Toward an experimental ethics

“The [nonzero-sum] coordination game probably lies behind the stability of institutions and traditions and perhaps the phenomenon of leadership itself. Among the possible sets of rules that might govern a conflict, tradition points to the particular set that everyone can expect everyone else to be conscious of as a conspicuous candidate for adoption; it wins be default over those that cannot readily be identified by tacit consent. The force of many rules of etiquette and social restraint, including some () that have been divested of their relevance and authority, seems to depend on their having become “solutions” to a coordination game: everyone expects everyone to expect everyone to expect observance, so that non-observance carries the pain of conspicuousness.” Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 1960 (p.91) emphasis added