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Two Kinds Of We-Reasoning

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  • Hakli, Raul
  • Miller, Kaarlo
  • Tuomela, Raimo

Abstract

People sometimes think in terms of ‘we’ referring to a group they belong to. When making decisions, they frame the decision problem as: ‘What should we do?’ instead of ‘What should I do?’. We study one particular approach to such ‘we-reasoning’, economist Michael Bacharach's theory of ‘team reasoning’, and relate it to philosopher Raimo Tuomela's distinction between ‘I-mode’ reasoning and ‘we-mode’ reasoning. We argue that these theories complement each other: Tuomela's philosophical theory provides a conceptual framework augmenting Bacharach's theory, and Bacharach's mathematical results support Tuomela's view on the irreducibility of the we-mode to the I-mode. We-mode reasoning can explain some kinds of human cooperative behaviour left unexplained by standard game theory. Standard game theory is not well-equipped to deal with we-mode reasoning but it can be extended by the methods developed by Bacharach. However, we argue that both standard game theory and Bacharach's theory require more attention to the information-sharing stages that precede actual decision making, and we describe a stage-based model of we-reasoning.

Suggested Citation

  • Hakli, Raul & Miller, Kaarlo & Tuomela, Raimo, 2010. "Two Kinds Of We-Reasoning," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 291-320, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:26:y:2010:i:03:p:291-320_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2018. "What does “we” want? Team Reasoning, Game Theory, and Unselfish Behaviours," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 128(3), pages 311-332.
    2. McKie, John & Richardson, Jeff, 2017. "Social preferences for prioritizing the treatment of severely ill patients: The relevance of severity, expected benefit, past health and lifetime health," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(8), pages 913-922.
    3. Radzvilas, Mantas & Karpus, Jurgis, 2021. "Team reasoning without a hive mind," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(4), pages 345-353.
    4. Graf Lambsdorff, Johann & Giamattei, Marcus & Werner, Katharina & Schubert, Manuel, 2016. "Emotion vs. cognition - Experimental evidence on cooperation from the 2014 Soccer World Cup," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-72-16, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.

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