Showing papers on "Dilemma published in 1968"

On the Meaning of Trust

Abstract: PROFESSOR GORDON TULLOCK has pointed out, in "The Prisoner's Dilemma and Mutual Trust,"' a typographical error in the first matrix of my article on game-theoretical analyses in the April, 1966, issue of Ethics:2 The upper left square in the matrix on page 215 should of course read (xi, xA). I thank Professor Tullock for calling attention to this mistake, and confess my shock that I could have missed it. It is a lesson, perhaps, in the dangers of symbolic intoxication, especially for beginners, and one that I shall try not too soon to forget. (And that there are at least two typographical errors in Tullock's note just prior to that in which he points out my error in no way lessens the lesson, as both these errors are thoroughly inconsequential, as mine was certainly not.) With the main point of Tullock's discussion, however, I wish to take issue. He claims that it "is simply not so" that the Prisoner's Dilemma presents a problem of mutual trust. He proceeds to consider the term "trust" to mean, in effect, being able to predict accurately the behavior of the person trusted, and to show that trust, in this sense, is not the problem at issue in the Prisoner's Dilemma situation, since "I may have the most perfect confidence that my fellow criminal will never confess without in any way affecting the desirability of my confessing. Actually, using the values given on the matrix, the motives for squealing are stronger when I know my accomplice will not."3 The interest of the Prisoner's Dilemma situation, however, is in considering what course of action may be deemed to be the rational one when one can not know what the other fellow will do. Clearly, if one can make an accurate prediction either that he will or that he will not confess, one can decide in accordance with usual recommendations for rational behavior. (These recommendations may be fraught with problems, but at least not the special and additional ones of the Prisoner's Dilemma.) If one can accurately predict that one's fellow prisoner will confess, the rational course of action is also to confess, thus minimizing one's losses and avoiding the higher penalty of not confessing when he does. On the other hand, if one can accurately predict that he will not confess, the selfishly rational course of action is to confess and get off free with a reward to boot. But if the probabilities concerning the other fellow's behavior are either totally unknown or exactly .5, then the problem of establishing which course of action would be the rational one is acute. For, by the terms of the situation, if both choose the "irrational" course of action, not confessing, both will be better off, with very light penalties, than if both choose the "rational" course of action, confessing, which yields a moderately heavy penalty to both. Using values suggested by Anatol Rapoport in his discussion of the dilemma,4 it may be helpful to present these arguments in the familiar matrix, where, as is customary, the first entry in each box represents the payoff to A:

The Dilemma of Rising Demands and Insufficient Resources

Abstract: Several years ago we reviewed in this journal a collection of books dealing with various aspects of Britain's role in international politics. In the opening paragraph of that review article we observed that “these writings can be viewed simply as discrete accounts of a single nation's unique experience. But one can also view such literature from a broader perspective. Particular cases are always unique in their totality. But they may be exhibits of more widely encountered types of phenomena. It is always possible, and it may be interesting and fruitful, to formulate general comparative questions about particular cases, and to derive hypotheses which could be tried out for credibility in other cases.”

The Arab-Israeli Dilemma

Abstract: Traces the history of Palestine, discusses the formation of Israel, and describes the attitudes on each side of the Mideast conflict.

Professional responsibility in times of change.

Abstract: We are now convened for the final day of a conference in celebration of the 50th anniversary of our professional life. Behind us lie five decades of individual and group endeavor— endeavor to develop a profession, to define and refine a service, to improve an image and extend its acceptance, to recruit others to our ranks and train them for perpetuation of our ideals, to research new and better ways of accomplishing our goals. At this milestone in our history, one could be tempted to look back through the years and analyze the functional relationship between endeavors and accomplishments. Such stock-taking would surely yield an inventory of assets in many areas of effort in which we might feel mutual pride. It would also, however, show liabilities for which we remain collectively responsible. Still other accounts might appear as outstanding or receivable, thus implying the necessity for continued effort in the commitment to further progress. Depending on the perspective and purpose of the individual doing the analysis, this measure of our first fifty years might be impressive, discouraging or inconclusive with respect to net accomplishment. Santayana has warned that “He who neglects history will be condemned to repeat it.” However, awareness and understanding of effort input with reference to success or failure of outcome are most functional when new approaches are being brought to the solution of old problems. If, on the other hand, changing or new conditions prevail and hence a different set of problems is presented, there is diminishing value in more than brief review of the methods of other people and times. The example of the inadequacy of conventional defenses in a nuclear age is the obvious one, but professional personnel in medical and educational fields today face a dilemma equal to that of the military in recognizing that old ways of solving problems are no longer adequate. Let us turn, then, from any comfortable reflection on our past to the infinitely more exciting exercise of projecting our future. Wisely approached, this can be as scientific as a retrospective analysis and surely it is a more dynamic course if we wish to have a part 1967 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture

The Imperial frontier in the tropics, 1865-75 : a study of British colonial policy in West Africa, Malaya and the South Pacific in the age of Gladstone and Disraeli

Abstract: The "new" African history-and the counterparts it must have in Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America-has presented challenges and problems to those who in earlier decades had no difficulty knowing what it meant to call themselves historians of the British Empire or students of imperialism. Not that the new approaches have destroyed the earlier field; just because Western scholars have finally recognized the obvious-that the history of the world outside Europe cannot be told in terms of European actions and motives-this does not mean that those European actions, motives, and policies are no longer a legitimate subject for study. McIntyre has chosen to write on what seems at first glance a "traditional" topic, as his sub-title suggests. What is different is that he obviously knows about the "new" non-European histories. He accepts the validity of the new approaches, for himself as for those who study the non-Western world. He does so even though it means complicating both his research and his presentation. And he has produced a book that says much to those interested in the British Empire in the i86o's and '70's; to those who want to know specifically the stances of particular politicians and officials in England and on the spot; and to those who would continue evaluating theories of imperialism. Not least is this book important for those who write the "new" histories. They need the dimension of imperial policies made at "home" and implemented also in places other than the one they study, just as imperial historians of yore needed to understand the cultures and histories of peoples their protagonists met overseas. McIntyre has a central thesis: that the three "experiments" he writes about, all "launched in 1874 . . . all inaugurated by the same ministers in London ... all formed part of the general problem ... of the expansion of the frontiers of Empire" (p. 4); that, however, "far from Disraeli initiating an imperial 'forward movement' in 1874, his Government merely went ahead with policies worked out by their Liberal predecessors" (p. 5); that the "new policies were, in fact, the culmination of a period of tentative innovation [in dealing with the frontier problem] rather than the beginning of a forward movement" (p. 6), where the frontier "was a vague zone, adjacent to . . . territory under British sovereignty" (p. 8). But that is only the beginning. Through four parts, dealing with the Formulation of Colonial Policy, the Dilemma [of the Frontier], the New

Herschel's Dilemma in the Interpretation of Thermal Radiation

Abstract: SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL was the first to report having isolated and detected radiation beyond that sensible to vision, having done so in 1800.1 He immediately followed this unexpected discovery with an extensive series of investigations intended to resolve \"whether light be essentially different from radiant heat.\"2 Herschel was normally a careful experimentalist with a keen capability for deriving hypotheses to properly relate the observed data to physical phenomena. However, certain of his observations finally convinced him that heat and light \"have nothing in common but a certain equal degree of refrangibility.\"3 This conclusion contradicts the apparent message conveyed by his writing at the commencement of these investigations when he considered radiant heat as invisible light.4 A knowledge of the experiments he undertook, as well as the motivation which prompted the inquiry, in terms of the prevailing thought regarding light and heat, affords a better appreciation of the extensive contribution Herschel made to infrared physics. It is thus appropriate to review these experiments and to note the cause of the dilemma which Herschel reached-a dilemma which would impede an understanding of the phenomena in the coming decades. Herschel's success as an astronomer had been achieved nineteen years before his discovery of infrared radiation as a result of the first observations of the planet Uranus.5 Discovery of the new planet was exciting news to scientists of the day who had

Comment: Is There a Meaningful Trade-off between Inflation and Unemployment?

Abstract: Most highly influential works in economics are either pure deduction or a close blend of deduction and more or less casual or systematic empiricism. But we have also a few pieces of almost pure induction, such as the Gibson paradox, that are part of the equipment of nearly every person with some economic training. The Phillips curve has acquired this status amazingly quickly; another recent success story of this type would be the Leontief paradox, but it is not even a close second. On the usual time scale of the dissemination of ideas in economics, the Phillips curve and the associated "Dilemma" problem achieved a prominent place in undergraduate textbooks almost instantly. It is rather fascinating to pose this story as a problem in the sociology of knowledge and to ask what makes almost an entire scientific profession accept a piece of induction of this sort as being (a) " a fact," and (b) a fact of such evident importance that it is recognized as belonging, so to speak, on the ground floor of any doctrine aspiring to widespread acceptance. We are, after all, not dealing with a finding that decisively revealed previously held, fundamental beliefs as "false." On the contrary, what is curious about the Phillips curve is that it produced, as it were, a strong dejd vu reaction, the reaction: "Oh, yes! That puts the whole problemcomplex in focus, all right." Phillips' original article was of course an impressive piece of work. Still, it is curious to note that the dejd vu reaction was so strong that the Phillips curve immediately achieved a life of its own in professional discussion and teaching even while the numerous attempts to reproduce the experiment with American data, which quickly followed, failed entirely to isolate a comparably "neat" and reliable relationship. Neither the failure to find a similar simple and stable relationship for the United States nor the fact

Start effect and response bias in the prisoner's dilemma game

Abstract: In a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game it was found that location of response switch did not bias the strategy selections of Ss. No DD outcome occurred for any pair of Ss on the first trial, but initial trial CC outcomes were followed by more cooperations than were initial trial CD outcomes. Females displayed more “trust” than did males.

The Present Dilemma of the Negro

Abstract: The "nuclear " irony of American history and the American social, political, and economic system is that the destiny of the enslaved and disadvantaged Negro determines the destiny of the nation. The fundamental fact around which all questions of national survival pivot is the fact of inherent racial interrelatedness-or integration, if you please-in spite of the persistent demands and attempts to impose racial separatism. The problems of the American Negro are problems of America. The conflicts, aspirations, confusions, and doubts of Negro Americans are not merely similar but are identical to those of white Americans. The Negro need not yearn to be assimilated into American culture-he is and determines

The Diverging Paths of American Urban History

Abstract: increased interest in urban themes. As succeeding census reports show growing metropolitan areas and as urban problems attract America's attention, the city looms larger and larger. Historians share in the increased awareness of the city; in the years since 1945 the number of urban histories has increased and the number of historians specializing in urban history has grown commensurately.1 The trend at the present seems irreversible; more not less effort will be devoted to the history of the American city. However, urban historians have not yet agreed upon an all embracing theory, one that would provide an organizing principle upon which the history of the city could be based. Several approaches have been suggested; each approach has had its disciples. No single theory has gained the universal approbation of urban historians. Each is based upon different assumptions and value systems; each has its drawbacks and its virtues. The purpose of this essay is to explore the paths that are now most heavily used by scholars of the city. Part of the dilemma of the urban historian is the dilemma of the recent historian, whether to remain a humanist or become a social scientist, whether to turn to aesthethics or to sociology. More specifically, the problem of the urban historian begins with the subject to be studied. Is the historian to study the city or urban civilization?2 Is urban history to attempt the formulation of a general law of urbanization, or is it to essay a comparative study of persisting institutions? Is the city itself the source

Reality, Rorschach and Perceptual Theory

Abstract: The psychologist setting out to study the human personality faces a dilemma. The knowledge he seeks is about men, women, children, as we know them in their real lives—their thinking, emotions, anxieties, moods, their daydreams, purposes, gratifications—all that fusion of mental experience which, at any particular moment, is a total human being. This is the psychologist’s objective. His disciplined habits of research follow the precept that Descartes formulated as the second of his four guidelines which, from the age of twenty-three on, he used in directing and criticizing his own thinking. It is, he writes, “to divide each of the difficulties that I shall be examining into as many parts as possible and as will be requisite the better to resolve them” (Descartes, 1943; p. 88).*

Julius Caesar: An Experiment in Point of View

Abstract: ECENT studies of Julius Caesar reveal a significant trend in Shakespearian criticism; for better or for worse, critics have become increasingly tentative in their interpretations. Where in the past they plunged confidently into a play to pluck out the heart of its mystery, they are now inclined to submit reverently to the complexity of Shakespeare's vision and accept as an integral part of the meaning a dilemma which must not be violated. Perhaps some of the color of Shakespearian criticism has been lost; it was comforting for the neophyte to discover one critic arguing vehemently that Julius Caesar was intended as a bitter denunciation of the tyrant Caesar, while another critic would insist with equal vigor and certitude that the play was intended as an expose of Brutus and a resounding affirmation, therefore, of the monarchical principle.' But if recent interpretations lack the flair and gusto of earlier criticism, they have gained, in my opinion, in accuracy. The focal point of recent studies of Julius Caesar has been the very ambivalence of a play which has allowed for such contradictory responses. Bonjour, noting the confusion of good and evil which marks every character in the play, has concluded, for example, that the play is intended to reveal "the value of suspended judgment".2 Traversi has also recognized the fundamental equivocality of the play; he finds that Caesar is cast as an ambivalent figure, but this

Love versus omnipotence: The narcissistic dilemma.

Abstract: In this paper I would like to explore some ideas and speculations which have, more or less, forced themselves into my awareness as a therapist and a human being struggling with the problem of maturing. In particular, certain fantasies or expectations which seem to characterize many of my patients, and which have manifested themselves in my own life, appear to have implications for understanding the treatment process and for understanding the problems in living which face all of us. The two centers about which these fantasies seem to revolve include fusion-incorporation, as described by Searles (1951), and limitless omnipotence. Both of these fantasies, I believe, have their origin in the narcissistic struggle of infancy. The problem of narcissism has been relatively ignored in the literature of psychotherapy, although it was considered by Freud (1914) to pose a central concern for psychotherapy. Perhaps the knowledge that the "narcissistic neuroses" were held by Freud to be untreatable has discouraged the investigation of narcissism within the "transference neuroses." It certainly appears that many theorists, such as Federn (1952) and Fenichel (1945), have assumed that an "either/or" relationship exists between the transference neuroses and the narcissistic neuroses, and have thus tended to ignore the usefulness of the concept of narcissism in the understanding of the "transference neuroses." Freud, however, explicitly states that there is ". . . a certain reciprocity between ego-libido and object libido" (1914). Thus one could expect certain evidence of narcissistic functioning in any type of neurotic development and for these narcissistic remnants to play an active part in the interaction between therapist and patient. Although rarely, if ever, is explicit reference made to their origin in a narcissistic fixation, many authors have described characteristic patterns of behavior which seem to fit the concept of narcissism as it is considered in this paper. For instance, the concepts of omnipotence and magical thinking, which I would consider as belonging under the rubric of narcissism, have been discussed in a wide variety of contexts (Pumpian-Mindlin (1965; W. F. Murphy 1965). Freud and subsequent authors have related these topics to the narcissistic stage of development. Searles (op. cit.) and Kaiser (1965) have referred, in somewhat different language, to a fantasy of fusion or incorporation, a fantasied symbiotic and primitive relationship between people whose model is the mother-child relationship in early infancy. The twin fantasies of fusion-incorporation and limitless omnipotence appear to be present in a wide variety of kinds of people, regardless of the apparent kind of character structure. At times I have wondered if the attempt to preserve the integrity of the unconscious fantasy of omnipotence does not make necessary the subsequent development of neurotic character structure. In this sense, one could speculate that the roots of most (or at least many) patterns of neurotic life style are grounded in narcissistic fantasies and expectations. Since the narcissistic period is the most primitive of the developmental stages, a disturbance on this level could be expected to have far-reaching effects on subsequent development and adult behavioral patterns. I am primarily interested, as a therapist, in the nature and content of the interpersonal behavior of people trapped in the confines of narcissism. Therefore, it seems appropriate to begin by exploring the interpersonal developmental history of the narcissistic way of life. A very early picture of the relatedness between the child and his world must include

Science and morality: A Soviet dilemma.

Abstract: Alexander Vucinich with science. Philosophy has been proclaimed a study of the general principles of scientific inquiry and every branch of philosophical thought in open conflict with science has been outlawed. Religion has been chastised as a negation of science. The works of art have been identified as special cultural expressions of an "undivided world view" rooted in science and contributing to a "cognition and reproduction of reality." A poet is not asked to be a scientist but he is expected not to challenge the scientific world view, as the world view of Soviet culture.