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Origins Of The Game Theory Of Law And The Limits Of Harmony In Plato's Laws, Arthur J. Jacobson

Articles

In his last dialogue, the Laws, Plato views citizens in the polis as players in a game. Just as contemporary game theory, Plato considers games to be states of strategic interaction. Yet the game of the Laws differs from those of game theory in one important respect. Where game theory assumes that players are rational--that they choose strategies, or rules for taking action at each instant of a game, in order to maximize payoffs--Plato explores the conditions under which rationality, as game theory defines it, is possible.

Plato thus agrees with game theory that rational, maximizing behavior is a necessary …