Game Theory and the Social Contract, Vol. 2: Just Playing (Economic Learning and Social Evolution)

Book Description

In Volume 1 of Game Theory and the Social Contract, Ken Binmore restated the problems of moral and political philosophy in the language of game theory. In Volume 2, Just Playing, he unveils his own controversial theory, which abandons the metaphysics of Immanuel Kant for the naturalistic approach to morality of David Hume. According to this viewpoint, a fairness norm is a convention that evolved to coordinate behavior on an equilibrium of a society's Game of Life. This approach allows Binmore to mount an evolutionary defense of Rawls's original position that escapes the utilitarian conclusions that follow when orthodox reasoning is applied with the traditional assumptions. Using ideas borrowed from the theory of bargaining and repeated games, Binmore is led instead to a form of egalitarianism that vindicates the intuitions that led Rawls to write his Theory of Justice.

Written for an interdisciplinary audience, Just Playing offers a panoramic tour through a range of new and disturbing insights that game theory brings to anthropology, biology, economics, philosophy, and psychology. It is essential reading for anyone who thinks it likely that ethics evolved along with the human species.

Customer Reviews:

Important Contribution to Political Philosophy.......2001-02-13

Binmore treats ethics not as a system of rules justified by Reason, but as by contrast, ethics the scientific study of how humans behave and think. Binmore reports extensively on contemporary ethnographies of hunter-gatherer societies, believing that such societies mirror the social and material conditions the human race faced during its formative period as a species. Such societies have no division of labor except for gender, and are politically egalitarian, decision-making power being quite equally distributed among the adult males of the community. Binmore infers that fairness norms must be self-enforcing, and cannot depend on a hierarchical leader (a "philosopher-king") to enforce ethical principals. Moreover, since a division of labor (except for gender) is absent, deliberations in such groups approximate the `original position.'

Binmore thus offers us a "coevolution of genes and culture" in which the acceptance of original position moral arguments is written into our genes, but the cultural content depends on local environmental conditions and random variation. Again drawing on the ethnographic literature, Binmore focuses on food sharing as the most important rule of justice to be decided by a foraging group. In foraging societies, high variance foodstuffs such as meat are equally shared, irrespective of who made the kill. Equal sharing is thus a moral rule justified by reasoning from the original position of hunters who do not know exactly which among them will be lucky or skilled.

Binmore uses evolutionary game theory to analyze social interactions. This adds a welcome degree of clarity to ethical reasoning. Indeed, Binmore is quite clear that all of his substantive results depend on the plausibility of the game theoretic models he presents and analyzes.

While fairness norms are biologically determined for Binmore, the players in Binmore's games are rational self-interested agents. Thus all of the results of two-person game theory based on the rational actor model can be deployed in analyzing social justice. It follows in particular that "[i]n a well-ordered society, each citizen honors the social contract because it is in his own self-interest to do so, provided that enough of his fellow citizens do the same." (5) There is no sense in which moral behavior is opposed to self-interested behavior. Moreover, since players do not behave ethically in bargaining, there is no sense in which the institutions resulting from their bargaining have any abstract normative standing. "Evolutionists simply seek to understand," says Binmore, "why some types of human organization survive better than others.... evolutionary ethics offers no authority whatsoever to those who wish to claim that some moral systems are somehow intrinsically superior to others.' (179)

Different societies can thus embrace different institutions because comparisons in the original position depend on `empathetic preferences' that are culturally specific. It is in part for this reason that Binmore calls himself a `whig,' by which he means a moderate progressive, not seduced by the grand visions of a totally alternative society as proposed by the Left and the Right. The latter two, he claims, make social judgments in a universal, ahistorical manner that have nothing to do with the actual fairness processes in real societies.

Just Playing is an important and welcome contribution to the literature. The book does, however, have some faults. The most salient is that crucial analytical material and discursive asides jumbled together. One must read the whole book, and make numerous references back and forth, to understand the basic argument. Moreover, the book is intended for a general audience interested in political philosophy, yet even professional economists will find the analytical parts difficult to follow.

Another problem is that Binmore uses evolutionary game theory where it suits him, but abandons it when it does not. For instance, while Binmore uses naturalism to justify the assertion that Homo sapiens is genetically programed to accept the original position, but he gives no empirical evidence that this is in fact the case. Moreover, it is implausible that evolution imprinted us with an original position orientation, but in no other way affected our moral behavior, so that the assumption of Homo economicus remains valid for bargaining purposes. Laboratory experiments reveal forms of prosocial behavior (e.g., rejecting `unfair' offers in an ultimatum game, or punishing free riders in a public goods game) that relate directly to questions of justice and fairness, yet contradict the Homo economicus model. The notion that human sociality can be explained by `enlightened self-interest,' even when accompanied by respect for the original position, will not likely survive a close study of the evidence (See my book Game Theory Evolving, Princeton University Press, 2000).

Upgrading Rawls' "Theory of Justice".......2000-06-24

In his exciting theory of the social contract Ken Binmore takes up the discussion that took place in the 70ies after the publication of John Rawls' "Theory of Justice". While he sticks to the idea of a social contract reached through voluntary agreement in the Original Position, he also considers the utilitarian critique such as Harsanyi's. But Binmore does much more than that. He translates Rawls' metaphysical idea of a reflective equilibrium into a two-stage bargaining game with flesh and bones. He stresses the tautological character of game-theoretic tools which in this context becomes an advantage. By comparison of the ethical properties of allocations reached via competitive markets and those reached through bargaining in the original position he tries to identify a demarcation line for the decentralized aggregation of individual preferences. Binmore's book is going to be a challenge to any reader interested in the problem of explaining progress in human societies.

Game Theory and the Social Contract - Vol. 2: Just Playing

Average customer rating:

Game Theory and the Social Contract - Vol. 2: Just Playing
Ken Binmore K. G. Binmore
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQMVGG

Book Description

edited from the author's posthumous works by Agnes von Cranach

translated by Robert D. Martin

Here Am I Where Are You?: The Behavior of the Greylag Goose was thought to be Konrad Lorenz's last book. However, in 1991 the "Russian Manuscript" was discovered in an attic, and its subsequent publication in German has become a scientific sensation. Written under the most extreme conditions in Soviet prison camps, the "Russian Manuscript" was the first outline of a large-scale work on behavioral science. This translation contains a synopsis of all the ideas that made Lorenz famous as the founder of ethology, the study of comparative animal behavior.

The Natural Science of the Human Species : An Introduction to Comparative Behavioral Research: the

Average customer rating:

The Natural Science of the Human Species : An Introduction to Comparative Behavioral Research: the
Konrad; Von Cranach, Agnes (editor); ; Martin, Robert D. (translator) Lorenz
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OR4BPE

Average customer rating:

The Natural Science of the Human Species: An Introduction to Comparative Behavioral Research: The
Konrad Lorenz
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQAXZW

Amazon.com

"Cattle have come on a long journey with us, from pastoral times to settled agriculture, from the New World to post-industrialism." So writes popular historian and children's-book author Laurie Carlson in this wide-ranging meditation on the relationship between humans and cattle throughout human history.

Though her narrative suffers from a somewhat scattered approach, Carlson has much to say about that long journey. Cattle have shaped human societies for millennia, she notes, figuring prominently in the lives and imaginations of the cave dwellers of Paleolithic Europe, the farmers of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and 19th-century Australia, South America, and the American West, to name but a few. She stops in at each of these times and places, pondering curiosities as she does. Along the way, for instance, she writes of scandals involving tainted beef served to American field soldiers during the Spanish-American War and subsequent advances in food safety; the efforts of German scientists to reverse-breed cattle to arrive at the ancestral aurochs, extinct for nearly four centuries; the ravages of "zoonoses," or animal-borne diseases such as smallpox and cowpox; and the role of the cattle industry in the development of transcontinental railroads. She also observes that cattle husbandry has gone from an economic given to a source of controversy throughout much of the world, thanks to the rise of new bovine diseases and the effects of overgrazing on already threatened environments. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

An informal social history--rich and surprising--of the centuries old relationship between cows and humans. A far from humdrum book--it will open even jaundiced eyes. --Larry McMurtry

Customer Reviews:

Required reading for every cattle rancher........2004-05-03

For a sociology/history book, this book is amazingly readable. Although it does not hold itself out to be a treatise, it is filled with well-documented facts, and the book's endnotes and references provide a wealth of material for those seeking further academic materials. It was published before the case of Mad Cow disease was found in the United States in December 2003, but it contains a very informative discussion of BSE and discusses the outbreaks in Great Britain and Europe. It presents a balanced view of the commercial cattle industry in the U.S., addressing both its problems and benefits, without advocating positions or taking sides. I bought extra copies to give to my cattle grower friends, including those who are trying to raise grass-fed cattle to supply the growing demand for grass-fed beef and dairy products raised without growth hormones, antibiotics, or stimulants.

Provocative look at how people and animals relate.......2002-05-20

Carlson tackles a huge topic with interesting facts and details. She argues FOR cattle in a way that makes sense for both environmentalist-minded readers as well as ranch types.

Carlson really needs an editor.......2002-03-06

The history of cattle was an attractive subject for a lifelong city dweller interested in learning new things. Unfortunately, much if not most of the book is neither a history nor about cattle. Carlson takes a quirky, scattershot approach to her subject and is never able to focus her thoughts. Unfortunately, there apparently was no editor to bring some order to the book, or even to correct the numerous factual errors. The author is something of a mystic, and as such uncritically collects myths and regurgitates them. Cattle have a mystical significance for her, and this somehow seems to give her license to include her ill-informed musings on many unrelated subjects within the pages of the book. However, there was some useful information about cattle and the products made from them scattered through the book; hence the two star rating. If you have a high tolerance for irrelevance and are not a stickler for accuracy, the book may be worth reading.

Book Description

Anglers who wish to learn the nuances of trolling, who want to troll for species they may have not sought previously, or who want to improve their trolling effectiveness will benefit from the information to be found in this new edition.

Customer Reviews:

A MUST read!!!!!.......2005-09-13

Very,Very,informative book!!!! Highly recommended!!! The Best book I have read on trolling A to Zs to date!

Gettin' Down Fishing.......2005-03-21

A great book on trolling, with lots of information about downriggers. The author also covers the importance of boat speed, temperature, sonar, and more. You can learn much from the author on catching a wide range of species including striped bass, black bass, muskie, walleye, salmon, and trout. If you troll, or would like to learn about it, get this book.

Another excellent book on trolling is "Trolling Top to Bottom." These two books form an excellent foundation for anyone wanting to catch fish using this enjoyable and productive method. Once you get into trolling, you will also want a copy of "Precision Trolling," an encyclopedia of crankbaits that tells you how deep each bait will go given the length of line out. Tight lines!

The Art of Trolling: a Complete Guide To Freshwater Methods and Tackle

Average customer rating:

The Art of Trolling: a Complete Guide To Freshwater Methods and Tackle
Ken Schultz
Manufacturer: Ragged Mountain Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OFVIES

Book Description

More than just an anthology of Spanish and Spanish American literature, this text is also an introduction to literary analysis. Organized by genres (prose, poetry, drama, and the essay), it provides a rich and diverse array of reading selections. Each section is accompanied by an introduction and exercises.

Customer Reviews:

Classic textbook.......2007-10-07

Very nice selection of texts, helpful biographical info about authors - everything that a textbook needs.
The only downside is the price, but it's worth the money.

It is a text book!.......2007-09-08

I find it helpful as a Spanish language learner that they define a number of the words that are not used in Spanish today. I wish I was more interested in hispanic literatura but so far I find most of the stories boring. I use this book in my required spanish lit class, so I had to buy it! Maybe by the end of the semester I find it more enlightening!

Nice intro. to Spanish literature.......2006-11-10

I used this book in a class at the University of NC. I actually liked the book & the class. It gives a nice overview of different literary periods and literature written during each one. It contains poesia, drama and narrativas.

Spanish literature made easy.......2001-05-19

Aproximaciones is a wonderful tool for the student learning about Spanish literature. The selections are well analyzed by the author and the biographies provide an overview of the cultures and perspectives of the different time periods. The chronological order of the readings makes it easy to understand the different stages of the Spanish literature and the various literary movements affecting the arts, the philosophy, and society of medieval to modern times.

From a future literary critic.......2000-01-14

This is an extremely helpful book for those who start studying literary analysis in Spanish as well as for very green literary scholars. The introduction to the special terms is easy to follow and the english equivalents are in their right places and don't distract you. Go ahead, you'll love using it in your Spanish or literary analysis class!

Aproximaciones al estudio de la literatura hispanica

Average customer rating:

Aproximaciones al estudio de la literatura hispanica
Carmelo Virgillo
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Aproximaciones al estudio de la literatura hispanica

ASIN: 0394331257

Average customer rating:

Aproximaciones Al Estudio De LA Literatura Hispanica

Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0075544199

Average customer rating:

Aproximaciones: Al Estudio De LA Literatura Hispanica
Carmelo; Friedman, Edward; Valdivieso, Teresa Virgillo
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OF8LCK

Average customer rating:

Aproximaciones Al Estudio De LA Literatura Hispanica
Carmelo Virgillo
Manufacturer: Random House Inc (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OGMYH2

Book Description

The characters used in Chinese writing are not letters but stylized ideographs, each with its own history. The development of Chinese writing is linked to the history of China's emperors, who commissioned new styles of writing with which to record their victories. In Between Heaven and Earth, master calligrapher Shi Bo gives a fascinating overview of the evolution of seven seminal Chinese writing styles starting in the seventeenth century BCE. He also introduces the reader to the calligrapher's art, including its materials and techniques. This gift-quality, two-color book is abundantly illustrated with archival material and the author's original calligraphy and will appeal to readers interested in Chinese language, history, and calligraphy.

Customer Reviews:

A considered comment regarding Heaven and Earth.......2007-02-26

I have to weigh in on this. I have been interested in the Chinese character since high school; that was back in the dark ages. I graduated in 1961. I was interested in the work of Ezra Pound and his collaboration with Ernest Fenallosa in the presentation of the image through written language. Subsequently, I studied Art History with a well known calligrapher, Lloyd Reynolds. Those who know the history of the wonderful fonts we use on our computers today will recognize this name as belonging to one of the sources; many of our major font designers studied with this guy and those who didn't know who he was. I was, at the time, interested enough in the visual/literary boundary to change my handwriting forever. My Italic cursive may be degenerate, but it is unmistakable and I receive regular compliments on it when checking out at the supermarket (three this week). Since then, I have been working as a visual artist (generally in editorial photography as well as showing independently) and for the past seventeen years teaching in college art departments. I forgot mostly about my fascination with the ideogramatic image as presented in the Chinese character until recently when I found myself hopeful for a year long faculty exchange in Beijing. How I have missed it, and how fascinating it is for me today!

Fortunately, I found this book, which I think is absolutely wonderful. I just bought myself a rather expensive "synthetic weasel" brush, a DaVinci series 488. Being a visual person, I have something of an instinct for the characters. Knowing that I'm too old ever to become fluent (for lack of time left even if I were to be blessed with a new memory which is certainly not likely) I absolutely revel in this wonderful book.

Yes, I can be fairly prickly when it comes to detail in my own medium (ask my students) and from that point of view I can understand the point of view of the first reviewer. However, I must align myself solidly with the second review. I, too, noticed the reversal of the images in "fishing" and just bent with it as bamboo in the wind. I make mistakes, too. We must, of course, hold our authors and publishers responsible for such things, but we must also credit readers with the intelligence and the ability to adapt. I think that to be so hard on a book that is in so many ways so wonderful is to be excessively pedantic. What is the point in this, when anyone with eyes who is sufficiently interested to pick this book up and read it can see the reversal of the description? If they can't see it, so what? How will it hurt them? Will it even diminish their experience with the book? I doubt it.

In a way, it seems like it might be useful, or at least not harmful, to offer readers little bits of trouble to encourage thinking. As a teacher I see far too much failure in the motivation in my students to think critically. I really can't take these criticisms very seriously at all. True, they are, but enough to invalidate an otherwise magnificent little book? I really don't think so.

I would encourage anyone interested in the subject to buy this book and read it. Also, go out an get yourself one each of the treasures: a brush, an inkstick, a stone to mix the ink with, and some paper. The Chinese language is hard, but well worth study if for no other reason because it is so incredibly visual. Even if you will never speak it, not even in a Chinese restaurant, it will fascinate you if you are susceptible to the ideas of words in the world of images. There are not very many books that do justice to this. This one, despite its fairly minor flaws, really does, and does it very well. It is beautiful and has the potential to reach your heart. Go for it.

Delightful overview of the Chinese script's evolution.......2004-06-22

I think the other review here, giving this book but one star, is not really fair. This book is obviously meant to offer a guided tour of the evolution of written Chinese. So what if the naming isn't totally consistent? I'm not reading the book for names, and even if I was, I could easily look them up online to get a more "proper" spelling. Are such things niggles that count against the book? Yes. Are they even remotely significant drawbacks to the book as a whole? I would say no.

/Between Heaven and Earth/ offers us mere mortals a glimpse at the fascinating history of one of the most beautiful written languages on the planet. Sure, it is lacking in scholarly details, but that's absolutely not what this book is for. It is meant to be accessible and interesting, while offering a good understanding of the Chinese script's history.

I bought this book for a very simple reason: I am fascinated by Chinese, especially the script. But I am NOT a linguist! This is not an academic linguistic book, and it doesn't even try to be. That's specifically why I bought it! I wanted to kick back, relax, and absorb a bit of this lovely cultural treasure of China.

This is a great book, and I highly recommend it, little niggles and flaws aside. The calligraphy is beautiful, the overview information presented in each chapter is interesting and informative in a general way, and overall I had a really enjoyable time reading /Between Heaven and Earth/. No, it's not going to make you an expert on the minutiae of the historical details. But it will inform, entertain, and most of all, inspire further investigation and enjoyment of this wonderful language. For that, I heartily give this book a strong recommendation and a full five stars.

Not recommended.......2003-12-29

For any serious reader curious of the origins, history and development of written Chinese, do not bother with this book. It is hard to know who is at fault for bringing this book to English readers. It is supposedly translated from a French edition, but the bibiliography contains only English references. I have long been a fan of Shambhala's editions but this book is fraught with errors, starting with the back cover. You'll be fascinated to learn that the character for 'Prime Minister," when written in xingshu style reads "Elephant"! (You can see this for yourself as the xingshu "Elephant" appears twice on the bottom row). Romanizations are inconsistent - Lao-Tseu, Zhuang-Tseu and Xun-Tseu - and Chin Shihuangdi morphs into Qui Shihuangdi halfway through the book. An explanation of the character for 'Fishing" confuses its left element with its right element. Is it "Fish" or "Water"? Anyone with a basic understanding of Chinese writing can see that the author's (or translator's) explanation doesn't correspond with the ideogram's elements.
No translations for many of the cursive examples are provided, nor do the author's explanations provide anything more than his opinion of what the script "feels" like to him. Since I am not an expert on literati, I cannot confirm the authenticity of the names and anecdotes Shi Bo has mentioned. At 17.95, this was a waste of my money. Shambhala should either be more discriminating when selecting new editions, or hire an editor who has some grounding/expertise in the subjects they release.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books