Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T00:22:55.855Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pure and Utilitarian Prisoner's Dilemmas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Steven T. Kuhn  and
Serge Moresi
Steven T. Kuhn
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Serge Moresi
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The prisoner 's dilemma game (henceforth, PD) has acquired large literatures in several disciplines. It is surprising, therefore, that a good definition of the game is hard to find. Typically an author relates a story about captured criminals or military rivals, provides a particular payoff matrix and asserts that the PD is characterized, or illustrated, by that matrix. In the few cases in which characterizing conditions are given, the conditions, and the motivations for them, do not always agree with each other or with the paradigm examples elsewhere. In this paper we describe several varieties of PD's. In particular, we suggest there are two distinctions among PD's with philosophical significance, the pure/impure and the utilitarian/nonutilitarian distinctions. In the first section, we explain and characterize the two distinctions. In the second, we discuss an issue of moral philosophy that illustrates the significance of the former.

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , October 1995 , pp. 333 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Axelrod, Robert. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. Basic BooksGoogle Scholar
Binmore, Kenneth. 1992. Fun and Games. D. C. Heath and CompanyGoogle Scholar
Donniger, Christian. 1986. ‘Is it always efficient to be nice? A computer simulation of Axelrod's computer tournament’. In Paradoxical Effects of Social Behavior: Essays in Honor of Anatol Rapoport, Andreas, Diekmann and Peter, Mitter (eds.). Physica-VerlagGoogle Scholar
Fudenberg, Drew and Tirole, Jean. 1991. Came Theory. The MIT PressGoogle Scholar
Gauthier, David. 1967. ‘Morality and Advantage’. Philosophical Review, 76:460–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbons, Robert. 1992. Came Theory for Applied Economists. Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Kavka, Gregory. 1986. Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory. Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Steven. 1994. ‘Agreement-keeping and Indirect Moral Theory’. UnpublishedGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Steven and Serge, Moresi. 1994. ‘Characterizing classes of prisoner's dilemma games’. UnpublishedGoogle Scholar
Plato, . The Republic. G.M.A. Trans. Grube. Hackett Publishing CompanyGoogle Scholar
Rapoport, Anatol and Chammah, A.M. 1965. Prisoner's Dilemma. University of Michigan PressCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rapoport, Anatol and Guyer, Melvin J., 1966. ‘A taxonomy of 2X2 games’. General Systems, 11:203–14Google Scholar
Rapoport, Anatol, Guyer, Melvin J. and Gordon, David G. 1976. The 2X2 Game. The University of Michigan PressGoogle Scholar
Sobel, J. Howard. 1991. ‘Constrained maximization’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 21: 25–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar