Ethics and Evolutionary Games (Research Paper Sample)

Ethics and the Rational Choice Game Theory Author's Name Institutional Affiliation Ethics and the Rational Choice Game Theory Introduction For the past years, an elusive consensus among the contemporary philosophers trying to identify the issue of self-deception has been their prime agenda. Self-deception is an ambiguous paradigm and entails various paradoxical elements making it an ethical behavior of interest. By definition, self-deception is the situation where an individual misleads oneself to accept a claim about ourselves to be valid and true whereas they are invalid and not true (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2012). The term has had a lot of discussions and often argued to be a phenomenon that is impossible. The term, therefore, contrasts the ethical behaviors which are the acts that are inconsistent with the values that the society and other people perceive to be good. This essay will aim at exploring self-deception as a real world phenomenon using the classical model as an original game theoretic model. The Problem Statement Traditionally, the issue has been modeled from interpersonal deception, a situation whereby a person A intentionally makes the other B believe that a particular phenomenon P while knowing that the proposition P is wrong. Such acts are intentional and the needs the deceiver to have the knowledge or believe the negativity of the proposition whereas the deceived believes in its validity. In such a case, a clear distinction is made between a mere error and intentional mistakes. Therefore, modeling self-deception from interpersonal deception reveals that the deceiver ‘intentionally' makes them believe literally that the proposition at hand is right with the awareness that is false. Thus, several aspects hold regarding the issue which is holding a contrary belief and the intentional getting to hold certain beliefs as true but are wrong. As a result, two paradoxes have emerged regarding the issue of self-deception. The first is the ‘static' paradox which concerns the state of the mind of the deceiver. It tends to elaborate how a person holds contradictory beliefs simultaneously. The second is the ‘strategic' or ‘dynamic' paradox which explains the dynamics and the processes of self-deception. For example, describing how a person can deceive oneself without the reasoning that the intentions of such actions are ineffective. However, it is worth noting that any form of induced or forced self-deception is not covered in this analysis since the model and theory fails to create assumptions for it (Schlink & Constantine, 2007). The Prisoners Dilemma The issue of self-deception can be explained using the prisoner's dilemma model. It involves two individuals characterized as ‘rational' that have small probabilities of cooperating though such cooperation is for their good. It entails a decision analysis paradox where the two persons act in accordance with their interests so that they can pursue a particular course of action which does not necessarily result in ideal outcomes for both of them. This model is designed in a way that either party will protect itself at the other's expense. The intention is to formulate a logical strategy that entices them to help themselves out of a dire situation, but they end up in a state worse than when they would have cooperated and worked together in the entire process of decision making. The jury decides to offer them a chance to bargain for this freedom. Each of them is given two opportunities; cooperating with the accomplice by remaining silent or betraying the partner through testimony that the accomplice did commit the crime in hand. The source of the dilemma is the chance created by the jury. "If both prisoners betray each other, they serve a specified period. If one prisoner betrays the other, and the second remains silent, then the betrayer is set free, and the silent prisoner is sentenced to a longer period than when they both betray each other. The final offer is for both of them to remain silent under which they will be sentenced to the least prison term than the above to conditions and on lesser charges. The dilemma is that none of the convicts is aware of the decision that is to be made by the other. Self-deception as an Intentionalism Model The intentions that the actors have formed the basis through which this model will be formulated. With it, there is the capability of defining the final decision making process as well as the intentions of the self-deceiving individual. This model will assign a numerical utility to each decision that will be made. Precisely, a will denote a possible action, S will represent the possible option, P(S) is the probability that an action S will occur, and u(A,S) is the utility associated with action a under the state S: Expected Intention=s∈Sp (s) μ (a, s) The specification and the existence of the intention is vital to the biasing procedure of the entire self-deceptive process. Many theories maximize the expected utility, hence in this model, a maximized expected utility over the intention will be defined as the Expected Intention Utility (EIU). The Expected Intention Utility of a particular intention is the expected utility that the actor expects assuming that the intentions they have will be accurate. The EIU is evaluated with Pi(s) being the probability following an intention i of a state s happening and ai is the decision that would be preferred under a specific intention i: EIU=s∈Spi (s) μ (ai, s) Alternatively, one can include the selection of an action ai in the equation so that the EIU is redefined as: EIU (i)=max⁡(s∈Spisu(a,s)) The processes of making a certain option out of the ones presented is expected to maximize the utility at all points of equilibriums. This can be denoted as: P′ = argmax EIU (i) b∈B This information of the expected intention can be elaborated using an example. Using the prisoner's dilemma model, the dilemma can be expressed of a simple decision making problem that entails two states as presented in the table below. An assumption is then made that the best outcome from the options presented is that the intentions of both actors coincide. Another assumption is that the worst outcomes are their intentions to differ and the repercussions for each be different. After making the assumptions, the possible ordering preferences of the choices that remain are two: and a ≻ c ≥ b ≻ d and a ≻ b ≥ c ≻ d. The latter ordering of preferences represents the actors remaining silent regarding their dilemma. Since the behavior, however, coincides with the intentions that the prisoner's have, then the following preferential ordering has to be considered: a ≻ c ≥ b ≻ d. If numerical values are assigned to the utilities, then, it is possible to determine the hypothetical action that is informed their intention and the expected utility following the action under the EIU. For instance, with the intention i where the prisoners remain silent, the expected utility of deciding to remain silent will be greater than that of speaking up. Concretely, 1×3+0×1 > 1×0+0×2. Hence, remaining silent is chosen to inform the EIU calculations of intention i. When an action is selected based on an intention, the EIU becomes the EU of the selected action under that given intention. For the example above, EIU(i)= 1×3+0×1 = 3. When the EIU value of each prisoner is determined, the subsequent process of maximization designates the prisoner's intention and the highest EIU value being the intention denoted as i, the intention is that they will remain silent and cooperate. Prisoner's Dilemma Prisoners remaining silent Prisoners speaking up Remaining silent Deciding to speak up a d b c Intention Assimilation and Decision Making The rationale of intention assimilation and the decision-making phases is in the process, choosing an act and putting into consideration both the desired intentions P′and the rational intention P. This model suggests that the manner through which the ultimate conclusion is reached depends upon the magnitude as well as the form of self-deception that is used. They include self-deception based that the intentions that are desired are true, and self-deception based that the intentions are false. The latter can be defined as pessimistic self-deception and the former is the optimistic self-deception. Simulation In this phase, the formulated framework of self-deception will be presented in the perspective of the game theory simulation known as the rational choice theory. Thus, an illustration of the behavior of the self-deceptive agents and the rational decision makers will be made and discuss the interactions between them. The rational choice theory, is a framework through which an understanding of particular economic and social behavior is made. The underlying assumption of this theory is that various social behaviors emerge from the individual actor behaviors that have to make their decisions. The person should be given a preference among several options that are available, giving them a chance to decide the option they deem to as most viable. Further, it stipulates that the decision made should always maximize the outcomes expected. To cast this theory into a form that is amenable with the formulated model, the intentions need to probabilistically presented. The theory mainly focuses on the equilibrium approach in which the utility presented for the actors is common knowledge. Since the prisoner's dilemma presents a phenomenon where the actors have no knowledge of the other's preference, thus a probabilistic approach of the game will be suitable. The initial inte...