This article presents a new proposal for understanding the establishment and maintenance of cooperation: the cooperation afforder with framing hypothesis, producing what can be called cooperation from afforder-framing . Three key moves are present. First, a special variety of the Stag Hunt game, the Cooperation Afforder game, will reliably produce mutualistic cooperation through an evolutionary process. Second, cognitive framing is a credible candidate mechanism to meet the special conditions and requirements of the Cooperation Afforder game. Third, once mutualistic cooperation is (...) established in this way, it will plausibly lead to broader forms of cooperation, even to limited forms of altruism. (shrink)

The gap between economic rationality, as embedded in utility maximization, and ethical rationality, identified with a set of rules that prescribe the right course of action, has been a challenging issue for economists, philosophers, and business ethicists. Despite the difference and the noncompetition between a scientific economic approach of economics and business ethics, and a behavioral and philosophical one, we highlight the importance of the Aristotelian concept of prudence or phronesis applied to business activity. Phronesis allows for a conceptualization of (...) rationality that can be simultaneously applied to economics and ethics. It also allows conceiving the intrinsically ethical nature of economic rationality. This relationship requires an appropriate education and the intervention of the state. (shrink)

In criticizing communitarian views of justice, Amartya Sen argues that identity is not merely a matter of discovery but an object of reasoned choice subject to constraints. Distinguishing three notions of identity – self-perception, perceived identity and social affiliation – I claim that the relevant constraints implied by this argument are minimal. Some of Sen's arguments about perceived identity and social context do not establish any further constraints. Sen also argues that a model of multiculturalism and some forms of education (...) can restrict, or fail to promote, reasoned and informed identity choice. This argument is better understood in the light of Sen's work on capability and justice, notably his concern with ways in which underdogs can adapt and his emphasis on public reasoning. It highlights limitations on information and opportunities for reasoning. I suggest that these lead to genuine constraints on identity choice. The paper focuses on Sen's work, though its claims are also relevant to George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton's analysis of identity. (shrink)

En estas líneas se pretende ofrecer pistas sobre cómo podría medirse, no ya la innovación como efecto, sino la innovación como acción; es decir, las condiciones de posibilidad de la innovación. Se argumentará que esta medida debe basarse en ciertas variables culturales, que ponderen la diversidad de los individuos y grupos de una sociedad, como indicador de su capacidad combinatoria. Se concluirá que una medida estable y precisa de la innovación es irrealizable.

We are today agents of a peculiar reality, the global network or the system for automated information production. Our condition in the global network is that of agents of the real, since we all contribute to the coproduction of this ever-evolving process. Nevertheless, I will argue, this reality is but the effect of the adoption of a notion of instrumental pragmatic rationality which denies the existence of any other possible reality as the actualization of different determinations of Reason. While following (...) Deleuze s notion of deterritorialization, I ll show that the real philosophical choice does not concern the introduction of new moves that create differentiations within a universal game, but that it is concerned with the possible abolition of the agency which is instantiated within the collective network. (shrink)

This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 looks at how esteem affects knowledge transfers. Motivated by Akerlof [2015], I examine in two separate models, how esteem | via individuals' choices of values | affects teaching and learning. In teaching, there is the following trade-off: prestige can be obtained if one is able to influence others to value one's expertise, but doing so reduces one's relative achievement, hurting one's pride. This leads to non-monotonicity of teaching in students' learning potential and (...) teachers' ability. In learning, I analyse how social pressure affects learning given an option to \escape". I show that social pressure can be used to motivate individuals to learn and possibly value an activity. However, too much pressure causes those with lower relative potential to exhibit escapism due to increasingly negative esteem. Implications of the models are discussed. Chapter 2 studies how workers' identities are relevant to incentive theory. In particular, I conduct the first experiment exploring the relationship between identity and optimal incentives. I construct workgroups which are either homogeneous or heterogeneous in members' identities and examine their productivity at a real-effort task under tournament pay and team pay. I find that in homogeneous workgroups, productivity is higher under team pay; in heterogeneous workgroups, on the other hand, productivity is similar under both incentive schemes. Team pay induces greater helping of peers | especially in homogeneous workgroups. Tournament pay induces higher personal effort | especially in heterogeneous workgroups. I also find that incentives influence workers' identities. Chapter 3 uses a laboratory experiment to study competitions for power | and the role of patronage in such competitions. We construct and analyze a new game | the \chicken-and-egg game" | in which chickens correspond to positions of power and eggs are the game's currency. We find that power tends to accumulate, through a \power begets power" dynamic, in the hands of \lords." Other subjects behave like their vassals in the sense that they take lords' handouts rather than compete against them. We observe substantial wealth inequality as well as power inequality. There are also striking gender differences in outcomes | particularly in rates of lordship. In a second treatment, where we eliminate patronage by knocking out the ability to transfer eggs, inequality is vastly reduced and the \power begets power" dynamic disappears. (shrink)