Prisoner's dilemma

happens if the second party reneges? What if you will never see them again? How will your altruism be repaid? What is the driving force that causes you to act altruistically? Clearly a parallel can be drawn with cooperation as described by the prisoner’s dilemma. Cooperation is not always the beneficial outcome in a “game.” Sometimes, the dominating strategy is to defect, for that is the outcome that benefits the individual the most. However, society values cooperation for whatever reason even…

Political science is a study attempting to understand human behavior as it relates to politics. As such, political science, like any science, requires hypotheses, testable objectives to try and narrow down the large scope that is the global politic scene. Nonetheless, as human behavior forms the basis of political science, it can be inherently difficult to quantify. This begs the question as to whether or not political science can be considered a hard, quantifiable science—one based on…

The Oxford Dictionary online (2016) defines international relations as “the way in which two or more nations interact with and regard each other, especially in the context of political, economic, or cultural relationships”. However, what to include and exclude in the definition is a controversial topic and there is still no decisive answer of what international relations means. Scholars have been suggesting various definitions, for instance, one source stated that International Relations (i.e.…

Morality can be defined as the principles that govern good behavior. From the novel “Riveted” by Jim Davies (Davies, 2014), we learn about how religion helps defines people’s conduct. We also subsequently learn that religious people find it perplexing as to how atheists could have any morality at all. The tendency for the religious person to belief that anyone cannot be a moral agent without religion would be my target example. What the target example may overlook is the fact that morality is…

safe. A famous example of this phenomenon is the prisoner’s dilemma. It involves two prisoners, each of whom are given the option to either confess to a crime or not to confess. If neither confesses, each prisoner will be sent to prison for one year. If one confesses and the other stays silent, the prisoner who confessed is set free and the other is sent to jail for three years. If both confess, then they are both sent to prison for two years. The dilemma in this situation is that from either…

interests assembled into groups, called factions, to achieve a common objective, e.g. to encourage a new ideal for their community. It is often difficult to organize collective action to achieve public goods because people are self­interested. Prisoner’s dilemma is a situation in which two people can benefit by cooperating together to achieve a common goal. Although joining together with person two will greatly increase success of a new law passing, person one would rather stand by and allow…

Christopher Mouawad (915196889) Ms. Sarah Prince POL 003 27 October 2017 Senkaku Islands Dispute: Best Explained by Realist Thought For centuries, interactions between states have revolved around power, be it geopolitical, economic, militaristic, or otherwise. This concept is central to a theory of international relations known as realism. Contrary to liberalism, the other dominant theory of international relations, the tenants of realism support the idea that a state’s interests revolve around…

Similar to the mutually beneficial relationships of wild animals, liberalism is a theory founded on the principles of cooperation and relationships within an anarchic system. The animal kingdom, an undisputed anarchic system, exemplifies an institutionalized relationship between two species. A crocodile will allow an Egyptian Plover bird to clean its teeth, because their symbiotic relationship helps both of them in different ways. The crocodile ends up with a cleaner mouth and the plover bird…

“Justice means giving people what they deserve.” This is an interesting idea that has debated for much of human history, dating as far back as to great thinkers such as Aristotle. We may now ask, how would two modern, influential, political theorists respond to this notion? John Rawls’ “Justice as Fairness” and Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” present theories that we can use to determine and make assumptions as to how these two figures would respond. John Rawls’, “Justice as…

highlight the absurdity of life. In the specific case of the school teacher, this feeling arises from two reasons. The first derives from his attempt to understand the Arab without success. Daru wants to find, give meaning and an explanation to the prisoner's character and behaviour. For example, Daru primarily asks to the policeman what the prisoner did and if he speaks French, starting to create a first contact with the Arab's issue. Subsequently he continues with the questions becoming…