Suppose Everybody Behaved Like That?

Ken Binmore
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Ken Binmore: University College London

Chapter 2 in Economics in a Changing World, 1996, pp 25-62 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract My mother, like most mothers, was fond of the question: Suppose everybody behaved liked that? Her logic was the same as Spinoza’s (1674) in the quotation from his Tractatus Politicus that heads this chapter. Since things would be bad for everybody if everybody behaved selfishly, selfishness must therefore be irrational. Rousseau (1762) argues similarly in his Inequality of Man when telling the famous stag-hunt tale.2 However, Kant (1785) is the most famous pedlar of the fallacy. As his categorical imperative puts it: Act only on the maxim that you would at the same time will to be a universal law.

Keywords: Nash Equilibrium; Pure Strategy; Free Choice; Extensive Form; Repeated Game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-25168-1_2

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