Cooperative Dilemmas in Rational Debate

2025-04-08

AI Summary

This paper identifies a novel social dilemma in rational debate: even when participants sincerely pursue truth, strategic deferral of cognitive burden—motivated by individual aversion to belief revision costs—systematically degrades collective epistemic efficiency. Method: We develop a game-theoretic model grounded in a multi-objective rational agent framework and rigorously prove that standard debate structures admit inefficient Nash equilibria. We formally characterize the counterintuitive phenomenon wherein higher truth-seeking motivation deteriorates consensus quality, identifying its precise threshold conditions. Contribution/Results: (1) We establish the strategic tension between truth pursuit and belief revision cost as an endogenous mechanism underlying rational debate failure; (2) we identify and characterize the equilibrium properties and boundary conditions of this dilemma, thereby providing a theoretical foundation for designing improved collective epistemic institutions.

Technology Category

• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Imperfect Information
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Argumentation

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness, privacy, and diversity in economic environments
• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web learning to rank, online learning, and counterfactual learning for ranking

Abstract

As an epistemic activity, rational debate and discussion requires cooperation, yet involves a tension between collective and individual interests. While all participants benefit from collective outcomes like reaching consensus on true beliefs, individuals face personal costs when changing their minds. This creates an incentive for each debater to let others bear the cognitive burden of exploring alternative perspectives. We present a model to examine the strategic dynamics between debaters motivated by two competing goals: discovering truth and minimizing belief revisions. Our model demonstrates that this tension creates social dilemmas where strategies that are optimal for individuals systematically undermine the collective pursuit of truth. Paradoxically, our analysis reveals that increasing debaters' motivation to seek truth can sometimes produce equilibria with worse outcomes for collective truth discovery. These findings illuminate why rational debate can fail to achieve optimal epistemic outcomes, even when participants genuinely value truth.

Problem

• Examines tension between collective and individual interests in debate
• Models strategic dynamics of truth-seeking versus belief revision costs
• Reveals paradox where truth motivation can hinder collective discovery

Innovation

• Model analyzes strategic dynamics in debate
• Balances truth discovery and belief revisions
• Reveals paradox in collective truth outcomes