ABSTRACT
This chapter considers what critical game theory with divided, internally inconsistent selves can contribute to mainstream game theory with unified, consistent selves. Books by Avinash Dixit and his coauthors and by Steven Pinker are the jumping-off points. The chapter has 12 parts. The first part turns from mixed Nash in passing shots to Final Jeopardy betting to consider how winning with honor may override maximization. The second turns from GPA rat races to rat races in politics and workplaces to consider when rat races are socially desirable. The third considers Schelling’s concept of focal points, focusing on how focal points may have negative ethical implications, as in the Implicit Association Test, as well as positive ones. The fourth considers how commitment devices may lead to nice as well as tough authority figures. The fifth considers different versions of Chicken, and the sixth considers different versions of the cheap talk principle. The 7th through 11th parts consider assumptions of consistency, transitivity, commensurability, and interchangeability made in expected utility theory and rational choice theory. The 12th and longest part uses variations on trolley problems to make a case that Kantian deontology supports randomizing in a variety of games in which Benthamite consequentialism does not.
