The point of the prisoner’s dilemma is how we are prone to cooperate with others even when it’s to our advantage to betray the other guy (even when it’s a stranger, or someone we don’t like too much.)
Partially, because fuck cops. Whether we’re arrested by law enforcement or Nazis (or are wolves fighting off a bear), we hate the bastards more than we distrust our fellow heister.
But as I hinted above, our instinct to stay loyal has evolved since long before we walked upright. Think of the prisoner’s dilemma as a recurring thing (because it is, even if the exact specific circumstances are not repeated) the tribe stays more coherent, and more survive if we don’t leave our fellow dwarves behind (Rock and Stone!). If we left our buddies to die rather than risk ourselves to rescue them, we’d run out of buddies.
So we never take the deal. Besides which, in the US, you can’t trust law enforcement anyway. They are legally allowed to lie to you to secure a confession, even a false one. And they will. Shut up and ask for your lawyer.
Interesting. Is there an evidence based way to look at the trolley problem too or is it just to removed from reality to be able to do that? I always feel the trolley problem gets far too much attention in relation to is actual applicability.
At its core, the Trolley Problem is a paradox of deontological ethics, that is codes based on creed.
Note that Batman is always framed to choose You can save Robin, or these five innocents, but don’t have time for both and then he usually chooses a third option. (And never has to kill Robin to save anyone and then process breaking his code.) It’d be super neat to see Batman in a situation where he has to make a harsh choice and see how he processes it. Comics are not often that brave.
Note that deontologist ethicists struggle with lying to Nazi Jew-hunters to protect Jewish refugees ( Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France… ) Kant, who was pre-German-Reich confronted the murderer at the door but his justifications to go ahead and direct the killer to his victim didn’t feel entirely sound to his contemporaries.
But the Trolley problem is less about a right answer and more about how the answer changes with variations. Most people find it easy enough to pull the lever in the basic scenario, but will find it more challenging to, say:
-Carve up a stranger to harvest him for organs so that five transplant patients can live
-Take up the offer of militants in an undeveloped country to spare a band of refugees from summary execution, if you would personally choose and kill one of them, they’ll let the rest go free.
The scenarios are meant to illustrate we are informed regarding our moral choices based on how we feel rather than by any formula or code or ideology. Only when the stakes get super high (e.g. evading nuclear holocaust or considering eating our dead in Donner pass) do we actually invoke intellectual analysis to make moral decisions.
Edit: Completed a thought. Fixed markup.
Isn’t the point of the prisoner dilemma that isn’t always better for you to do the bad thing but it’s best for all if both don’t?
