How to Encourage Imperfect Individuals to Care More about Society in General: a Utility-Theory Approach

For a society to function efficiently, it is desirable that all members of this society care no only about themselves, but also about the society as a whole, i.e., about all the other individuals from the society. In practice, most people are only capable of caring about a few other individuals. We analyze this problem from the viewpoint of decision theory and show that even with such imperfect individuals, it is possible to make sure that everyone’s decisions are affected by the society as a whole: namely, it is sufficient to make sure that people have emotional attachment to those few individuals who are capable of caring about the society as a whole. As a side effect, our result provides a possible explanation of why the Biblical commandment to love your God encourages ethical behavior. Mathematics Subject Classification: 91B16