Good and Real: Demystifying Paradoxes From Physics to Ethics by Gary L. Drescher

Author:Gary L. Drescher [Drescher, Gary L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, General, psychology, Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
ISBN: 9780262042338
Google: GXrLvcODPtoC
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2006-07-15T01:03:58.756026+00:00

• If it turns out that one defects and the other cooperates, then the defector goes free and the cooperator spends life in prison.

• If both cooperate, they both spend five years in prison.

• If both defect, they both spend ten years in prison.

Imagine the situation from the point of view of either one of the prisoners. If the other prisoner defects against you, your sentence is milder if you defect (10 years) than if you cooperate (life). Alternatively, if the other prisoner cooperates with you, you still do better if you defect (you go free) than if you cooperate (5 years). So given the other prisoner's choiceregardless of which choice it is-you do better if you defect than if you cooperate. Defection, then, is seemingly the more beneficial choice for you.

On the other hand, the symmetry between your situation and the other prisoner's assures that whichever choice is more beneficial to you for you to make, the corresponding choice is also more beneficial to the other for the other to make. If defection is your best choice, it's also the other prisoner's best choice. Yet you both do better if you both cooperate (five years) than if you both defect (ten years). Therein lies a paradox. Suppose you are each rational enough to recognize the better choice for yourself and to act accordingly. How, then, can defection be the rational choice for each of you when you would both do better if cooperation were the rational choice? How can the rational choice be the one that leaves you (both) worse off than if the other choice were the rational one?

The next three chapters explore the compatibility of choice with determinism and mechanism, the relation of that compatibility to the Prisoner's Dilemma, and the ramifications concerning a foundation for ethics.

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