Newcomb’s Problem and Prisoners ’ Dilemma

The relationship betueen Newcomb’s problem, which involves an apparent paradox of prediction. and Prisoners ’ Dilemm is esplimted. After describing a resolution to Newmmb’s problem, due to John A. Ferejohn, that renders the two contradictory principles of choice in Newcomb’s problem (dominance and expected utility) consistent, I show Prisoners ’ Dilemma to bc a “symmetricized ” version of Newcomb’s problem in its payoff structure. The assumption about predictability of choice made for one player in Newcomb’s problem, when applied to both players in Prisoners ’ Dilemma-one considered as a leader and the other as a follower-offers a resolution to this dilemma that, while mnsistent with the resolution offered by metagarne theory, rationalizes the cxistcnce of a metclgme solution within a probabilistic, rational-choice framework. The relevance of the mutual-predictability assumption to the solution of arms races, and tragedy-of-commons situations generally, is discussed. G a m e theory is rife with paradoxes, the most famous of whicli is illustrated by the game of Prisoners ’ Dilemma (Rapoport and Chammah, 1965; Rapoport, 1974). Several years ago Anatol Kapoport (1967) suggested that one could escape this paradox through the use of metagarne theory, which is a theory developed by Nigel Howard (1971, 1974) that allows players to make successive predictions about each other’s condi