Morality and neurochemical impulses

Recently I was reminded of a book I read a while ago by philosopher Patricia Churchland entitled Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. (A brief video of her explaining the book is here.) The book attempts to explain what scientists have learned about the brain in order to explain how it is that humans developed a sense of morality. One interesting idea she discusses is that the hormone Oxytocin is found in the brain and in the body. It has been shown to promote caring behavior in animals, and it is released during pregnancy, triggering “full maternal behavior” in humans and animals. Oxytocin also promotes trust in humans by “raising the threshold for tolerance of others, and to its down-regulation of fear and avoidance responses,” as demonstrated in experiments in which some research subjects are given a dose of Oxytocin and are asked to play games and interact with others in order to measure trusting behavior. Another interesting discussion is that, at the genetic level, behavior is complex. No single gene can be associated with any unique or specific behavior. In the “Parable of the Aggressive Fruit Fly,” Churchland explains how scientists are able to breed a fruit fly that is 30 times more aggressive than their natural cousins, but genetic differences between them are minor and do not seem to be related to any specific behavior. Rather, differences are in mundane physiological functions.

After discussing these ideas Churchland enters into a discussion of why various philosophers have not really gotten it right about morality and ends with a criticism of religion, or what she calls a “supernatural basis” as the source of morality. She denies the need to rely on God or religion in order to explain morality and how people come to know that something is right or wrong, focusing instead on a neurobiological basis for these. To this end she is particularly critical of religious tenets that imply or state an absolute standard of behavior or morality, such as claims about what someone “ought” to do or be. She focuses especially on the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and a God-given conscience. One reason she gives is that religious “absolutes” are just that—prescriptions that are intolerant of specific contexts. Another reason she gives is that absolute standards are invalidated because of the allowance of exceptions, such as when the Lord tells Moses “Thou shalt not kill” (see Exodus 20) and then later commands him to slay Israelites who worshipped false Gods (see Numbers 25). I note the inconsistency in these two objections. She is critical of religious intolerance as well as its tolerance. She also complains that people “with conscience” often advocate conflicting ideals. For example, some people feel it is wrong to eat meat while others feel it is morally acceptable. According to her, this means religion cannot be used to justify claims about morality.

I find her argument highly unsatisfying. If she is correct, then where does this leave us? A world in which morality is relative and where morality is created and defined by neurochemical reactions in our brains? If we live in such a world, then how is it that humans are able to make decisions of right and wrong and come to a consensus about many moral issue? Neurochemicals might explain in part feelings of affection we have for others, but that only accounts for the sociality of humans and animals. It is too far a leap to claim that it also accounts for the ability of humans to engage in complex moral analysis or to make and act on specific moral judgments. It also cannot explain how or why little children understand basics of right or wrong. If you ask a five year old child if it is a good thing or a bad thing to take a toy away from another child or to hit another person, they usually get the right answer (it is a wrong thing). Children have an innate sense of right and wrong that can only be described as a conscience. Neurobiological responses are too primitive to explain this ability of children. To accept Churchland’s view is to equate morality with sociality, and that is clearly insufficient for explaining actual moral judgment.

A stable society requires that humans accept a common morality and sense about what is right or wrong and that they are willing and able to police themselves by exercising moral restraint. This requires a belief or a willingness to believe that there is such a thing as an absolute standard of morality. History has shown repeatedly the horror that humans inflict on others when they disagree on fundamental moral issues and beliefs and adopt a mindset of relativism and situational ethics. The Nazi holocaust comes to mind. (Side note: I just finished Miklos Nyiszli’s book, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, which provides a stunning account of a Jewish doctor who helped the infamous Josef Mengele conduct experiments on prisoners in the concentration camp.)

Personally, I would rather live in a world in which people accepted the reality of a Divine Being and followed His dictates than one in which people acted only according to neurobiological and chemical impulses. It is because people ignore their God-given conscience that immoral behavior and human-on-human atrocities occur.

Utilitarian pushers are a miserable lot

Each spring semester I teach an applied ethics class called “Ethical Issues in Agriculture.” Today we discussed one of the most famous thought experiments in applied ethics—the trolley dilemma (a Youtube.com presentation of the issue is here). In this dilemma, a trolley is running out of control on a track where five men are working. In one variation, you are told you can save the five by pulling a lever to divert the trolley onto another track, where one man works, thus killing him. In another variation, you are told that you can push a very fat man off a footbridge onto the track to derail the train, thus saving the five.

Would you pull the lever to save five while causing the death of one in the first case?  Why? Would you push the man off the footbridge to save the five in the second case? Why?

I have used the trolley problem for many years in class. Most students are willing to pull the lever in the first case, but most are not willing to push the man in the second case. According to students, it is better to save five at the expense of one by pulling the lever, since five versus one seems to be the only pertinent factor in the first trolley case. This is classical utiliarian thinking. Utilitarianism is the idea that a decision is right if a greater good is served, such as more people benefiting than being harmed. Inflicting extreme pain on a person for information that could save thousands would be justifiable under utilitarianism. However, non-utilitarian thinking applies in the second trolley case because there are other things to consider. For example, in the first case all workers have preexisting harm since they are on track, whereas in the second case the man on the footbridge is not in harm’s way; our pushing him introduces him to harm. Diverting the trolley is what saves the five in the first case, whereas the death of the man is necessary in the second case. We also need to consider the rights of the man to decide for himself whether to leap or not–that is, we should not use him as a means to an end without his consent.

What is interesting with the trolley problem is people who use utilitarian thinking in the second case, choosing to push the man in order to save the five.

I read a study a few years ago that shed some light on people who are predominantly utilitarian thinkers. The study is “The mismeasure of morals: Antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas.” The researchers wanted to know how people who selected a utilitarian outcome to the trolley problem scored on personality assessments. Over two hundred college students were recruited for the study. The study showed that people who consistently adopt utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas are more likely than others to have indications of psychopathic personalities or to feel that life is meaningless.

Most respondents in the study did not think it was right to push the fat man to save five workers. However, respondents who consistently chose the utilitarian solution to the different variations of the trolley problem also scored high on personality assessment indicators that suggested a high degree of psychopathy, emotional detachment to others, and a sense that life is meaningless. In other words, utilitarian pushers (people who believe it is acceptable to push the fat man off the footbridge) are not pleasant or happy people. In fact, we might even say their psychological profiles are troubling.

It is interesting that economics as a profession pushes the utilitarian framework (choose actions where the benefits exceed the costs). It’s our fundamental way of thinking as economists. Maybe this is why the 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle referred to economics as the “dismal science.”

In case any of you are worried, it’s okay to have an economist as a friend … as long as you don’t take walks along trolley tracks together.

 

Academic gobbledygook

Much has been written about the poor quality of academic writing. Examples include Steven Pinker, a Harvard University psychology professor, explaining why academics stink at writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and author Victoria Clayton, describing the needless complexity of academic writing in an article in The Atlantic. Pinker points to literary analysis (e.g., when scholars “lose sight of whom they are writing for”), cognitive science (e.g., when scholars know too much and have “difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know”) as well as economic incentives (e.g., because scholars have “few incentives for writing well”). According to Clayton, “Academics play an elitist game with their words: They want to exclude interlopers.”

When are scholars going to get the message?

The following is the first sentence in the introduction of a paper submitted to Agriculture and Human Values: “This paper will explore how environmental documentaries through their use of direct address and creative aesthetics and imaginaries foreground a range of cautionary tales around the ethical importance of modes of food production, waste, and (over)consumption.” The paper concludes with this: “The toxic materiality of the eco-documentary … is a matter of a complex network of social and material effects, involving not only the immediate material of the DVD or film strip, but also the design and mass manufacture of technology, travel and transportation, land use and accessibility.”

I rejected the paper for publication. This is what I wanted to say to the author: “I am rejecting your paper because it is utterly incomprehensible. Too much of it is scholarly mumbo jumbo and academic goggledygook. I do not know what you are saying and don’t want to spend any more time trying to figure it out. Learn how to write clearly and simply before submitting a paper to my journal.”

Of course I was more diplomatic. My response began this way: “Critiques of the food system and assessments of ethical issues relating to food production fit within the aims and scope of this journal. However, I struggle to see the contribution of your paper to the kinds of debates we see published here and in similar outlets …”

Sigh.

Interestingly, dictionary.com gives this definition for goggledygook: “language characterized by circumlocution and jargon, usually hard to understand.” Circumlocution? Really? Merriam-Webster’s is better: “wordy and generally unintelligible jargon.” Maybe Dictionary.com has too many academics working for them.

 

The boiling frog metaphor

We’ve all heard the story. You place a frog in a pot of boiling water and it jumps out to safety. You put a frog in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat and it cooks to death. It’s a great metaphor. If we are unaware of problems that develop slowly, we may never recognize there is something to be concerned about until it is too late.

Recently, a writer describing a contemporary musical number used the metaphor (here) to explain how “people wouldn’t realize they’ve been suckered into a musical until it was too late.”

However, the truth is that the story is not true. You put a frog in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat, the frog gets agitated and jumps out. In fact, it’s really hard to keep a frog still enough in a pot of water to test the theory. Some scientists did this in the 1800s producing mixed evidence for the boiling frog story. Today experts generally agree that the boiling frog story is hogwash, or perhaps better said, “frogwash”.

Economic models, high-priced consultants and ethical analysis

A colleague sent me a ProPublica article that explains how some “professors make more than a thousand bucks an hour peddling mega-mergers.” That’s a lot of money, even by consulting standards. MBA business consultants can charge between $200 and $600 an hour. Top partners in consulting firms might charge between $800 and $1200. A Wall Street Journal article in 2011 reported that top lawyers charged as much as $1000 an hour. But some economists are pulling in $1300 an hour as consultants.

To be fair, in a free market buyers and sellers should be able to negotiate for exchange prices. If someone is demanding $1300 an hour for their services and another is willing to pay it, then there is nothing objectionably wrong about the arrangement.

In this case the economic consultants are hired by firms that want to merge with or acquire other companies. The consultants are tasked with building a strong case, based on solid and objective economic principles and evidence, that the merger is in the interest of the industry, business, consumers and everyone else. What makes the article interesting is not that there are high priced economic consultants. It is that these consultants often get the antitrust analysis wrong. They build the arguments on speculation. They ignore or trivialize inconsistent or contradictory evidence. They use “junk science,” in the words of a Justice Department official quoted in the article.

A cynic might say that companies are paying the economists whatever price they will accept to argue whatever the company wants them to say, regardless of economics. Apologies to my lawyer friends, but isn’t this what lawyers do? So economists are on the same level as lawyers now?

Economics is a science. And economic models, when used appropriately, can provide a degree of objective assessment. The subjectivity comes in determining which economic models to use and what evidence to incorporate into the analysis. The ethical problem arises when the prospect of financial gain (in this case, a $1300 an hour contract) influences which models and what evidence to utilize. As noted by the authors, “The government’s reliance on economic models rests on the notion that they’re more scientific than human judgment. Yet merger economics has little objectivity. Like many areas of social science, it is dependent on assumptions, some explicit and some unseen and unexamined. That leaves room for economists to follow their preconceptions, and their wallets.”

The implication is that government regulators might be convinced a proposal is best for stakeholders (notice I didn’t use the word stockholders) when it is really only in the interest of the company seeking the merger–and comes at the expense of other stakeholders. In the case of a proposed merger between cell phone companies AT&T and T-Mobile, the economic consultant wanted to make this argument: “That even though prices would have risen for customers, the companies would have achieved large cost savings. The gain for AT&T shareholders … would have justified the merger, even if cell phone customers lost out.”

Let’s hear it for the economists.

New issue of Agriculture and Human Values in print

The next issue of Agriculture and Human Values, volume 33, number 4, has just been published. The table of contents as well as links to papers (for those with access rights) is available here. This issue contains twelve regular papers, two discussion papers, the presidential address given at the 2016 meetings of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society, a special symposium, and several book reviews.

The regular papers are summarized as follows: Specht et al identify factors relating to the acceptance by stakeholders of farms in and on urban buildings in Germany. Cederlöf revisits the agroecology versus industrial agriculture debate through a study of low-carbon urban farming in Cuba. Warner studies the ability and willingness of smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change and trade policy changes in Costa Rica. Wairimu et al use a case study from northern Uganda to examine the interplay between humanitarian services and development policies. Jaffee and Howard analyze similarities and differences among four US fair trade certification programs. Schupp uses national, regional and census tract data to evaluate the location of farmers markets in the US. McIntyre et al expand Poppendieck’s Sweet Charity critique of contemporary food banks through a careful review of the literature. Carson et al conduct a study of vendors and patrons of farmers’ markets in order to determine how information exchanges affect consumer purchasing behavior. Robinson et al examine the ability of mobile food markets to address food security needs in a case study from Syracuse, New York. Tobin et al critically evaluate the ability of pro-poor value chains to enhance the food security of participants in their study of farmers in Peru. Gillespie et al examine the reasons U.S. farmers choose to raise goats for meat production. Berry et al assess the agrarian attitudes of Australians through an innovative quantifiable index.

The discussion consists of two papers. Mueller, et al provide a critique of a previously published paper examining the empirical relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and organic farming. McGee, the author of the original paper on greenhouse gas emissions, writes a response to the critique. The 2016 AFHVS presidential address, “Decoding diversity in the food system: Wheat and bread in North America,” is by Phil Howard (from Michigan State University). Lincoln Addison (from Memorial University) and Matthew Schnurr (from Dalhousie University) edit a special symposium of papers on the topic of labor, gender and sources of agrarian change.

Prisoner’s Dilemma and presidential campaigns

I introduced my microeconomics class today to game theory. Doing so gave me an opportunity to explain why US presidential campaigns are filled with so much hateful and ugly rhetoric. Why can’t politicians be nicer, speak to the issues, and avoid the hurling of mud at their political opponents? Why do we see so many negative campaign adds? Game theory, particularly the Prisoner’s Dilemma, provides insight here. In a previous post I described briefly what the Prisoner’s Dilemma is.

Consider this figure, which depicts the campaign strategies of Donald Trump (“Trump”) and Hillary Clinton (“Hillary”). Trump and Hillary can be nice or mean. If both are nice and avoid negative campaigning, they each split the Electoral College (EC) votes, with one getting a few more than the other for a win. The same outcome occurs if both play mean and nasty and spew hateful rhetoric at the other, but now the tone of the campaign is harsh and leaves a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth. With 270 EC votes needed to win, as of this writing Trump was declared the winner with 279 EC votes. Thus they split the EC with Trump getting a few more but doing so with a very negative campaign–an inferior outcome for everyone.

If Trump is nice and takes the high road but Hillary is mean, she will get most of the EC votes. Similarly, if Hillary takes the high road while Trump is mean, he will win most of the EC. In other words, negative campaigning works, which is why both have an incentive to campaign negatively. That is, both Trump and Hillary have a dominant strategy to sling mud. Regardless of whether Hillary is nice or mean, Trump is better off being mean and campaigning negatively–when Hillary is nice, for Trump getting most of the EC by being mean is better than getting about half by being nice, and when Hillary is mean, getting about half of the EC by being mean is better than getting only a few EC votes by being nice. Similarly, regardless of whether Trump is nice or mean, Hillary is better off being mean and campaigning negatively. This produces a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma outcome.

Most people will prefer that the candidates remain nice and civil during the campaign. For example, the Pew Research Center said this (here) about this year’s presidential campaign: “The presidential campaign is widely viewed as excessively negative and not focused on important issues. Just 27% of Americans say the campaign is “focused on important policy debates,” which is seven points lower than in December, before the primaries began.” Interestingly, a 2000 Gallup survey found that “negative campaigning [is] disliked by most Americans” and that most people felt that the presidential contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush “may be one of the most negative presidential elections in recent history.” Maybe every presidential contest is the worst one in history.

But since the game candidates play is a Prisoner’s Dilemma, the expected and actual outcome is one in which both are mean and nasty.

How do we resolve the Prisoner’s Dilemma in this case? Standard solutions that scholars have examined, such as repetition and institutional rules promoting cooperation and punishing defection, can’t apply or won’t work in political campaigns. The only seemingly viable option is for players of the Prisoner’s Dilemma to have high moral values so that they avoid the incentives to be mean to each other. If both players of this game are virtuous and possess high integrity, and each knows the other player is that way, then maybe we can see political campaigns and elections that are civil and informative.

It’s best to be far on the right side of the line, not close to it

I am reading Maureen O’Hara‘s book, Something for Nothing: Arbitrage and ethics on Wall Street. Professor O’Hara is a financial economist at Cornell University. In her book she explains how modern finance works and what led to many of the contemporary ethical scandals of Wall Street. I’ll probably have more to say about the book after I finish it, but I enjoyed this tidbit:

Some people want to stay as close to the legal line as possible, while remaining on the “right” side of that line. However, Professor O’Hara says, “laws reflect moral standards, and over time the laws change to reflect what is acceptable to society. … But that also highlights why a strategy of being exactly on the line of legality is a poor business practice; when the lines shift, you go from being a weasel to being a felon, even when you have done nothing differently.”

Adopting an ethical standard is a higher one than merely following the letter of the law. So being on the right side of the ethical line, even close to it, can keep you from falling into the “weasel” category. But adopting a strategy of staying close to the ethical line can cause problems. There are differing ethical perspectives, and these don’t always agree or even provide clear-cut answers. Therefore, if you really want to follow a strategy of ethical conduct, it is best to stay as far away from the ethical line as possible–if there really is such a thing as an ethical line anyway.

Commitment by default

The University of Missouri is set to announce soon that an administrator from the University of Connecticut will be named president of the University of Missouri system. The University of Missouri sought to hire a new system president with Tim Wolfe resigned as system president in late 2015. His resignation followed protests by students, faculty and alumni over his handling—or lack of handling—of events that underscore a problem of racial tensions on campus. As a faculty member at the University of Missouri, I hope the hiring of a new system president will commence a healing that is sorely needed within our community. I also hope that if he is indeed capable, the new system president will stick around for a while.

Whenever a president or leader of an organization is forced to resign, I often wonder why it came to that. Was the leader really that bad or incompetent? Why couldn’t the leader and other affected parties work things out? More generally, why is it, following a crisis within an organization, that there is an immediate call for resignation, effort to impeach, or organized effort to see that “heads roll” (figuratively speaking)? Why isn’t there first a concerted effort to work through difficulties and differences? It is as if the default reaction is “get rid of the leader” rather than “let’s see if we can work this out.”

I think there is a lesson here if we think about something analogous in marriage. When things go wrong in a marriage, the default reaction seems to be for the couple to split rather than to overcome and problem-solve. The principle of no fault divorce that is so common in society has now become divorce by default. In contrast, why isn’t commitment the default?

My wife and I have been married for more than 28 years. It has not always been easy. We have said things we should not have said and haven’t said things we should have said. We’ve taken each other for granted, been inconsiderate and otherwise acted like humans unfortunately often do. But one of the reasons our marriage has lasted so long is because we are committed to each other. For us, commitment is the default, not divorce. I know my wife will not bail on me when things get difficult, and she knows the same about me. When we married, we made a commitment to each other that we accepted as binding. My religion’s theology also tells me that our marriage will be binding forever–that is, in this life and in the next. Now that is a long-term commitment!

Because my wife and I are committed and because each of us knows the other is committed, we have learned to work things out and our marriage is better because of it. I can only imagine what my life would be like for me today if divorce were our default. I suspect I would be trying to figure out how to help my children manage a two household situation.

When commitment is the default, parties in a relationship—whether in marriage or within an organization—have a long-term perspective. They see the potential the partnership can become and thus are willing to work to make that vision happen. This requires a willingness to compromise as well as an ability to see things through another’s eyes. It requires mutual respect. It fosters not only an accurate recognition of our faults and the weaknesses of others but also a realization that people can and do change. Commitment by default does not mean that separation should never happen. Rather, it means giving the relationship and those within it a benefit of the doubt. Divorce or separation is a last resort and only when there is a strong and compelling reason that healing and improvement will not be possible or if a continuation of the relationship will be physically or emotionally harmful.

When divorce rather than commitment is the default, parties in a relationship tend to be short-sighted and selfish. They see things primarily through their own limited understanding and fail to appreciate the perspective, values and interests of others. They see the motes in the eyes of others without recognizing the beams in their own. They want others to change but they don’t want to change themselves. A call for separation does not produce solutions to difficult problems. It just forces them on to the next partners or leaders. Divorce by default does not mean that long-lasting relationships are not possible. Rather, it means parties will work things out only when they have good reason to, but determining what these reasons are is often difficult to assess, especially when emotions are strong and tempers flare.

I believe that commitment by default leads to stronger marriages and families than divorce by default. And strong families are essential for the well-being of society. I also believe that commitment by default will lead to stronger and more effective organizations. When leaders, followers and stakeholders are committed to each other, and when this knowledge is common and accepted by everyone within the organization, they will work to heal, solve and build. They will create solutions to problems rather than evade them.

We have problems at the University of Missouri. Thus, we need a leader who is committed to change and supportive of the university community. But we also need faculty, staff and students who are committed to their new president and slow to call for a resignation when times are difficult. Commitment by default is the best strategy for genuine improvement on our campus and in society at large.

Prisoner’s Dilemma in the classroom

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a model that illustrates a conflict between the interests of individuals and the interests of those individuals as members of a collective or group. In most versions of the game, two or more persons can cooperate and receive a collective reward that is greater than the sum of individual rewards they could earn if they choose not to cooperate. The incentives of the game are such that the persons have an individual incentive not to cooperate, thus making them collectively worse off had they chosen to overlook their individual interests and instead think as a group. The game is famous in economics and other social sciences. Wikipedia has a lengthy discussion of the game, its refinements and implications here.

Even though the Prisoner’s Dilemma has been around for decades it is still a fun game to play with students. In my microeconomics class today I offered the following opportunity for the class to earn extra credit:

“You can earn extra credit by selecting the amount of extra credit points you want. However, if more than 4 of you select option B, then the entire class will receive 0 extra credit points.”

Option A was to earn 1 point extra credit.
Option B was to earn 4 points extra credit.

I use a web-based student response system so that students could register their choice on their cell phones and I would see the results immediately. Not surprisingly, of the 180 in class today, 10 chose option B, leading to no extra credit for the class. When I gave the class a chance to do it over again and even talk to each other, the number who chose option B increased to 17.

The incentives to choose option B are pretty strong here — getting 3 more extra credit points than one could get by cooperating with everyone else in the class and getting just 1 point. Even when I changed the payout structure so that option A gave 3 points and option B 4 points, there were 6 students who still chose option B, thus negating the extra credit opportunity for everyone.

What I find interesting here is not that there were some students who chose option B but that so many in the class chose option A. At least 90 percent of students were willing to forgo their individual interest of choosing option B in order to cooperate for the collective good.

In economics we teach that when people pursue their self-interest things will work out the best for everyone. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the pursuit of one’s interests can be damaging to others and the collective whole. Why does self-interest work in some cases but not in others? And when the incentives for collective action are not ideal, what can we do to encourage or promote more cooperative thinking and behavior?

Russell Crowe, in the movie A Beautiful Mind, played the mathematician John Nash who developed this idea. He explains the problem and solution nicely in this clip from the movie.

I asked my class these questions and got a lot of interesting responses. Because the student response system I use saves student responses, I can list some of them here:

“Anonymity is the problem”

“People only act in their self interest and don’t want to work as a whole for the better of everyone”

“so basically we need to be communists in order for this game to work”

“People are greedy”

“people think they deserve it more than others”

“Throw tomatos (sic) at the people who chose B”

“you do what you have to do”

“Take away the second option”

“build a wall make the people who picked B pay for it”

“this game don’t work cause we got more than 4 selfish people in class”

“Not as many laws and restrictions”

“Because people think that everyone else will pick A and that they will end up getting more when in reality they hurt everyone else”

“Need more communication and honesty”

“Sometimes selflessness is the answer”

“If people weren’t greedy then we would at least be able to get one point extra credit”

“All it takes is one bad egg to ruin it for everyone”

“punish those who answered B”

“Communicate with others to achieve extra credit”

“Put people who choose B in jail”

“freshmen think that 1 point if extra credit is actually going to influence their grade”

“do your work maybe you wouldn’t need to pick B”

Resolving the Prisoner’s Dilemma requires careful structuring of the way people interact and enforcement of the formal rules and informal norms we develop to promote cooperation. It also requires that people exercise self-restraint in the pursuit of their self-interest, since no rules or monitoring mechanisms are perfect. We wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) want to live in a society where such rules are perfectly enforceable. How to do this so as to protrct one’s freedom to choose makes for a fun discussion in class.

In the end I gave everyone in the class who chose option A in the last round of the game (in which 3 points were possible) the 3 points extra credit. I don’t know if the class learned much, but I hope they left feeling better about their teacher.