The Prisoner’s Dilemma
A lesson in both the power and the limitation of models
“You may choose to confess or remain silent. If you confess and your accomplice remains silent I will drop all charges against you and use your testimony to ensure that your accomplice does serious time. Likewise, if your accomplice confesses while you remain silent, they will go free while you do the time. If you both confess I get two convictions, but I’ll see to it that you both get early parole. If you both remain silent, I’ll have to settle for token sentences on firearms possession charges. If you wish to confess, you must leave a note with the jailer before my return tomorrow morning.” ~ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In January of this year, I wrote an article entitled Human Beings Are Wired For Morality. Some who responded to that article took it as a deterministic argument for a kind of innate moral sense programmed into us by our genes, while others treated it as evidence for a supreme being. It wasn’t intended as either.
Cooperation has been and continues to be fundamental to our success as a species. From social bonds like friendships that involve two or more people to societies with thousands or even millions of members acting together to forge and maintain entire civilizations, cooperation is key.
