the payoffs of their partners. Aggregated over trials, participants spent more money for punishing the defection of likable-looking and smiling partners compared to punishing the defection of unlikable-looking and nonsmiling partners, but only because participants were more likely to cooperate with likable-looking and smiling partners, which provided the participants with more opportunities for moralistic punishment. When expressed as a conditional probability, moralistic punishment did not differ as a function of the partners’ facial likability. Smiling had no effect on the probability of moralistic punishment, but punishment was milder for smiling in comparison to nonsmiling partners.

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