Game Theory in Christian Perspective
Ben Cooper
Christ Church Fulwood
Abstract: Game theory has had an enormous impact on the social sciences, and economics in particular. A Christian user of game theory should be at least as aware as any other user of its assumptions and limitations. In particular, he or she should be wary of the ethical stance taken in most practical applications of game theory, which is almost uniformly consequentialist, and most often utilitarian. However, so long as these limitations are understood, there is no objection in principle to the tools and concepts of game theory being used from a Christian point of view. They may even be used for explicitly Christian social or economic analysis, and this paper will conclude with some examples of how this might be done.
JEL Codes: C17, Z12, A13.