I’m not sure I see the point of these stories. These are all examples of failed precommittment, mostly due to having an ludicrously simple model or imperfect communication about what the commitment actually is.
In all these stories, the first party wants to avoid the work of designing a real precommittment, or of just admitting that there are cases where precommittment doesn’t solve the underlying difficulty.
Clumsy game-player: in this one, precommittment DOES work. Stay committed: “I agreed to play tit-for-tat—my agreement had no exceptions to it, and I am continuing. Your best move is to cooperate twice then go back to plain tit-for-tat, and be more careful in the future.”
lazy and grieving students: I’m very confused about your use of utility numbers here, and your implication that one player’s utility can be traded for another. That’s not how it works. If you have a term for the other player’s happiness, that’s your utility, not theirs. If you have a utility cost for failing a student because of a late assignment, you need to include that in your plan.
The last three are just more cases where much more complicated committments need to be laid out, including policies for adjudicating disagreements.
lazy and grieving students: I’m very confused about your use of utility numbers here, and your implication that one player’s utility can be traded for another. That’s not how it works. If you have a term for the other player’s happiness, that’s your utility, not theirs. If you have a utility cost for failing a student because of a late assignment, you need to include that in your plan.
It was mentioned that the teacher is a utilitarian. That means that they would like to maximize overall net utility, imagining that it can be summed over people. There has been a bit of discussion about the difference between the ‘utility’ of economists and the ‘utility’ of ethicists, but I think we still need a thorough post on this, and if I weren’t so busy I’d have done it already.
I’m not sure I see the point of these stories. These are all examples of failed precommittment, mostly due to having an ludicrously simple model or imperfect communication about what the commitment actually is.
In all these stories, the first party wants to avoid the work of designing a real precommittment, or of just admitting that there are cases where precommittment doesn’t solve the underlying difficulty.
Clumsy game-player: in this one, precommittment DOES work. Stay committed: “I agreed to play tit-for-tat—my agreement had no exceptions to it, and I am continuing. Your best move is to cooperate twice then go back to plain tit-for-tat, and be more careful in the future.”
lazy and grieving students: I’m very confused about your use of utility numbers here, and your implication that one player’s utility can be traded for another. That’s not how it works. If you have a term for the other player’s happiness, that’s your utility, not theirs. If you have a utility cost for failing a student because of a late assignment, you need to include that in your plan.
The last three are just more cases where much more complicated committments need to be laid out, including policies for adjudicating disagreements.
It was mentioned that the teacher is a utilitarian. That means that they would like to maximize overall net utility, imagining that it can be summed over people. There has been a bit of discussion about the difference between the ‘utility’ of economists and the ‘utility’ of ethicists, but I think we still need a thorough post on this, and if I weren’t so busy I’d have done it already.