I have maintained that some but not all prisoners' dilemmas are side-by-side Necomb problems. The present paper argues that, similarly, some but not all versions of Newcomb's Problem are prisoners' dilemmas in which Taking Two and Predicting Two make an equilibrium that is dispreferred by both the box-chooser and predictor to the outcome in which only one box is taken and this is predicted. I comment on what kinds of prisoner's dilemmas Newcomb's Problem can be, and on opportunities that results (...) reached may open for kinds of cooperative reasoning in versions of Newcomb's Problem. (shrink)

Can I will that my maxim becomes a universal law? . . .It would be easy to show how common human reason, with this compass, knows well how to distinguish . . . what is consistent or inconsistent with duty. (Kant, Foundations, 403–4)How exactly is this compass to work? Cases bring out connected difficulties to do, (1), with whether ''social contexts'' are to be in or out of descriptions of actions maxims would have agents do – for example, ''disarming alone'' (...) and ''voting when enough others would even if one did not'', or ''disarming'' and ''voting'' simply; and, (2), with a seldom noticed ambiguity of ''everyone''s acting in accordance with a maxim'' and ''a maxim''s becoming universal law''. The paper argues dilemmatically for the inadequacy of Kant''s test for maxims consistent with duty whatever policy for social contexts and manner of maxims becoming universal laws it is said to invoke. (shrink)