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Tenek comments on Blame Theory - Less Wrong
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Comments (16)
Guilt is an added cost to making decisions that benefit you at the expense of others. (Ideally, anyways.) It encourages people to cooperate to everyone's benefit. Suppose we have a PD matrix where the payoffs are: (defect, cooperate) = (3, 0) (defect, defect) = (1, 1) (cooperate, cooperate) = (2, 2) (cooperate, defect) = (0, 3) Normally we say that 'defect' is the dominant strategy since regardless of the other person's decision, your 'defect' option payoff is 1 higher than 'cooperate'.
Now suppose you (both) feel guilty about betrayal to the tune of 2 units: (defect, cooperate) = (1, 0) (cooperate, cooperate) = (2, 2) (defect, defect) = (-1, -1) (cooperate, defect) = (0, 1)
The situation is reversed - 'cooperate' is the dominant strategy. Total payoff in this situation is 4. Total payoff in the guiltless case is 2 since both will defect. In the OP $10-button example the total payoff is $-90, so people as a group lose out if anyone pushes the button. Guilt discourages you from pushing the button and society is better for it.
Guilt is an emotion which probably evolved for something like the purpose you describe. It is triggered by interpersonal interactions and is not under direct conscious control (it wouldn't do its job very well if it was). The OP's suggestion that guilt is something you 'should' feel in response to events outside of interpersonal interactions or your own direct actions is incoherent and reminiscent of the 'Catholic guilt' phenomenon. It appears that Catholicism found a way to train people to feel some kind of generalized guilt for all kinds of strange things beyond it's 'natural' application. This does not appear to be a helpful development.