Game-Theoretic Models of Moral and Other-Regarding Agents (extended abstract)

TL;DR

This paper explores Kantian equilibria in finite normal form games, addressing their limitations and proposing new, computationally feasible models of morally motivated decision-making that interpolate between self-regarding and other-regarding behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a generalization of Kantian equilibria based on program equilibria and proposes new, tractable models of moral decision-making in game theory.

Findings

Identified problems with existing Kantian equilibria, including computational intractability.

Proposed a generalization based on program equilibria, highlighting its limitations.

Introduced new, computationally feasible other-regarding equilibria and a continuum between self and other-regarding behaviors.

Abstract

We investigate Kantian equilibria in finite normal form games, a class of non-Nashian, morally motivated courses of action that was recently proposed in the economics literature. We highlight a number of problems with such equilibria, including computational intractability, a high price of miscoordination, and problematic extension to general normal form games. We give such a generalization based on concept of program equilibria, and point out that that a practically relevant generalization may not exist. To remedy this we propose some general, intuitive, computationally tractable, other-regarding equilibria that are special cases Kantian equilibria, as well as a class of courses of action that interpolates between purely self-regarding and Kantian behavior.