Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T12:42:47.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Samaritan’s Curse: moral individuals and immoral groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Kaushik Basu Open the ORCID record for Kaushik Basu [Opens in a new window]
Kaushik Basu*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York14853, USA
*
Email: kb40@cornell.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I revisit the question of how and in what sense can individuals comprising a group be held responsible for morally reprehensible behaviour by that group. The question is tackled by posing a counterfactual: what would happen if selfish individuals became moral creatures? A game called the Samaritan’s Curse is developed, which sheds light on the dilemma of group moral responsibility, and raises new questions concerning ‘conferred morality’ and self-fulfilling morals, and also forces us to question some implicit assumptions of game-theory.

Keywords

Samaritan’s Cursemoral responsibilityconferred moralityNash equilibrium
Type
Article
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 132 - 151
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akerlof, R. 2016. The importance of legitimacy. World Bank Economic Review 30, S157–165.Google Scholar
Alger, I. and Weibull, J. 2013. Homo moralis – preference evolution under incomplete information and assortative matching. Econometrica 81, 2269–2302.Google Scholar
Arruda, C. 2017. How I learned to worry about the Spaghetti Western: collective responsibility and collective agency. Analysis 77, 249–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bacharach, M. 1999. Interactive team reasoning: a contribution to the theory of co-operation. Research in Economics 53, 117–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, S. 1994. Self-enforcing international environmental agreements. Oxford Economic Papers 44, 878–894.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, K. 1994. The Traveler’s Dilemma: paradoxes of rationality in game theory. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 71, 391–395.Google Scholar
Basu, K. 2000. Prelude to Political Economy: A Study of the Social and Political Foundations of Economics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, K. 2010a. The moral basis of prosperity and oppression: altruism, other-regarding behavior, and identity. Economics and Philosophy 26, 189–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, K. 2010b. Beyond the Invisible Hand. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, K. 2018. The Republic of Beliefs: A New Approach to Law and Economics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bernheim, B.D. and Whinston, M.D. 1986. Common agency. Econometrica 54, 923–942.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binmore, K. 1998. Just Playing: Game Theory and the Social Contract II. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bjornsson, G. 2014. Essentially shared obligations. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 38, 103–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braham, M. and Holler, M.J. 2009. Distributing causal responsibility in collectivities. In Economics, Rational Choice and Normative Philosophy, ed. Gekker, R. and Boylan, T., 145–163. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Braham, M. and van Hees, M. 2012. An anatomy of moral responsibility. Mind 121, 601–634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, R.B. 1955. Theory of Games as a Tool for the Moral Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chant, S.R. 2015. Collective responsibility in a Hollywood standoff. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4, 83–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chiao, V. 2014. List and Pettit on group agency and group responsibility. University of Toronto Law Journal 64, 753–770.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chocker, H. and Halpern, J. 2004. Responsibility and blame: a structural-model approach. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 22, 93–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copp, D. 2006. On the agency of certain collective entities: an argument from ‘normative autonomy’. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 30, 194–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, V., Gneezy, U. and Rottenstreich, Y. 2008. The power of focal points is limited: even minute payoff asymmetries may yield large coordination failures. American Economic Review 98, 1443–1458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickson, E.S., Gordon, S.C. and Huber, G.A. 2015. Institutional sources of legitimate authority: an experimental investigation. American Journal of Political Science 59, 109–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dufwenberg, M. and Kirchsteiger, G. 2019. Modelling kindness. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 167, 228–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dughera, S. and Marciano, A. 2020. Self-governance, non-reciprocal altruism and social dilemmas. Mimeo, University of Paris Nanterre.Google Scholar
Feinberg, J. 1968. Collective responsibility. Journal of Philosophy 65, 674–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedenberg, M. and Halpern, J. 2019. Blameworthiness in multi-agent settings. Mimeo, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Cornell University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francois, P. and Zabojnik, J. 2005. Trust, social capital and economic development. Journal of the European Economic Association 3, 51–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurt, H.G. 1969. Alternative possibilities and moral responsibility. Journal of Philosophy 23, 829–839.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gauthier, D. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gintis, H. 2015. A typology of human morality. Mimeo, Santa Fe Institute.Google Scholar
Haji, I. and McKenna, M. 2004. Dialectical delicacies in the debate about freedom and alternative possibilities. Journal of Philosophy 101, 299–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hakli, R., Miller, K. and Tuomela, R. 2010. Two kinds of we-reasoning. Economics and Philosophy 26, 291–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, V. 1970. Can a random collection of individuals be morally responsible? Journal of Philosophy 67, 471–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, K. 2014. Because they can: the basis for moral obligations for (certain) collectives. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 38, 203–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollis, M. 1994. The gingerbread game. Analysis 54, 196–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, C. and Pettit, P. 2011. Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and the Status of Corporate Agents. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mailath, G., Morris, S. and Postlewaite, A. 2017. Laws and authority. Research in Economics 71, 32–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdams, R. 2000. A focal point theory of expressive law. Virginia Law Review 86, 1649–1729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, C. 2019. Games and the art of agency. Philosophical Review 148, 423–462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. 2008. Defending hard incompatibilism again. In Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility, ed. Trakakis, N. and Cohen, D., 1–33. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. 2017. Responsibility, regret and protest. Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility 4, ed. Shoemaker, D., 121–140. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Petersson, B. 2008. Collective omissions and responsibilities. Philosophical Papers 37, 5–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettit, P. 2007. Responsibility incorporated. Ethics 117, 171–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, E. 2000. Law and Social Norms. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rabin, M. 1993. Incorporating fairness into game theory and economics. American Economic Review 83, 1281–1302.Google Scholar
Richter, M. and Rubinstein, A. 2020. The permissible and the forbidden. Mimeo, Tel-Aviv University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubinstein, A. 1998. Modeling Bounded Rationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runciman, W. and Sen, A. 1965. Games, justice and the general will. Mind 74, 554–562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, L. 2016. Game theory in economics and beyond. Journal of Economic Perspectives 30, 107–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartorio, C. 2004. How to be responsible for something without causing it. Philosophical Perspectives 18, 315–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schelling, T. 1960. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Searle, J. 1990. Collective intentions and actions. In Intentions in Communication, ed. Cohen, P., Morgan, J. and Pollack, M.E., 401–415. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 2018. Collective Choice and Social Welfare (Expanded edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Singer, M. 2006. Legitimacy criteria for legal systems. Kings College Law Journal 17, 229–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. 2000. Team preferences. Economics and Philosophy 16, 175–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. 1996. On the expressive function of law. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 144, 2021–2053.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannsjo, T. 2007. The myth of innocence: on collective responsibility and collective punishment. Philosophical Papers 36, 295–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tessman, L. 2015. Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tuomela, R. 2006. Joint intention, We-mode and I-mode. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 30, 35–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, T. 2006. Why People Obey the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallentyne, P. 1989. Contractarianism and the assumption of mutual unconcern. Philosophical Studies 56, 187–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voorneveld, M. 2010. The possibility of impossible stairways: tail events and countable player sets. Games and Economic Behavior 68, 403–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaibert, L.A. 2003. Collective intentions and collective intentionality. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 62, 209–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar