Philosophy questions - Morality & Moral Theories

[atrifix]

Another way of framing this: suppose that player A cooperates in round t-1. Player B notes this. Since in the 1-round game defection strictly dominates cooperation, A can only be rational if he believes that B can be induced to cooperate in round t, which would be irrational. Since B is rational and A knows this, A cannot be rational.

Suppose A cooperates in round t-2. He can only be rational if he believes that by cooperating in round t-2 he can induce B to cooperate in either round t-1 or round t. But cooperating in round t is irrational, and cooperating in round t-1 is either irrational, or comes from the belief that cooperation can induce B to cooperate in round t, so cooperating in round t-2 is irrational, and so on.

Again, the goal is not to dominate, it's to maximize utility. It is not rational to have a strategy that does not maximize utility. TFT maximizes utility. If it's one round, then Defecting is the best strategy (well, it's the paradoxical best). Also, the last round of a single game, defecting is best (unless multiple games are going to be played). This has been played out in real world multi-game iterative scenarios... TFT won. I guarantee you that if we have a multi-game contest, and I play TFT, and you play All-D, then I will end up with more utility than you (as long as there is at least one other TFT (or non All-D) player. Which, there should be, because if they also play TFT, we will both maximize utility. The only way I don't win, is if everyone else is irrational.

[atrifix]

[ QUOTE ]
Again, the goal is not to dominate, it's to maximize utility. It is not rational to have a strategy that does not maximize utility.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, but our goal is to maximize utility given certain constraints. It can be rational not to play Pareto-optimal strategies, as it is in the one-shot game.
[ QUOTE ]
TFT maximizes utility. If it's one round, then Defecting is the best strategy (well, it's the paradoxical best). Also, the last round of a single game, defecting is best (unless multiple games are going to be played).

[/ QUOTE ]
But if you agree with this, then surely you can see that if both players know this, they will also defect in the next to last round? If both players are rational (and know the other is rational), they will both defect in the last round, because they do strictly better. This is true regardless of what happens in the next to last round. Thus the outcome of the next to last round doesn't matter in terms of the last round, because both players will defect at that point. So the players would do strictly better to defect in the next to last round.
[ QUOTE ]
This has been played out in real world multi-game iterative scenarios... TFT won.I guarantee you that if we have a multi-game contest, and I play TFT, and you play All-D, then I will end up with more utility than you (as long as there is at least one other TFT (or non All-D) player. Which, there should be, because if they also play TFT, we will both maximize utility. The only way I don't win, is if everyone else is irrational.

[/ QUOTE ]It's true that TFT won Axelrod's tournaments (I think 7/8), but that doesn't prove that it's rational. First of all, Axelrod's tournament didn't have a definite number of rounds known in advance, so assumption #5 was not applicable. More importantly, consider the one-shot game. If we run tournaments, two players who always cooperate will do strictly better than two players who always defect. But if we agree that defecting is the rational strategy, then the players who cooperate cannot be rational, despite the fact that they beat the other two players. Or, consider this (analagous to Newcomb's problem): a player plays completely at random. His opponent cooperates if and only if an accurate predictor of his actions would have predicted that he would cooperate on that round. Cooperating thus does strictly better than defecting, but do we want to say that random play is rational?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
TFT maximizes utility. If it's one round, then Defecting is the best strategy (well, it's the paradoxical best). Also, the last round of a single game, defecting is best (unless multiple games are going to be played).

[/ QUOTE ]
But if you agree with this, then surely you can see that if both players know this, they will also defect in the next to last round?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not if 1) they don't know how many rounds are in the game (which is why I disagreed with your #5 assumption earlier), or 2) they will be playing multiple games (thus, making it as if there was no known ending to the game).

[atrifix]

Okay, this is a possible way of solving the paradox. After all, we can reject any of the assumptions, and it seems like in real-life situations information is definitely partial. I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'd argue that there are certain situations where assumption #5 applies that you're still going to want to maintain that it's rational for people to cooperate, so one of the other assumptions must go as well. Consider this quasi-centipede game: on each round, we play a simultaneous-move prisoner's dilemma. Defecting when the other player cooperates pays (5,0), both defecting pays (1,1), and both cooperating adds 3 to each player's payoffs and keeps the game going another round. The game lasts for a finite number of rounds t (say t=3000). Now, if both players cooperate every round, their payoffs are (3004,3004), but in spite of this, there is a unique equilibrium where both players defect on the first round and get (1,1). I suppose that we could maintain that defecting on the first round is the rational play, but that seems pretty counterintuitive.

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
Again, the goal is not to dominate, it's to maximize utility.

[/ QUOTE ]

And that's where the problem lies. Even though your goal may not be to dominate, once you start trying to maximize *everyone's* utility, you *have* to dominate to achieve your goal. Unless, of course, everyone agrees and voluntarily does what you think is best, in which case the utilitarian calculation was unnecessary in the first place. It's only needed when people have different ideas of what constitutes satisfaction, and in that case, there must be some centralized decision maker that decides what utility is, how to maximize it, and what actions to impose in order to achieve it. If someone can explain how to do that without oppression, I'm ready to hear it.

So in a strict sence, the statement "utilitarianism is oppressive" may be untrue, in that if you use utilitarianism as a personal policy and don't use it to make decision that are imposed on others, it isn't oppressive. Of course, in that case, you're really practicing anarcho-capitalism - each actor seeks to maximize his own satisfaction, but can't aggressively impose on others.

Utilitarianism isn't really utilitarianism if only applied to the self.

I disagree with your criteria for determining property rights. Are you going to force your belief on me? That's oppression.

[tylerdurden]

I'm not going to force you to believe anything. However, if you try to aggress against me, I'll respond with force. As long as you stay off my property and don't interfere in anything I'm doing, I don't really care if you don't believe in property rights, mathematics, or gravity. Enjoy.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not going to force you to believe anything. However, if you try to aggress against me, I'll respond with force. As long as you stay off my property and don't interfere in anything I'm doing, I don't really care if you don't believe in property rights

[/ QUOTE ]

You ARE using force to make me believe (or behave as if I believed) in your idea/theory of property rights. I think you have my property. What gives you the right to forcefully keep what is rightfully mine?

[tylerdurden]

I'm not using force to make you believe anything. I'm using force to repel your initiation of aggression.

Can you provide any justification for your "decree" theory of property rights? I'm eager to hear your logic. Maybe you're right, you really are the legitimate owner of the entire earth. I'm open to being convinced.