Reward, Punishment, Privatization, and Moral Suasion in a Commons Dilemma

Strategies such as privatization, counterreinforcers, and moral suasion have been suggested and tested as means of preserving shared, slowly regenerating resources such as whales, clean air, and forests. We hypothesized that reinforcers would preserve a shared simulated resource best when it was shared in a commons dilemma format, and would be relatively ineffective when the resource was divided into private territories. Subjects in groups of three played a game in which they had to harvest resources from a slowly regenerating pool without depleting the resource. Three levels of reinforcement (reward, punishment, or no reinforcement) were crossed with three game structures (territoriality. Golden Rule moral suasion, and basic structure). Results showed that neither reward nor punishment helped the management of the commons when the resource was broken down into private segments, but both reward and punishment helped in the Golden Rule and basic structure conditions. Subjects perceived the territorial condition to be more competitive and more under their control compared to the moral suasion or basic structure conditions. In the moral suasion condition. subjects enjoyed either reinforcement condition (reward or punishment) more than no reinforcement.     

Cosmic Commons: Contact and Community

Abstract

As we Homo sapiens on planet Earth prepare for possible contact with extraterrestrial life (ET)—especially extraterrestrial intelligent (ETI) life—we need to consider ethics. What will be the ethical posture we adopt as Earth meets space? This article advocates an ethic of praxis based upon the concept of a Cosmic Commons. Intelligent extraterrestrial beings, from their experiences in biotic and abiotic environments, should share with us a universal regard for intelligence (intellilife), respect for biotic evolution, and a sense of responsibility for shared common space in our places in the universe. As we venture from Earth into space, what will be required? Not anxiety over human dis-placement to new worlds; nor should we invest our efforts in irresponsibly exploiting the natural goods of other planets. Rather, we need an ethical transformation of terrestrial human thought and conduct prior to, during, and as a consequence of extraterrestrial explorations and engagements. We need an anticipatory Cosmic Charter.     

Sustaining a Sacramental Commons

Augustine described sacraments as visible signs of invisible grace, indications of the presence of the Creator in creation. Although the Christian churches later limited “sacrament” to mean only seven or two religious rituals, usually administered by a member of the clergy, U.S. Catholic bishops in 1991 described a “sacramental universe,” recalling Augustine's understanding. The “sacramental universe” is localized as the “sacramental commons”; people are called to care for it responsibly. The gospel account of Jesus' encounter with the Rich Young Man provides insights about human responsibility to share the goods of the commons as common goods, thereby sustaining the well‐being of the sacramental commons.     

The Effect of Punishment Probability on Overconsumption and Stealing in a Simulated Commons1

In laboratory simulations of the commons dilemma, overconsumption depletes the shared resource, whereas allowing the players to steal from each other helps preserve the resource since players take from each other rather than from the central supply. In this study, we factorially crossed three levels of punishment probability for overconsumption (0%, 25%, 75%) with three levels of probability of punishment for stealing (0%, 25%, 75%). Subjects (n= 270) in three-person groups harvested points from a slowly regenerating central pool. Results indicated that punishment of overconsumption decreased overconsumption, increased stealing, and helped preserve the commons, whereas punishment of stealing decreased stealing, increased overconsumption, and facilitated depletion of the commons. Rather than punishment of one selfish behavior suppressing the other selfish behavior, a compensatory effect occurred: Punishment of one behavior increased the occurrence of the selfish alternative.     

合作指数与描述方式对儿童囚徒困境博弈中合作行为的影响

本研究采用囚徒困境任务,考察了91名10~12岁儿童和101名成人在博弈决策中合作行为的特点。并分别考察合作指数和描述方式这两个变量对个体合作性的影响。结果表明:(1)描述方式对儿童的合作行为有显著影响,表现为"回避"描述中较之"趋向"描述有更多合作行为,而描述方式对成人则无影响。(2)儿童对合作指数不敏感,平均合作率显著高于成人,表现出合作倾向;成人平均合作率随合作指数的升高而升高,但始终处于几率水平之下,表现出竞争倾向。     

Antisocial Behavior and the Continuing "Tragedy of the Commons"

The influence of individuals' antisocial tendencies and risk perceptions on a simulated managerial decision are examined in the study. Subjects accepting and rejecting a hypothetical scenario were found to be significantly different in terms of aggression, lack of empathy, and degree of individualism. Situational influences were not significantly related to subjects' decision. Limitations and future research are discussed.     

Collective Reasoning and the Discursive Dilemma

Abstract

The paper begins with a discussion of Philip Pettit's distinction between individualistic and collectivistic reasoning strategies. I argue that many of his examples, when correctly analysed, do not give rise to what he calls the discursive dilemma. I argue for a collectivistic strategy, which is a holistic premise-driven strategy. I will concentrate on three aspects of collective reasoning, which I call the publicity aspect, the collective acceptance aspect, and the historical constraint aspect: First, the premises of collective reasoning, unlike the premises of a private individual, have to be public in some sense. Second, the group members collectively accept the public premises, and thereby commit themselves to following them in their collective practical reasoning.Third, a person need not be consistent with his earlier private judgements, he is free to change his mind, but prior collective judgements, if not collectively abandoned, constrain the member's future judgements and decisions. I conclude that collective practical reasoning can be accounted for without collectivist ontological commitments.     

Theistic Ethics and the Euthyphro Dilemma

It is widely believed that the Divine Command Theory is untenable due to the Euthyphro Dilemma. This article first examines the Platonic dialogue of that name, and shows that Socrates's reasoning is faulty. Second, the dilemma in the form in which many contemporary philosophers accept it is examined in detail, and this reasoning is also shown to be deficient. This is not to say, however, that the Divine Command Theory is true—merely that one popular argument for rejecting it is unsound. Finally some brief thoughts are presented concerning where the real problems lie for the theory.     

Defensive Wars and the Reprisal Dilemma

I address a foundational problem with accounts of the morality of war that are derived from the Just War Tradition (JWT). Such accounts problematically focus on ‘the moment of crisis’: i.e. when a state is considering a resort to war. This is problematic because sometimes the state considering the resort to war is partly responsible for wrongly creating the conditions in which the resort to war becomes necessary. By ignoring this possibility, JWT effectively ignores, in its moral evaluation of wars, certain types of past wrongdoing. I argue that we can address this problem by incorporating an account of compensatory liability into an account of the morality of war. Doing so yields the view that, if we have culpably failed to compensate victims for past wrongs, we might be morally required to weigh the well-being of those victims more heavily in our calculation of proportionality when determining the permissibility of a defensive act that harms the victim as a side-effect. This, in turn, makes satisfying the proportionality constraint more difficult. The upshot is that sometimes, in order to wage a defensive war permissibly, we first have to discharge compensatory duties. This has implications for how we evaluate ‘cycles of reprisals’ that plague warfare.     

Video Games and Aggression in Children1

This study examined the effect of playing an aggressive or nonaggressive video game on fifth-graders' free play. Twenty-two pairs of boys and 20 pairs of girls were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. One of the children in each pair played a video game rated by peers as aggressive, a video game with little aggression, or a non-video maze-solving game for 8 minutes. The other child watched. Each child was then left individually to engage in free play in a separate room for 8 minutes, and also given the opportunity to deliver rewards and punishments to another child. The results were similar for both players and observers. Girls evidenced significantly more general activity and aggressive free play after playing the aggressive video game. Girls' activity decreased and their quiet play slightly increased after playing the low aggressive game compared to the control group. Neither video game had any significant effect on boys' free play. Neither girls nor boys gave significantly more punishments or rewards after playing any of the games.     

Individual Participation in Organizational Information Commons

This research extended earlier public goods research on individual incentives to use an organizational information commons that was based in Marwell and Oliver's (1993) collective action model. A revised theoretical model that incorporated team‐level social influence and technology‐specific competence was proposed. The model was tested using online survey data from 150 individuals in 13 work groups across 5 organizations. The research demonstrated that perceived team member behavior and technology‐specific competence were positively related to individual use of intranets, over and above the collective level influences modeled in earlier research. These findings supported a more “socialized” model of individuals' motivations to participate in organizational information sharing via collective repositories and suggested that management could boost levels of intranet usage through group level social influence and technology‐specific training.     

The Logical Problem and the Theoretician's Dilemma

The theory‐theory of human uniqueness posits that the capacity to theorize, in a way strongly analogous to theorizing in scientific practice, was a key innovation in the hominid lineage and was responsible for many of our unique cognitive traits. One of the central arguments that its proponents have used to support the claim that animals are not theorists, the logical problem, bears strong similarities to Hempel's theoretician's dilemma, which purports to show that theories are unnecessary. This similarity threatens to undermine both the claim that theorizing serves a unique, adaptive role in human cognition and our ability to test for the presence of theories. I examine two historical responses to the theoretician's dilemma and argue that they open up strategies for experimentally testing for theoretical ability in other animals.     

Zarathustra's Dilemma and the Embodiment of Morality

Philosophical Studies -     

Rule-Consequentialism's Dilemma

This paper examines recent attempts to defend Rule-Consequentialism against a traditional objection. That objection takes the form of a dilemma, that either Rule-Consequentialism collapses into Act-Consequentialism or it is incoherent. Attempts to avoid this dilemma based on the idea that using RC has better results than using AC are rejected on the grounds that they conflate the ideas of a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure. Other strategies, Brad Hooker's prominent amongst them, involving the thought that RC need contain no overarching concern to maximize the good are acknowledged to avoid the original dilemma, but lead to further problems of motivating and justifying RC in the absence of such a concern. The paper argues that Hooker's attempt to deal with these problems by using a 'Reflective Equilibrium plus method is unsuccessful.