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Intertemporal bargaining predicts moral behavior, even in anonymous, one-shot economic games1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2013

George Ainslie
George Ainslie*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa; and Department of Veteran Affairs, 151 VA Medical Center, Coatesville, PA 19320. [email protected]://www.Picoeconomics.org
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Abstract

To the extent that acting fairly is in an individual's long-term interest, short-term impulses to cheat present a self-control problem. The only effective solution is to interpret the problem as a variant of repeated prisoner's dilemma, with each choice as a test case predicting future choices. Moral choice appears to be the product of a contract because it comes from self-enforcing intertemporal cooperation.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 78 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

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