Rather, you are under-thinking it. Saying that we ought do what is right is trivial; that's just what "ought" is.

The joke is that any choice is rational, hence any choice is right. — Banno

This trivializes rationality and equivocates about normativity.

I suppose you had in mind rationalizations of subjects' choices such as this?

My sense of fairness is worth more that $1 or even $10. If it were $10,000, that would be a different thing. On the other hand, telling someone to go fry ice when he tries to stiff me for thousands might be worth it. — T Clark

Rationality implies certain shared epistemic standards. Those standards have to be at least enduring and widespread, if not permanent and universal, or they would have no meaning. Further, they cannot be inviolate, or else they would be superfluous. It follows then that not every decision is necessarily rational.

Further, "right" is not the same as "rational." Rationality is normative, but it does not represent the full extent of normativity.

Rationality implies certain shared epistemic standards. Those standards have to be at least enduring and widespread, if not permanent and universal, or they would have no meaning. Further, they cannot be inviolate, or else they would be superfluous. It follows then that not every decision is necessarily rational.

Further, "right" is not the same as "rational." Rationality is normative, but it does not represent the full extent of normativity. — SophistiCat

Most things humans do are neither rational nor irrational, they are non-rational.

Do you mean to say that most of our decisions are too trivial and petty to be measured by the lofty standards of rationality?

This trivializes rationality and equivocates about normativity. — SophistiCat

That was the intent. Here both rationality and normativity, as you can see from the replies above, provide self-serving post hoc justification.

Further, "right" is not the same as "rational." — SophistiCat

Of course.

Do you mean to say that most of our decisions are too trivial and petty to be measured by the lofty standards of rationality? — SophistiCat

No. I just mean that people don't normally take a rational approach to decision making. I'll go further and say that in many cases, we shouldn't expect them to. For example - this ultimatum game. It would be neither rational nor irrational for me to reject an offer. Any rational decision would have to include underlying assumptions. Those assumptions, e.g. the relative value of money and dignity, are questions of value not rationality.

What this shows is that ubiquitously, folk do not make decisions on the basis of rationally maximising their self-interest. Some other factor intervenes. What that is, is open to further research. — Banno

This is a classic example of a simple game when done with people has far more to it that simple math would apply. The obvous place where it went wrong is here:

. To keep the money, I must divide it with you. I could give you a dollar and keep nine, and we would both be better off - you get a dollar that you would otherwise not receive, I get nine dollars. — Banno

As already said on the first page, there's more to a game when you divide money among people. There simply ought to be a reason why you would get somehow more than others: you found or organized the event, somehow you have more claim to the money. In fact, it could be that the other person thinks it's right for you to get the nine dollars, if he or she thinks it's just.

Hence the economists would say that people maximize utility, not cash. When dividing money among people, in that utility there is also how others view you: do you seem to be fair and respectable or are you a greedy bastard.

How much is what people think of you worth?

Eight dollars?

Il le facile de voir que ... the tactic is irrational (something is better than nothing).

Another example, which shows what I'm talking about is the following game (which I learnt in economics class in the university), which we could even try to play here:

Participants pick any number they want between 1 and 10, then the average is calculated from the answers and divided by two. Who gets closest this number wins.

Does any want to play? I will answer if at least two play this (so we get what could be called an average) or the time when I read this again.

So @Banno, @Agent Smith and others, try your luck and give a number!

@Banno's too smart to fall for that mon ami. Me, stupido! I have chosen (a number), for the first time in me life. :grimace:

,

Assuming that 1 and 10 are included, and that fractions are rounded, and given that it's past my bed time, I think 1 is the Nash equilibrium.

Assume a large number of players, choosing randomly. Then the average will be 6. Half six is 3, so one should say 3. But folk will think of this, and say 3; so I should say 2 (1.5 rounded); but then everyone will say the same, so I shoudl say 1.

As will you. Everyone wins.

:lol: Nec caput nec pedes.

I lied, I didn't choose. :blush:

This is the problem with telling people it is "a game". Then the psychology of game play, competition and all sorts of things, enters the picture. And we'll try all kinds of tricks, strategies, to get as much advantage as possible, on the other, without crossing the line of cheating, upon which one would be expelled from the game.

This is the problem with the op, as expressed. It doesn't make clear whether the "players" are told whether they are playing a game or not. If they are simply told the rules, and proceed, that means one thing. If they are told that they are playing a game, that sets completely different stakes. And even just giving the players a set of rules implies that they are playing a game, so that it's a game, and there's different stakes, is unavoidable. And because "the game" is an entity itself, distinct from the person's real life existence and association with money, the person's way of dealing with money will differ. This is probably how gamblers come to feel comfortable with high stakes games, they disassociate the money in the game from their real life relation to money.

So if you pull out the Monopoly board and say we're going to play this game of Monopoly, and the starting amount is 70/30 in your favour, I'd say fuck you, put your game away, I'm not playing. That the game of the op uses real money is just a ruse thrown in by the creators of the game, intended to create ambiguity as to the objective of the game. The stakes are unrevealed. So you urge me on, and say come on play Monopoly with me, it's real money we're playing with, so you really can't lose. I'd be even more inclined to say fuck you, you deceptive bastard, quit messing with my head, I'm losing just by agreeing to play.

Metaphysicians would know ... :up:

Assume a large number of players, choosing randomly. Then the average will be 6. Half six is 3, so one should say 3. But folk will think of this, and say 3; so I should say 2 (1.5 rounded); but then everyone will say the same, so I shoudl say 1.

As will you. Everyone wins. — Banno

Yep, that is what game theory says.

I pick number 10.

As @Agent Smith didn't choose a number, it's a bit one sided as there are so few players.

If we would have had the option of starting from 0, then the "Nash Equilibrium" would have been 0 and indeed everybody choosing 0 would have won, assuming that all people pick that. Still I would have chosen 10. Why? Well, my preferences isn't to play along the Nash Equilibrium line, but to give the person (if there is one) not taking the "Nash Equilibrium", but a higher number to win. Yes, I'll surely loose, but for me all those picking up the Nash Equilibrium losing gives far more pleasure / utility. Hence if @Agent Smith would have chosen 2, he would have won because average from 13 is 4,333... and divided by two is 2,1666... thus the correct wouldn't have been 1.

And this underlines the fact that when dealing with people, just like when dividing money among a group of people, the utility function and the utility which people have differs from simply maximizing behaviour that simple game theory assumes them to have. Maximizing profit is so easy to mathematically to calculate, but it's utility, not only profit, in the real world.

In physics the math works, but in economics the models are far too simple to take into account reality. The error is to think that the crude simple models of economics really portray reality and you can use math like in physics.

he would have won — ssu

Muchas gracias for making me a winner in some hypothetical universe. :smile: