Indeterminacy and Society (ebook)

Argumento de Indeterminacy and Society (ebook)

In simple action theory, when people choose between courses of action, they know what the outcome will be. When an individual is making a choice "against nature," such as switching on a light, that assumption may hold true. But in strategic interaction outcomes, indeterminacy is pervasive and often intractable. Whether one is choosing for oneself or making a choice about a policy matter, it is usually possible only to make a guess about the outcome, one based on anticipating what other actors will do. In this book Russell Hardin asserts, in his characteristically clear and uncompromising prose, "Indeterminacy in contexts of strategic interaction . . . Is an issue that is constantly swept under the rug because it is often disruptive to pristine social theory. But the theory is fake: the indeterminacy is real."

In the course of the book, Hardin thus outlines the various ways in which theorists from Hobbes to Rawls have gone wrong in denying or ignoring indeterminacy, and suggests how social theories would be enhanced--and how certain problems could be resolved effectively or successfully--if they assumed from the beginning that indeterminacy was the normal state of affairs, not the exception. Representing a bold challenge to widely held theoretical assumptions and habits of thought, Indeterminacy and Society will be debated across a range of fields including politics, law, philosophy, economics, and business management.

"Russell Hardin shows us the need to face the consequences of indeterminacy. Maximization of independent variables is impossible, standard decision theory is unreal (as is Rawls's theory of justice), and there are no easy answers--though 'ordinary people manage to get through life most of the time.' Combining theoretical virtuosity with common sense, this is one of the essential books of our time."--Jan Narveson, University of Waterloo

"This is an important and first-rate piece of work. Russell Hardin is right to assert that ignoring inescapable indeterminacy is a mistake. The issues he raises are momentous and timely, both in the realm of abstract economic, political, and moral theory, as well as in the study and practice of public policy. So Hardin's frontal attack deserves (and needs) to be considered."--Christopher W. Morris, author of An Essay on the Modern State0PREFACE ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
Chapter 1. Indeterminacy 1
Strategic Interaction 3
Ordinalism 9
Mutual Advantage: The Collective Implication of Self-Interest 12
Concluding Remarks 14
Chapter 2. Beyond Basic Rationality 16
Basic Rationality 17
Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma 20
Dominance 25
Equilibrium 28
Contract by Convention 32
Nuclear Arms Control 34
Against Determinacy 36
Concluding Remarks 38
Chapter 3. Mutual Advantage 41
Social Order 42
Ex Ante Mutual Advantage 44
Institutional and Policy Choice 46
Policies 51
Concluding Remarks 53
Chapter 4. The Greatest Sum 55
Subjective Benthamite Utility 58
Labor Theory of Value 60
Wealth Maximization 62
Mutual Advantage and Interpersonal Comparisons 63
Ordinal Utilitarianism 65
Concluding Remarks 68
Chapter 5. Marginal Determinacy 70
Indeterminacy on the Frontier 71
Marginal versus Fundamental Values 74
Transaction Costs 78
Concluding Remarks 79
Chapter 6. Rules for Determinacy 81
Rules 83
A Kantian Principle 87
Institutional Decisions 93
Public Policy 96
Concluding Remarks 98
Chapter 7. Indeterminate Justice 102
Equality versus Productive Efficiency 106
Justice as Fairness 108
Mutual Advantage 109
Justice as Fairness and the Coase Theorem 111
Resources 112
Primary Goods 114
The Difference Principle 116
Concluding Remarks 118
Chapter 8. Mechanical Determinacy 121
Marginalism 123
Two-Stage Theory 125
Institutional Fallibility 127
Institutions as Meliorative 131
Contractarian Arguments 134
Concluding Remarks 135
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 2:
DETERMINACY IN ITERATED PRISONER'S DILEMMA 139
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 4:
INDIVIDUALLY CARDINAL UTILITY 141
NOTES 143
REFERENCES 151
INDEX 159