Hume's Game-Theoretic Business Ethics
Business Ethics Quarterly 9 (1):47-67 (1999)
| Abstract | In recent years, a number of authors have used gametheoretic reasoning to explain why purely self-interested agentswould ever conform their economic activities with the requirements of justice, when by doing so they forego opportunities to reapunilateral net gains by exploiting others. In this paper, I argue that Hume's justification of honest economic exchanges between self-interested agents in the Treatise foreshadows this contemporary literature. Hume analyzes the problem of explaining justice in self-interested economic exchange as a problem of agents coordinating on a pattern of reciprocal cooperation, as opposed to some other behavioral pattern such as reciprocal exploitation, in exchanges repeated over time. Hume's arguments anticipate informally thecontemporary interpretation of just economic practices as forming part of an equilibrium of a repeated game. I close the paper by arguing that Hume does not provide a satisfactory explanation of how the mutual expectations that support justice in economic exchange arise in a community of self-interested agents. The problem Hume leaves unsolved is one of equilibrium selection, that is: Why do agents follow an equilibrium corresponding to just economic exchanges rather than some other equilibrium corresponding to unjust exchanges? I also argue that contemporary game theory still lacks a satisfactory theory of equilibrium selection, but that such a theory would lead us closer to a satisfactory Humean reconciliation of justice and self-interest in economic exchange | |||||||||
| 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: 5,705 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesWilliam Kline (2012). Hume's Theory of Business Ethics Revisited. Journal of Business Ethics 105 (2):163-174.
Peter Vanderschraaf (1995). Convention as Correlated Equilibrium. Erkenntnis 42 (1):65 - 87.
Mark Collier (2011). Hume's Natural History of Justice. In C. Taylor & S. Buckle (eds.), Hume and the Enlightenment.
Boudewijn de Bruin (2009). Overmathematisation in Game Theory: Pitting the Nash Equilibrium Refinement Programme Against the Epistemic Programme. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40 (3):290-300.
Boudewijn De Bruin (2005). Game Theory in Philosophy. Topoi 24 (2):197-208.
Boudewijn de Bruin (2005). Game Theory in Philosophy. Topoi 24 (2):197-208.
J. Salter (2012). Hume and Mutual Advantage. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 11 (3):302-321.
Till Grüne‐Yanoff & Paul Schweinzer (2008). The Roles of Stories in Applying Game Theory. Journal of Economic Methodology 15 (2):131-146.
Vernon L. Smith (2008). Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms. Cambridge University Press.
P. Vanderschraaf (1998). Knowledge, Equilibrium and Convention. Erkenntnis 49 (3):337-369.
D. Gambetta & G. Origgi (2013). The LL Game: The Curious Preference for Low Quality and its Norms. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 12 (1):3-23.
Peter Vanderschraaf (2006). The Circumstances of Justice. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5 (3):321-351.
Peter Vanderschraaf (2007). Covenants and Reputations. Synthese 157 (2):167 - 195.
Analytics
Monthly downloads
Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
|
Added to index2011-01-09Total downloads1 ( #274,921 of 549,128 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,361 of 549,128 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
