prisoner's dilemma.
The prisoner's dilemma describes a possible situation in which prisoners are offered various deals and prospects of punishment. The options and outcomes are so constructed that it is rational for each person, when deciding in isolation, to pursue a course which each finds to be against his interest and therefore irrational. For example, if I am an employer and you a worker, it may be to my advantage not to pay you (rather than pay you) whether or not you do the work, and for you not to do the work (rather than do it) whether or not I pay you; but it is to the advantage of neither of us that I should not pay and you should not work. Such a scenario postulates a lack of enforced co-operation; and to avoid the undesirable outcome, the actors in the drama need to be forced into co-operation by a system of rules. So it has been argued that we can find in this dilemma a basis for the generation of the institutions of morality—or, at least, of prudent co-operation. But that conclusion is challenged by others who point out that the same choice-theoretic problems also arise with ends that are immoral or prudentially harmful.... ...
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