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Ethics and Game Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

John R. Chamberlin
Affiliation:
JOHN CHAMBERLAIN is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Research Scientist at The Institute of Public Policy Studies, and Associate Dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, the University of Michigan. His scholarly interests include ethics and public policy and formal political theory.

Abstract

Game Theory has been an essential tool in analyzing national security, international trade, and the global environment since Neumann and Morgenstern introduced it more than 45 years ago. Chamberlin examines the work of these two authors, focusing on the relationship between rationality and morality as it arises in strategic interactions among players in a game based on three essential features: rational behavior, consequentialism, and the self-interest of players. The author concludes that due to the egoistic nature of actors, political dilemmas cannot easily be solved through the use of Game Theory. Nonetheless, he insists on its validity in contributing to our thinking about the place of ethics in international affairs and in clarifying both the dangers and potential areas of cooperation inherent in many international relationships.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1989

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References

1 von Neumann, John and Morgenstern, Oskar, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944)Google Scholar. Readers unfamiliar with game theory can find approachable introductions in Davis, Morton, Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction (New York: Basic Books, 1970)Google Scholar and Hamburger, Henry, Games as Models of Social Phenomena (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1979)Google Scholar. The classic survey is Luce, Duncan and Raiffa, Howard, Games and Decisions (New York: John Wiley, 1957)Google Scholar.

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8 The phrase “moral mathematics” is due to Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), chapter 3Google Scholar. See Arrow, Kenneth, Social Choice and Individual Values (New York: John Wiley, 1951)Google Scholar and Riker, William, Liberalism Against Populism (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1982)Google Scholar for discussions of social choice theory and its implications for the concept of the common interest.

9 In particular, see Hardin, Morality Within the Limits of Reason, op. cit., and Gauthier, Morals by Agreement, op. cit. [Game theory] is preeminently a descriptive framework for categorizing social interactions. There is theory in the theory of games, but much of it is mathematical theory that often has little applicability to problems that interest social theorists. Game theory is of great value in social theory primarily because it affords conceptual clarification and descriptive simplification and generalization of problems that interest us…. A strength of game theoretic representations of social interactions is their extraordinary transparency and consequent ease of generalization to structurally similar interaction.11Google Scholar

10 See Hardin, , Morality Within the Limits of Reason, op. cot. chapter 1, for an excellent discussion of the ways in which the limits to our reason constrain our ability to make ethical judgmentsGoogle Scholar.

11 Ibid., p. 32.Google Scholar

12 Note that this reasoning about threats, like that earlier in the paragraph which views R as the “winner” if the outcome is (R2, C1), requires a stronger value theory than ordinal evaluation with no interpersonal comparisonsGoogle Scholar.

13 See, for instance, David M. Kreps and Robert Wilson, “Sequential Equilibria,”Econometrica, No. 50 (1982) pp. 862–87 and Steven J. Brams and Donald Wittman, “Nonmyopic Equilibria in 2 × 2 Games,”Conflict Management and Peace Science, No. 6 (1981) pp. 39–62Google Scholar.

14 Parfit, Derek, op. cit., chapter 2Google Scholar.

15 On the repeated two-person prisoners' dilemma, see Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984)Google Scholar and Taylor, Michael, Anarchy and Cooperation (New York: John Wiley, 1976)Google Scholar. On the n-person prisoners' dilemma, see Hardin, Russell, Collective Action (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982)Google Scholar and Schelling, Thomas C., “Hockey Helmets, Concealed Weapons, and Daylight Saving: A Study of Binary Choices with Externalities”Journal of Conflict Resolution, No. 17 (1973) pp. 381428Google Scholar.

16 Axelrod, , Ibid., p. 110. Note that the first feature requires more than an ordinal value theory in which interpersonal comparisons are not possible. Axelrod mentions specifically that players should avoid seeing games as zero-sum when they are not. A practice of judging one's success relative to others ‘is dangerous in the prisoners’ dilemma context. As he notes, “Asking how well you are doing compared to how well the other player is doing is not a good standard unless your goal is to destroy the other player…. When you are not trying to destroy the other player, comparing your score to the other's score simply risks the development of self-destructive envy.” (p. 111). This caution has direct relevance to assessments of national security, which too often focus on “gaps” between the forces of two nations, a measure that leans strongly in the direction of a form of “envy.”Google Scholar

17 Ibid., pp. 136–7Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 68–9Google Scholar.

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