Abstract
I have maintained that some but not all prisoners' dilemmas are side-by-side Necomb problems. The present paper argues that, similarly, some but not all versions of Newcomb's Problem are prisoners' dilemmas in which Taking Two and Predicting Two make an equilibrium that is dispreferred by both the box-chooser and predictor to the outcome in which only one box is taken and this is predicted. I comment on what kinds of prisoner's dilemmas Newcomb's Problem can be, and on opportunities that results reached may open for kinds of ‘cooperative reasoning’ in versions of Newcomb's Problem.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Campbell, R. and L. Sowden: 1985, Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation: Prisoner's Dilemma and Newcomb's Problem, Vancouver University Press, Vancouver.
Gardner, M.: 1973, ‘Mathematical Games: Free Will Revisited, with a Mind-bending Prediction Paradox by William Newcomb’, Scientific American, July. For a report by Robert Nozick on letters to Scientific American about this column, see ‘Mathematical Games’ for March 1974.
Gibbard, A. and W. L. Harper: 1978, ‘Counterfactuals and Two Kinds of Expected Utility’, in Hooker et al. (eds.), Foundations and Applications of Decision Theory 1, 125–62. (Reprinted with abridgement in Campbell and Sowden 1985: pp. 133–58.)
Hurley, S. L.: 1989, Natural Reasons: Personality and Polity, Oxford University Press, New York.
Jeffrey, R. C.: 1981, ‘The Logic of Decision Defended’, Synthese 48, 473–92.
Jeffrey, R. C.: 1983, The Logic of Decision, second edition, Chicago University Press, Chicago.
Luce, R. D. and H. Raiffa: 1957, Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey, Wiley, New York.
Lewis, D.: 1979, ‘Prisoners' Dilemma Is a Newcomb Problem’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 8, 251–55 (reprinted in Campbell and Sowden 1985: pp. 251–55).
Nozick, R.: 1969, ‘Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice’, in N. Rescher et al. (eds.) Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 114–46 (reprinted with abridgment in Campbell and Sowden 1985, pp. 107–33).
Setlen, R. and Leopold, U.: 1982, ‘Subjective Conditionals in Decision and Game Theory’, in W. Stegmüller, W. Balzer, and W. Spohn (eds.), Studies in Contemporary Economics, Volume 2: Philosophy and Economics, pp. 191–200.
Sobel, J. H.: 1985a, ‘Not Every Prisoner's Dilemma Is a Newcomb Problem’, in Campbell and Sowden, pp. 263–74.
Sobel, J. H.: 1985b, ‘Circumstances and Dominance in a Causal Decision Theory’, Synthese 63, 167–202.
Sobel, J. H.: 1985c, ‘Utilitarianism and Cooperation’, Dialogue 24, 137–52 [a critical notice of Donald Regan's Utilitarianism and Cooperation (Oxford, 1980)].
Sobel, J. H.: 1985d, ‘Everyone's Conforming to a Rule’, Philosophical Studies 48, 375–87.
Sobel, J. H.: 1987, ‘Kant's Moral Idealism’, Philosophical Studies 52, 277–87.
Sobel, J. H.: 1988a, ‘Newcomb's Problem and Two Forms of Decision Theory’, in B. R. Munier (ed.), the appendix to “Metatickles, Ratificationism, and Newcomb-like Problems without Dominance”, Risk, Decision and Rationality, Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 438–501.
Sobel, J. H.: 1988b, ‘Maximizing, Optimizing, and Prospering’, Dialogue 27, 233–62.
Sobel, J. H.: 1988c, ‘Infallible Predictors’, Philosophical Review 97, 3–24.
Sobel, J. H.: forthcoming. ‘Newcomb Problems’, Midwest Studies: The Philosophy of the Human Sciences 15.
Talbott, W. J.: 1987, ‘Standard and Non-standard Newcomb Problems’, Synthese 70, 415–58.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This manuscript was originally submitted on 22 July 1989.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sobel, J.H. Some versions of Newcomb's Problem are Prisoners' Dilemmas. Synthese 86, 197–208 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00485808
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00485808