Paradoxical Effects of Social Behavior: Essays in Honor of Anatol Rapoport

In the history of science "paradoxes" are not only amusing puzzles and chal- lenges to the human mind but also driving forces of scientific development. The notion of "paradox" is intimately related to the notion of "contradiction". Logi- cal paradoxes allow for the derivation of contradictory propositions (e.g. "Rus- sell's set of all sets not being members of themselves" or the ancient problem with propositions like "I am lying" 1), normative paradoxes deal with contradic- tions among equally well accepted normative postulates (Arrow's "impossibility theorem", Sen's "Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal") and "factual" paradoxes refer to conflicts between conventional opinion based on an accepted empirical theory and contradictory empirical evidence (e.g. the "St. Petersburg paradox" or the "Allais paradox" in decision theory2). Paradoxes, either logical, normative or factual, also contradict our intui- tions. The counter-intuitive property which seems to be a common feature of all paradoxes plays an important part in the empirical social sciences, particularly in the old research tradition of scrutinizing the unintended consequences of pur- posive actions. Expectations based on naive theories ignoring interdependencies between individual actions are very often in conflict with "surprising" empirical evidence on collective results of social behavior. Examples are numerous reach- ing from panic situations, the individual struggle for status gains resulting in collective deprivation, the less than optimal supply of collective goods etc. to global problems of the armament race and mismanagement of common resources.

Table of Contents:
Individual Utilities and Utilitarian Ethics.- Some Paradoxes in Economics.- Pragmatic Intuitions and Rational Choice.- Guidelines for Solving Sen’s Paradox.- System Breaks and Positive Feedback as Sources of Catastrophe.- Social Structure and the Emergence of Norms among Rational Actors.- Conditions for Cooperation in Problematic Social Situations.- The Evolution of Reciprocal Cooperation.- Is it Always Efficient to be Nice? A Computer Simulation of Axelrod’s Computer Tournament.- The Prisoner’s Dilemma and its Evolutionary Iteration.- The Evolution of a Prisoner’s Dilemma in the Market.- On Explaining the Rise of the New Social Movements in Germany.- Volunteer’s Dilemma. A Social Trap without a Dominant Strategy and some Empirical Results.- Take-Some Games: The Commons Dilemma and a Land of Cockaigne.- Games with Perceptive Commanders but with Indoctrinated or Less Perceptive Subordinates.- Moral Sentiments and Self-Interest Reconsidered.- On the Economic Virtues of Incompetency and Dishonesty.- New Chairman Paradoxes.- Cumulative Effects of Sequential Decisions in Organizations.- Ethnic Segmentation as the Unintended Result of Intentional Action.- The Paradox of Privatization in Consumption.- Declining Life Expectancy in a Highly Developed Nation: Paradox or Statistical Artifact?.- Fallacies and Paradoxes caused by Heterogeneity.- Author Index.