Invited Papers: Weakness of Will and the Free-Rider Problem

Author(s): Jon Elster

Source: Noûs, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1985 A. P. A. Western Division Meetings (Mar., 1985), pp. 79-
80
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2215128
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ABSTRACTS OF INVITED PAPERS 79

Weakness of Will and the Free-Rider Problem

JON ELSTER
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
OLSO, NORWAY

Philosophers (Parfit, 1984), economists (Schelling, 1984) and

psychologists (Ainslie, 1982) are increasingly concerned with cer-
tain intrapersonal analogies of interpersonal coordination problems.
The latter include social choice problems, bargaining problems and
collective action problems. In the intrapersonal framework they ap-
pear as problems of intertemporal coordination, or as mixed conflict-
cooperation games between successive time slices of the individual.
One must of course be careful in exploring this analogy. The suc-
cessive time slices all belong to one person (Elster, 1985), whereas
the link between different individuals is of a much weaker kind.
Also, the irreversibility of time makes for a crucial disanalogy with
the interpersonal case. Yet the following propositions seem suffi-
ciently robust to warrant further discussion.
(1) Weakness of will may be conceived of as a collective action
problem. For all time-slices of the person it is better if all of them
abstain from temptation than if all of them yield to it, yet for any
given incarnation there is never any reason to abstain. (Actually,
this proposition only holds if in the first occurrence of "all" it is
replaced by "most" or "almost all".)
(2) Weakness of the will often prevents (interpersonal) collec-
tive action. For cooperation to be forthcoming on a selfishly ra-
tional basis, it is crucial that the rate of time discounting be not
too high (Taylor, 1976, Axelrod, 1984).
(3) In interpersonal problems of collective action cooperation
is sometimes elicited by a form of magical thinking, due to a confu-
sion between causal and diagnostic efficacy (Quattrone and Tver-
sky, 1985). What is arguably the central method for overcoming
akrasia has the same structure (Ainslie, 1982), although in this case
the reasoning is less obviously irrational.
(4) Typically collective action problems are made more intrac-
table by the addition of a bargaining problem between the par-
ticipants. Usually there is no point in everybody voting, nor in my
always refusing a drink. Yet by what decision mechanism can one
single out the persons or time slices who are to be allowed a free
ride? Perhaps failures of cooperation or of will-power stem less from
the free-rider temptation than from the problem of finding a fair
solution to the bargaining question.

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 80 NOUS

(5) Rigid adherence to duty may overcome this difficulty, both

in the interpersonal and in the intrapersonal case. Yet, especially
in the latter, the remedy may be as bad as the disease.

REFERENCES
Ainslie, G. (1982). A behavioral economic approach to the defence mechanism. Social Science
Information 21 (1982), 735-70.
Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
Elster, J. (1985). Introduction to J. Elster (ed.), The Multiple Self, Cambridge University Press.
Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and Persons. Oxford University Press.
Quattrone, G. and Tversky, A. (1985). Self-deception and the voters' illusion, ibid.
Schelling, T.C. (1984). Ethics, law and the exercise of self-command, in his Choice and Conse-
quences, Harvard University Press.
Taylor, M. (1976), Anarchy and Cooperation, Chichester: Wiley.

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