Such a “rational” choice calculation results in what is known as a “Nash-
equilibrium”: the product of a game in which each player adopts a strategy
that is the best reply to the actions of others. The result is a stable outcome,
given that none of the players has a better strategy than his rivals. The insight
derived by game theorists from such a model is that players have a mutual
interest in coordinating their actions. The nature of social cooperation and
interaction becomes something that one can explain as emerging from the
individual choices of rational agents.^4
This example serves to illustrate the basic presuppositions of game theory,
which have a principal role in rational choice theory. There are two primary
assumptions involved in this game model. The first is that a decision-maker
is “rational,” which is defined narrowly as meaning that the individual “makes
decisions consistently in pursuit of his [sic] own objectives.” It is presumed
that each player ’s objective is to maximize the expected value of any reward
earned in the course of the game. The second premise is that the decision-
maker is “intelligent.” A player is considered to be so when s/he is in pos-
session of complete information about the game and is aware of all relevant
data about the given situation. This is to say that the agent is not vulnerable
to hidden factors, or deprived of information available to any competitors
(Myerson 1991:1–4).
There is much to question about these presuppositions generally, but for
the moment, it is instructive to apply them to the bar scene as presented in
A Beautiful Mind. For the Nash-character ’s argument to work, the following
assumptions must be granted:
a) the blond woman is the most desirable (all the men would usually pur-
sue her);
b) the blond will not be interested in any of the men;
c) the other women will be interested in the men;
d) the particularity of each individual woman is largely irrelevant in terms
of her desirability for the men (i.e. any woman is better than none).
The necessity of these presumptions makes a mockery of this application of
game theory to the inter-personal relationships of dating. Why should one
From A Beautiful Mindto the Beautiful Soul • 155(^4) For more on equilibrium in game theory, see Myerson 1991: chapter 3. For a brief
and less technical explication of coordination games, see Hollis 1994.