Laszlo Mero[1] has been cited before in
this blog – see the successive posts, “In for a Pound,” March 9, 2018, and “The
Reluctance to Admit a Mistake,” March 13, 2018.
That writer brings to his readers an interesting treatment describing
how people conduct moral calculations by using the mathematical model, game
theory. In short, utilizing the idea of a
dollar auction, he provides a run down on how moral, logical people can find
themselves stuck in the consequences of illogical decisions and even leading them
to commit immoral behaviors.
Here,
in a very shortened form is the dollar auction format: The game is one in which a dollar is put up for auction with
the proviso that while the top bid wins the dollar, the second highest bidder
also must also pay his/her bid.
Experience by the developer of the game has claimed he has auctioned off
dollars, on average, for $3.20.
The use of the dollar auction illustrates how one, in
taking advantage of an opportunity to profit, lands up being trapped. That is, he/she finds that the opportunity is
not an opportunity at all but a situation in which the person, in order not to
lose initial investments or to save face or to avoid communicating weakness,
will continue on a course of action costing more and more as the experience
unfolds.
On
average, while the dollar sold for $3.20, what did the next highest bidder
loose? Say $3.15, not to mention the
lose of face for being considered stupid for losing that amount on the hopes of
earning a dollar? The rational choice is
not to play in the first place.
Mero
cites the long-lasting war in Vietnam as being a case where the Johnson
administration found themselves in a dollar auction style situation. That administration feared, after initially anticipating
a winning result from the conflict, all the above negative consequences
befalling them if it withdrew from Vietnam.
Such a withdrawal would equate to the US finding itself in a more
weakened position in the world.
Of
course, that example is an extreme one.
But the principle can be applied to a dysfunctional marriage, an
unprofitable business arrangement, or an ill-advised investment. Any one of these can befall anyone leading a
mostly private life in just about any country around the world; that is, these
are common enough as most people will be confronted by a dollar auction type situation
from time to time.
Here’s another image Mero shares. Two animals square off. They are both after the same mate. They don’t fight; they just stare at each
other making antagonistic noises and projecting hostile postures – that is,
they pose. What’s the calculation of
each? The animal wants the mate but
there are other wants or needs involved.
Securing
that day’s nourishment is one. How long
should this standoff continue keeping each from finding and securing that next
meal? The animals could fight but
success is not assured, and injury could prove fatal or incapacitating one or
the other animal. What to do? One of them finally
succumbs and leaves the field and the prize goes to the other.
At
an elementary level, that point is reached when the costs – actual or potential
– outweigh the potential reward. This
resembles in very real ways the dollar auction.
Mero writes: “The animal thereby
determines how much time it can afford to spend on posing. It is not worth posing for a longer time; the
animal is not a human being – who can afford such irrationality. (Why is it that we humans can afford such
irrationality? …)[2]
Message: animals, at
least some of them, behave more rationally than humans. Through whatever calculating they do; they
seem to pay a cost that is equal to the value of the item sought. But for humans, the potential, given their
ability to reason, if utilized, can be more profitable than what seems to be
the case when they play or find themselves in dollar auction type situations.
At this point, this writer feels it is
profitable to consider an African proverb.
That is, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”[3] How does that relate to the dysfunctions
associated with the dollar auction situations?
It relates because it offers a contextual platform by which people would
more readily choose rational choices.
Here Mero explains this line of reasoning:
We
have the capacity to agree without fighting, and where we cannot bargain, we
can develop internal ethical principles that serve the good of the community
better than brute force. Sometimes we
really do this. At other times, however
– as shown by the dollar auction – we find ourselves paying unrealistically
high prices. It is as if the price of
the ability to behave as ethical beings were the loss of our animal
rationality.[4]
To this
blogger’s sense of what is involved, he suspects that a nation more inclined to
see social interactions as competition as opposed to being communal, will favor
viewing such interactions as zero-sum situations. If one wins, the other loses. On the other hand, it will shy away from
win-win situations, usually because win-win tend to accrue lower profits for
each participant. Another saying comes
to mind: “win big or go home.” The allure of higher profits, even if
unlikely, is palatable.
A nation
that holds a natural rights view predominantly will tend to choose zero-sum
options. It will seek competitive
arrangements over communal ones. A
nation that holds federalist values predominantly will tend to choose win-win
options; that is, communal arrangements.
The
natural rights view promises to lead people, despite initially being able to utilize
rational choices, becoming subject to the irrational, and eventual developments
styled by or highlighted by the dollar auction.
Yes, this account in this posting oversimplifies the various
opportunities and challenges one encounters in normal interactions with
others. It ignores probabilities, for
example.
But at
its core, this game theory view can help one gain insights over various situations
people confront and helps explain how people can get trapped by some of them. Afterall, life is complicated and nuanced,
and one should probably give more thought before engaging in what might seem
harmless or so amenable to current emotional infatuations.
This
blogger offers this relationship as a source by which related questioning can
be devised in civics/social studies classrooms and in everyday reflections over
pending or past decisions involving social costs. So, for example, in studying the Vietnam War,
one can ask: how much did that tragedy reflect
the decisions of a society following a path of natural rights biases?
[1]
Laszlo
Mero, Moral Calculations: Game Theory, Logic, and Human Frailty
(Springer-Verlag, NY: Copernicus, 1998).
[2]
Ibid., 11.
A side question one can ask on this type of competition among animals: how does it affect the evolution of the
various species?
[3] Quoted in
Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change
Happens: Why Some Social Movements
Succeed While Others Don’t (Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2018), 116 (Kindle edition).
[4]
Laszlo
Mero, Moral Calculations: Game Theory, Logic, and Human Frailty, 14.
No comments:
Post a Comment