Mating, dating, and mathematics: It's all in the game
| Abstract | Why do people stay together in monogamous relationships? Love? Fear? Habit? Ethics? Integrity? Desperation? In this paper I will consider a rather surprising answer that comes from mathematics. It turns out that cooperative behaviour, such as mutually-faithful marriages, can be given a firm basis in a mathematical theory known as game theory. I will suggest that faithfulness in relationships is fully accounted for by narrow self interest in the appropriate game theory setting. This is a surprising answer because faithful behaviour is usually thought to involve love, ethics, and caring about the well being of your partner. It seems that the game-theory account of faithfulness has no need for such romantic notions. I will consider the philosophical upshot of the game-theoretic answer and see if it really does deliver what is required. Does the game-theoretic answer miss what is important about faithful relationships or does it help us get to the heart of the matter? Before we start looking at lasting, faithful relationships, though, let’s get a feel for how mathematics might be employed to help in matters of the heart. Let’s first consider how mathematics might shed light on dating to find a suitable partner. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesNeil Tennant (2001). Game Theory and Conventiont. Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic 6 (1):3-19.
Boudewijn de Bruin (2005). Game Theory in Philosophy. Topoi 24 (2):197-208.
Daniel M. Hausman (2005). 'Testing' Game Theory. Journal of Economic Methodology 12 (2):211-223.
Boudewijn de Bruin (2009). On the Narrow Epistemology of Game Theoretic Agents. In Ondrej Majer, Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen & Tero Tulenheimo (eds.), Games: Unifying Logic, Language, and Philosophy. Springer.
Mark Colyvan (2008). Relative Expectation Theory. Journal of Philosophy 105 (1):37-44.
Till Grüne‐Yanoff & Paul Schweinzer (2008). The Roles of Stories in Applying Game Theory. Journal of Economic Methodology 15 (2):131-146.
Francesco Guala (2006). Has Game Theory Been Refuted? Journal of Philosophy 103 (5):239-263.
Linda Mealey (2000). Mating Strategies as Game Theory: Changing Rules? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (4):613-613.
Luciano Floridi (2005). Consciousness, Agents and the Knowledge Game. Minds and Machines 15 (3):415-444.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-08-04Total downloads33 ( #36,535 of 549,067 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,703 of 549,067 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
