Indispensable Framework or Just another Ideology?

Aaron Wildavsky
Additional contact information
Aaron Wildavsky: University of California, Berkeley

Rationality and Society, 1992, vol. 4, issue 1, 8-23

Abstract: Is Prisoner's Dilemma a natural framework for understanding human interaction? The author's view is that the rationality of the prisoner's dilemma, like rationality in general, is context dependent; without a supportive cultural context, no strategy makes sense. Different strategies will be rational for prisoners within different cultural contexts. The solution favored by most game players, namely, silence, for instance, would be anathema in a hierarchical culture that seeks to inculcate respect for authority. But silence would make sense for egalitarians who wish to undermine authority as inegalitarian on its face. “Distrust everybody†is a strategy that is supported only by people who adhere to fatalistic cultures. Thus the cultural context through which preferences are formed and reformed is central to who will place which values on diverse strategies. It is not rationality per se, as if one form of rationality was reason itself, but diverse rationalities that vary with the objectives of their adherents that should be the mainstay of game theory.

Date: 1992
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463192004001003 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:4:y:1992:i:1:p:8-23

DOI: 10.1177/1043463192004001003

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Rationality and Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().