Bargaining over beliefs

Ethics

Volumn 111, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 256-277

  Goodin, Robert E ^a   Brennan, Geoffrey ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0039253672     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/233473     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
2. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
3. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
4. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
5. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
6. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
7. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
8. This theme unites such otherwise diverse writers as Alfred Schutz, "The Problem of Rationality in the Social World," Economica 10 (1943): 130-49; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); Bryan Wilson, ed., Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973); Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Walzer, Interpretation and Social Criticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
9. We have to believe that certain things will serve our desires (otherwise we would not want them); we have to believe we presently lack those things (otherwise we would not seek them); we have to believe that there are not enough of those things to go around (otherwise we would not compete for them); we have to believe that the distribution of those things is under the control of specific others (otherwise we would not try to strike a bargain with them).
10. As happens in ordinary conversations and other such circumstances requiring groups to come, however provisionally, to some "jointly accepted views"; Margaret Gilbert, On Social Facts (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 288-314. We discuss the conversational example further at the end of Sec. IV.
11. More strictly speaking, "bargaining over what we collectively are going to treat as if it were true for purposes of our collective action" (but that phrase lacks the same alliterative appeal).
12. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (London: Longmans, Green, 1843), bk. 3, chap. 8.
13. R. Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions (New York: Wiley, 1957), chap. 6; Oran R. Young, ed., Bargaining: Formal Theories of Negotiation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975).
14. R. Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions (New York: Wiley, 1957), chap. 6; Oran R. Young, ed., Bargaining: Formal Theories of Negotiation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975).
15. Formal models, of course, abstract from the messiness of the real world. There, hard bargaining is indeed interspersed with persuasive appeals; bargainers alternatively threaten and cajole; negotiators seek agreements that everyone can live with, rather than necessarily pressing their own bargaining advantage to the hilt; Howard Raiffa, The Art and Science of Negotiation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982). For present purposes, however, we will be sticking to those formalizations, to show ways in which those models can and should be amended and extended even in their own terms.
16. Robert Axelrod, Conflict of Interests (Chicago: Markham, 1970).
17. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). David Lewis, Convention (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969).
18. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). David Lewis, Convention (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969).
19. The idealizations are not too grotesque, though. Even if legislators are actually pursuing personal or sectoral advantage, they feel none the less obliged to couch their appeals in terms of the public interest. And even if statutes really are just the senseless product of one logroll after another, legislators feel, nonetheless, obliged to attach to them a "preamble" which purports to offer a single, agreed rationale for their enactment. Various grounds for dissenting from the "standard version" sketched below are canvassed in John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp. chaps. 1, 3, and 4; and Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp. chaps. 1-3.
20. The idealizations are not too grotesque, though. Even if legislators are actually pursuing personal or sectoral advantage, they feel none the less obliged to couch their appeals in terms of the public interest. And even if statutes really are just the senseless product of one logroll after another, legislators feel, nonetheless, obliged to attach to them a "preamble" which purports to offer a single, agreed rationale for their enactment. Various grounds for dissenting from the "standard version" sketched below are canvassed in John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp. chaps. 1, 3, and 4; and Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp. chaps. 1-3.
21. Represented by, e.g., Joshua Cohen, "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy," in The Good Polity, ed. Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), pp. 17-34; John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), lecture 6, and "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," University of Chicago Law Review 94 (1997): 765-807; and most of the contributors to James Bohman and William Rehg, eds., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997).
22. Represented by, e.g., Joshua Cohen, "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy," in The Good Polity, ed. Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), pp. 17-34; John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), lecture 6, and "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," University of Chicago Law Review 94 (1997): 765-807; and most of the contributors to James Bohman and William Rehg, eds., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997).
23. Represented by, e.g., Joshua Cohen, "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy," in The Good Polity, ed. Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), pp. 17-34; John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), lecture 6, and "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," University of Chicago Law Review 94 (1997): 765-807; and most of the contributors to James Bohman and William Rehg, eds., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997).
24. Represented by, e.g., Joshua Cohen, "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy," in The Good Polity, ed. Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), pp. 17-34; John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), lecture 6, and "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," University of Chicago Law Review 94 (1997): 765-807; and most of the contributors to James Bohman and William Rehg, eds., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997).
25. In the terms introduced below, deliberators in these processes certainly are in initial disagreement over "means." They may even be in initial disagreement over "proximate ends" as well. But, at least on this "standard version" of the public reason/deliberative democracy story, they are all agreed that there is an "ultimate end" (details of which have yet to be determined) which they share.
26. Modeled, variously, by John G. Harsanyi, "Games of Incomplete Information Played by Bayesian Players," Management Science 14 (1967-68): 159-82, 320-34, 486-502; Robert J. Aumann, "Agreeing to Disagree," Annals of Statistics 4 (1976): 1236-39; Keith Lehrer and Carl Wagner, Rational Consensus in Science and Society (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981); and Alvin I. Goldman, "Argumentation and Social Epistemology," Journal of Philosophy 91 (1994): 27-49.
27. Modeled, variously, by John G. Harsanyi, "Games of Incomplete Information Played by Bayesian Players," Management Science 14 (1967-68): 159-82, 320-34, 486-502; Robert J. Aumann, "Agreeing to Disagree," Annals of Statistics 4 (1976): 1236-39; Keith Lehrer and Carl Wagner, Rational Consensus in Science and Society (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981); and Alvin I. Goldman, "Argumentation and Social Epistemology," Journal of Philosophy 91 (1994): 27-49.
28. Modeled, variously, by John G. Harsanyi, "Games of Incomplete Information Played by Bayesian Players," Management Science 14 (1967-68): 159-82, 320-34, 486-502; Robert J. Aumann, "Agreeing to Disagree," Annals of Statistics 4 (1976): 1236-39; Keith Lehrer and Carl Wagner, Rational Consensus in Science and Society (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981); and Alvin I. Goldman, "Argumentation and Social Epistemology," Journal of Philosophy 91 (1994): 27-49.
29. Modeled, variously, by John G. Harsanyi, "Games of Incomplete Information Played by Bayesian Players," Management Science 14 (1967-68): 159-82, 320-34, 486-502; Robert J. Aumann, "Agreeing to Disagree," Annals of Statistics 4 (1976): 1236-39; Keith Lehrer and Carl Wagner, Rational Consensus in Science and Society (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981); and Alvin I. Goldman, "Argumentation and Social Epistemology," Journal of Philosophy 91 (1994): 27-49.
30. In Political Liberalism, John Rawls similarly characterizes his "political conception of justice" as a way of proceeding in the absence of agreement on any "comprehensive doctrine."
31. Robert E. Goodin, Political Theory and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), chap. 2.
32. Gerald C. MacCallum, Jr., "Legislative Intent," Yale Law Journal 75 (1966): 754-87; Cass R. Sunstein, "Incompletely Theorized Agreements," Harvard Law Review 108 (1995): 1733-72
33. Gerald C. MacCallum, Jr., "Legislative Intent," Yale Law Journal 75 (1966): 754-87; Cass R. Sunstein, "Incompletely Theorized Agreements," Harvard Law Review 108 (1995): 1733-72
34. Note that the requirement of a "rationally grounded decision," as we here employ it, is a very weak constraint. All that it requires is this: for whatever course of action the group chooses, there must be some coherent story, based on the perceptions of some (perhaps just one) person, about how this course of action is supposed to lead to those results. What the constraint is designed to rule out is the phenomenon of shifting coalitions leading to a series of partial decisions which, taken together, are simply incoherent. Thus, in the Nullarbor example, what we want to rule out is this: suppose the track forks in three at three separate places. Jack thinks the convoy should go straight, then left, then right; Jill thinks it should go left, then straight, then right: James thinks it should go left at all forks. If they decided their route one step at a time, through majority voting, the convoy would go left, then left, then right. But nobody thinks that that is what they should do: that sequence of choices corresponds to no one's mental map of how to get out of the desert; see Geoffrey Brennan, "Collective Coherence?" International Review of Law and Economics (in press).
35. Wanting arrangements which are stable over time is one of the reasons Rawls gives against settling for a mere "modus vivendi"; Political Liberalism, pp. 148-49.
36. In Margaret Gilbert's terms, they want to come to a "jointly accepted view," one which is accepted for purposes of what the group should do but from which any given member of the group might still dissent "in her personal capacity" (pp. 301-4).
37. Strictly speaking, what we each want is the group to adopt whatever course of action is best for promoting our shared interests. But, ex hypothesi, we are in a situation of "arrested convergence." We have no further time to discuss, debate, or discover further facts. We are thus forced to act partly in ignorance, on the basis of the facts as we presently perceive them, rather than on the basis of the facts as they "really are."
38. The "no scope for compromise" (or "autocratic dictator") worry has been developed, in much more formal fashion and using models different from our own, by, e.g., Aanund Hyllund and Richard Zeckhauser, "The Impossibility of Bayesian Group Decisions with Separate Aggregation of Beliefs and Values," Econometrica 47 (1979): 1321-36; and Teddy Seidenfeld, Joseph B. Kadane, and Mark J. Schervish, "On the Shared Preferences of Two Bayesian Decision Makers," Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 225-44.
39. The "no scope for compromise" (or "autocratic dictator") worry has been developed, in much more formal fashion and using models different from our own, by, e.g., Aanund Hyllund and Richard Zeckhauser, "The Impossibility of Bayesian Group Decisions with Separate Aggregation of Beliefs and Values," Econometrica 47 (1979): 1321-36; and Teddy Seidenfeld, Joseph B. Kadane, and Mark J. Schervish, "On the Shared Preferences of Two Bayesian Decision Makers," Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 225-44.
40. Supposing also that it is temporally indivisible (so they cannot "take turns" having it for fixed periods of time), that there is nothing else that these two people want from one another (so they cannot make side payments to one another in some other currency), etc.
41. Of course, splitting the difference in such ways might lead to moves which, fortuitously, prove to have been "just right." But if so, that would have been purely fortuitous. We have been given reasons for believing that each of the opposing recommendations might be the right thing to do, but we have been given no reasons for believing that splitting the difference between two incompatible models might yield the right results. Splitting the difference in such circumstances literally "makes no sense." There is no coherent model explaining why that might be the correct course for achieving our shared goals. And that course of action would therefore be rejected by a group which is seeking a "reasoned decision" - agreement not only on what they are going to do but also on why.
42. The practical upshot - the action plan - may be more or less similar. Even the rationale that the acted upon perspective gives for those actions might itself be to some greater or lesser extent in accord with the rationales that would be given for similar actions by some of the other perspectives.
43. Supposing belief is not something we can conjure up through any act of will, we cannot bargain over what we will "will ourselves to believe," either. Compare Bernard Williams, "Deciding to Believe," in Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 136-51.
44. Literally, that makes no sense (as argued by Aumann). And simply agreeing to leave certain matters unresolved - which is what that phrase ordinarily actually involves, as shown in Cass R. Sunstein, "Leaving Things Undecided," Harvard Law Review 110 (1996): 4-101 - is not what we actually do in the cases at hand.
45. Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984);
46. G. Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson, "Loose Talk," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 86 (1986): 153-71; David Lewis, "Scorekeeping in a Language Game," Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979): 339-59.
47. G. Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson, "Loose Talk," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 86 (1986): 153-71; David Lewis, "Scorekeeping in a Language Game," Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979): 339-59.
48. G. Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson, "Loose Talk," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 86 (1986): 153-71; David Lewis, "Scorekeeping in a Language Game," Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979): 339-59.
49. Gilbert, pp. 294-98.
50. As in Ariel Rubinstein, "Perfect Equilibria in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica 50 (1982): 97-109.
51. Specifially we assume away psychological considerations that induce some agents to place a higher premium on "getting their way" than others or that make some agents want the esteem of having been proven "right" or some similar effects.
52. John C. Harsanyi, "Bargaining and Conflict Situations in the Light of a New Approach to Game Theory," American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings) 55 (May 1965): 447-57, and "A General Theory of Rational Behavior in Game Situations," Econometrica 34 (1966): 613-34.
53. John C. Harsanyi, "Bargaining and Conflict Situations in the Light of a New Approach to Game Theory," American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings) 55 (May 1965): 447-57, and "A General Theory of Rational Behavior in Game Situations," Econometrica 34 (1966): 613-34.
54. This will remain true however many additional players with the same beliefs as player 2 are added.
55. Insofar as people cannot change their beliefs through any act of will, it would be odd to hold people responsible for what beliefs they have; cf. Michael Stocker, "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs," Mind 91 (1982): 398-417. Notice, however, that what we are holding people responsible for is not what beliefs they hold but, rather, for encouraging others of us who do not share those beliefs to permit them to undertake actions on our collective behalf which are predicated on the assumption that their beliefs are correct.
56. Luce and Raiffa, p. 90. For a more politicized application, see Russell Hardin's discussion of Pax Romana solutions to deterrence games in "Unilateral versus Mutual Disarmament," Philosophy & Public Affairs 12 (1983) 236-54.