Value systems of different kinds of people resist introspective estimation

Evidence

There are undoubtedly special cases in which one can suppose that the other player is like one’s self in basic values and can consequently estimate the other’s values by the simple application of symmetry. But in too many exciting cases one plays an opponent who is a wholly different kind of person. The father of a kidnapped boy will not be very successful in guessing what his own bottom price would be if he had been the kidnapper instead; it may not be easy for a British or French officer introspectively to guess how terrible a penalty would have to be to deter him if he were a Mau Mau or an Algerian terrorist. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 281

Categorization

• XREF: Explains why the Godfather’s victims cannot rationally compute what he would accept — values are asymmetric across parties, undermining the symmetry-based trust assumption. — connects to: Subjective reservation values cannot be credibly communicated even when honest — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 280; Robbins built value-free economics on the irrefutability of interpersonal utility claims. — Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas, Welfare for Markets: A Global History…, 114