{"title":"Epictetusian rationality and evolutionary stability","authors":"Gregory Ponthiere","doi":"10.1007/s00191-024-00864-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>An economic interpretation of Epictetus’s precept of ‘Taking away aversion from all things not in our power’ consists of extending the symmetric factor of the preference relation beyond its boundaries under non-ethical preferences, so as to yield indifference between outcomes differing only on things outside one’s control. This paper examines the evolutionary dynamics of a population composed of Nash agents and Epictetusian agents matched randomly and interacting in the prisoner’s dilemma game. It is shown that when the evolutionary dynamics is driven by material pay-offs, the Nash type is an ESS under perfect random matching, whereas either the Nash or the Epictetusian type can be an ESS under imperfect random matching. However, when selection is driven by utility pay-offs, the Nash type can never be an ESS, and the Epictetusian type is an ESS if the matching process exhibits a sufficiently high degree of assortativity.</p>","PeriodicalId":47757,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Economics","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Evolutionary Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-024-00864-8","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
An economic interpretation of Epictetus’s precept of ‘Taking away aversion from all things not in our power’ consists of extending the symmetric factor of the preference relation beyond its boundaries under non-ethical preferences, so as to yield indifference between outcomes differing only on things outside one’s control. This paper examines the evolutionary dynamics of a population composed of Nash agents and Epictetusian agents matched randomly and interacting in the prisoner’s dilemma game. It is shown that when the evolutionary dynamics is driven by material pay-offs, the Nash type is an ESS under perfect random matching, whereas either the Nash or the Epictetusian type can be an ESS under imperfect random matching. However, when selection is driven by utility pay-offs, the Nash type can never be an ESS, and the Epictetusian type is an ESS if the matching process exhibits a sufficiently high degree of assortativity.
期刊介绍：
The journal aims to provide an international forum for a new approach to economics. Following the tradition of Joseph A. Schumpeter, it is designed to focus on original research with an evolutionary conception of the economy. The journal will publish articles with a strong emphasis on dynamics, changing structures (including technologies, institutions, beliefs and behaviours) and disequilibrium processes with an evolutionary perspective (innovation, selection, imitation, etc.). It favours interdisciplinary analysis and is devoted to theoretical, methodological and applied work. Research areas include: industrial dynamics; multi-sectoral and cross-country studies of productivity; innovations and new technologies; dynamic competition and structural change in a national and international context; causes and effects of technological, political and social changes; cyclic processes in economic evolution; the role of governments in a dynamic world; modelling complex dynamic economic systems; application of concepts, such as self-organization, bifurcation, and chaos theory to economics; evolutionary games. Officially cited as: J Evol Econ
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