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Content: We’ll learn some of these later in this module. Collective Action Problems
Collective Action Problems
Two concepts from ethics that we did not touch on in Module 3 are altruism (selflessness) and selfishness. Perhaps we should be altruistic and make personal sacrifices to help others. But, for better or worse, people often are at least somewhat selfish. Collective action problems arise when people are selfish and thus fail to achieve successful collective actions. A collective action problemis a scenario in which there is conflict between the individual interest and the group interest. In the scenario, each individual in the group faces a choice to either act selfishly or cooperate. In a collective action problem it is always in the individual’s best interest to act selfishly, regardless of what the other individuals do. However, if all individuals act selfishly, then they all get worse outcomes than if they all cooperate. In other words, it is in the individual’s interest to act selfishly, but it is in the group’s interest to have everyone cooperate.