Game Theory As A Model For Business And Business Ethics

Fifty years ago, two Princeton professors established game theory as an important new branch of applied mathematics. Game theory has become a celebrated discipline in its own right, and it now plays a prestigious role in many disciplines, including ethics, due in particular to the neo-Hobbesian thin...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Solomon, Robert C. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 1999
In: Business ethics quarterly
Year: 1999, Volume: 9, Issue: 1, Pages: 11-29
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Summary:Fifty years ago, two Princeton professors established game theory as an important new branch of applied mathematics. Game theory has become a celebrated discipline in its own right, and it now plays a prestigious role in many disciplines, including ethics, due in particular to the neo-Hobbesian thinking of David Gauthier and others. Now it is perched at the edge of business ethics. I believe that it is dangerous and demeaning. It makes us look the wrong way at business, reinforcing a destructive obsession with measurable outcomes and a false sense of competition. It falsely characterizes or insidiously advocates a style of human behavior that is utterly unacceptable. To put the matter quite crudely, a person who actually practiced the form of “rationality” advocated by game theory would be something of a monster.We should not ask for more precision than a subject is capable of giving us. — Aristotle, (384–322 B.C.E.) Nicomachean Ethics Bk. 1Not that you won or lost—but how you played the game. — Grantland Rice (1880–1954) “Alumnus Football”
ISSN:2153-3326
Contains:Enthalten in: Business ethics quarterly
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.2307/3857632