Game Theory, Rational Egoism and the Evolution of Fairness Export

@article{citeulike:233887, abstract = {Is it rational to be ethical? Many philosophers have wrestled with this most fundamental of questions, attempting to clarify whether humans are well served by ethical rules or whether they weigh us down. Would we really be better off if we all gave in to the desire to just watch out for our own interests and take the greatest advantage to ourselves whenever we can? Ayn Rand, for one, thought that the only rational behavior is egoism, and books aiming at increasing personal wealth (presumably at the expense of someone else's wealth) regularly make the bestsellers list. Plato, Kant, and John Stuart Mill, to mention a few, have tried to show that there is more to life than selfishness. In the Republic, Plato has Socrates defending his philosophy against the claim that justice and fairness are only whatever rich and powerful people decide they are. But the arguments of his opponents—that we can see plenty of examples of unjust people who have a great life and of just ones who suffer in equally great manner—seem more convincing than the high-mindedness of the father of philosophy. Kant attempted to reject what he saw as the nihilistic attitude of Christianity, where you are good now because you will get an infinite payoff later, and to establish independent rational foundations for morality. Therefore he suggested that in order to decide if something is ethical or not one has to ask what would happen if everybody were adopting the same behavior. However, Kant never explained why his version of rational ethics is indeed rational. Rand would object that establishing double standards, one for yourself and one for the rest of the universe, makes perfect sense. Mill also tried to establish ethics on firm rational foundations, in his case improving on Jeremy Bentham's idea of utilitarianism. In chapter two of his book Utilitarianism, Mill writes: ” Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” Leaving aside the thorny question of what happiness is and the difficulty of actually making such calculations, one still has to answer the fundamental question of why one should care about increasing the average degree of happiness instead of just one's own}, author = {Pigliucci, Massimo}, citeulike-article-id = {233887}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://2think.org/rs-2001-3.shtml}, keywords = {game\_theory\_and\_negotiations, human\_nature, philosophy}, posted-at = {2005-06-22 00:10:55}, priority = {0}, title = {Game Theory, Rational Egoism and the Evolution of Fairness}, url = {http://2think.org/rs-2001-3.shtml} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:233887 L3 - citeulike-article-id:233887 N2 - Is it rational to be ethical? Many philosophers have wrestled with this most fundamental of questions, attempting to clarify whether humans are well served by ethical rules or whether they weigh us down. Would we really be better off if we all gave in to the desire to just watch out for our own interests and take the greatest advantage to ourselves whenever we can? Ayn Rand, for one, thought that the only rational behavior is egoism, and books aiming at increasing personal wealth (presumably at the expense of someone else’s wealth) regularly make the bestsellers list. Plato, Kant, and John Stuart Mill, to mention a few, have tried to show that there is more to life than selfishness. In the Republic, Plato has Socrates defending his philosophy against the claim that justice and fairness are only whatever rich and powerful people decide they are. But the arguments of his opponents—that we can see plenty of examples of unjust people who have a great life and of just ones who suffer in equally great manner—seem more convincing than the high-mindedness of the father of philosophy. Kant attempted to reject what he saw as the nihilistic attitude of Christianity, where you are good now because you will get an infinite payoff later, and to establish independent rational foundations for morality. Therefore he suggested that in order to decide if something is ethical or not one has to ask what would happen if everybody were adopting the same behavior. However, Kant never explained why his version of rational ethics is indeed rational. Rand would object that establishing double standards, one for yourself and one for the rest of the universe, makes perfect sense. Mill also tried to establish ethics on firm rational foundations, in his case improving on Jeremy Bentham’s idea of utilitarianism. In chapter two of his book Utilitarianism, Mill writes: “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” Leaving aside the thorny question of what happiness is and the difficulty of actually making such calculations, one still has to answer the fundamental question of why one should care about increasing the average degree of happiness instead of just one’s own TI - Game Theory, Rational Egoism and the Evolution of Fairness KW - game_theory_and_negotiations KW - human_nature KW - philosophy AU - Pigliucci, Massimo UR - http://2think.org/rs-2001-3.shtml ER -