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@YouFound_Lxam
By Dr Steve Brewer:
Morality has both subjective and objective components. The objective component is provided by the laws of Game Theory. The subjective element is the strategy selected by a player attempting to maximize their personal reward.
Game theory describes the competitive or collaborative strategies that a rational agent can use to maximise their benefit in any situation. (In this context, a rational agent is someone capable of thinking about then acting in their own best interest.) Often, cooperation provides the optimum outcome for all interacting parties, but at any time an agent might break the contract in an attempt to increase their own rewards. Such an action might have short term benefits, but it has been shown that in a series of interaction games, such a cheat will lose out because the others will soon refuse further cooperation. There are, therefore, substantial individual and group advantages to keeping such a contract. This ‘reciprocal altruism’, where the group rewards collaboration and punishes the cheat, is modelled by the ‘tit-for-tat’ strategy in Game Theory.
I would argue with the Mathematical Platonists that abstract mathematical ideas are mind-independent entities. Like any other object, they can be discovered and verified by anyone with the right equipment – in this case a skill in mathematics. Therefore, the outcome of our moral behavior, subject to the laws of relationships determined by the mathematical objects of Game Theory, in this sense are objective. However, the strategies are subjectively chosen by agents acting in what they perceive to be their own best interest. Their choices may or may not coincide with supporting the social order.
Human civilization is highly dependent on the operation of Game Theory’s reciprocal altruism. A society’s moral codes are attempts to ensure that individuals choose the collaborative strategy over many ‘plays’, that is, social interactions. Although the moral rules encapsulated by the Golden Rule (‘Do unto others…’) and Law of Retaliation (‘an eye for an eye’) are simple, in practice they can become very complex. Human agents are playing many parallel games in an ever-changing social and physical environment, with no guarantee of group success. To retain social cohesion, the moral code may incorporate many complex taboos or ritualistic actions, lack of compliance with which can be used as an explanation of the group’s failures. An agent, however, is always free to challenge the code by choosing the antisocial strategy. In such cases the agent will find themselves in peril of retribution in the form of tribal or civil law.
Game theory describes the competitive or collaborative strategies that a rational agent can use to maximise their benefit in any situation. (In this context, a rational agent is someone capable of thinking about then acting in their own best interest.) Often, cooperation provides the optimum outcome for all interacting parties, but at any time an agent might break the contract in an attempt to increase their own rewards. Such an action might have short term benefits, but it has been shown that in a series of interaction games, such a cheat will lose out because the others will soon refuse further cooperation. There are, therefore, substantial individual and group advantages to keeping such a contract. This ‘reciprocal altruism’, where the group rewards collaboration and punishes the cheat, is modelled by the ‘tit-for-tat’ strategy in Game Theory.
I would argue with the Mathematical Platonists that abstract mathematical ideas are mind-independent entities. Like any other object, they can be discovered and verified by anyone with the right equipment – in this case a skill in mathematics. Therefore, the outcome of our moral behavior, subject to the laws of relationships determined by the mathematical objects of Game Theory, in this sense are objective. However, the strategies are subjectively chosen by agents acting in what they perceive to be their own best interest. Their choices may or may not coincide with supporting the social order.
Human civilization is highly dependent on the operation of Game Theory’s reciprocal altruism. A society’s moral codes are attempts to ensure that individuals choose the collaborative strategy over many ‘plays’, that is, social interactions. Although the moral rules encapsulated by the Golden Rule (‘Do unto others…’) and Law of Retaliation (‘an eye for an eye’) are simple, in practice they can become very complex. Human agents are playing many parallel games in an ever-changing social and physical environment, with no guarantee of group success. To retain social cohesion, the moral code may incorporate many complex taboos or ritualistic actions, lack of compliance with which can be used as an explanation of the group’s failures. An agent, however, is always free to challenge the code by choosing the antisocial strategy. In such cases the agent will find themselves in peril of retribution in the form of tribal or civil law.
