PHIL506

042003

The social contract is a philosophical idea that predates Plato. In its most generic sense, a social contract is a body of rules that can regulate a community. Game theory emerged in the mid-20th century as the first part of applied mathematics specifically designed to address questions of social science. Game theory is a formal theory of decisions that interact, and in particular decisions that can together produce various social outcomes. In this course we will explore how the contemporary tools of game theory might advance our understanding of the social contract. For centuries, philosophers interested in the social contract have tried to answer fundamental questions, including: (1) Where might a social contract have come from?, (2) Should the members of a community believe themselves obliged to abide by the terms of any particular social contract?, and (3) Is the social contract a normative idea that informs us as to how we should regulate our conduct, or an explanatory idea that informs us why we happen to regulate our contact as we do, or both, or even neither? Game theory offers one approach, though certainly not the only approach, to addressing such questions with greater precision than was possible in times past. We will consider how issues connected with the social contract might be illuminated through the lens of game theory. We will also discuss the relative advantages of game-theoretic analyses of the social contract against other, possibly better known, approaches.

GRD - Regular Grades A, B, C, D, E

Graduate

CE - CL (Cross Listed)

PPEL406