Commons and Cognition
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Carol M. Rose
Abstract
Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons primarily concerns actions rather than thoughts. But he did famously describe the cognitive state of a hypothetical herder on a grassy field. With respect to the field and its other users, Hardin’s herder is both ignorant and indifferent; he coolly calculates that his best option is to take the full benefit of grazing his stock while suffering only a fraction of the cost — an action that contributes to the decimation of a common resource. While Hardin viewed the herder’s attitude as identical to that of actors in many other collective action situations, the work of other commons theorists suggests several different cognitive stances among such actors, largely depending on the scale of the commons issues they face. Thus participants in the Prisoner’s Dilemma (a very small commons) would appear to be dominated by distrust rather than the hypothetical herder’s ignorance or indifference. Participants in mid-sized commons — such as Hardin’s herders in real life — show some distrust, but also great knowledge and engagement in common pool management. Participants in the largest-scale commons issues are actually those most likely to exhibit the ignorance and indifference that Hardin attributed to the herder. This Article discusses the ways in which these different cognitive stances track the scale of collective action “tragedies” as described by major theorists and concludes with some observations about the cognitive aspects of climate change.
© 2018 by Theoretical Inquiries in Law
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- The Banality of the Commons: Efficiency Arguments Against Common Ownership Before Hardin
- Before the Tragedy of the Commons: Early Modern Economic Considerations of the Public Use of Natural Resources
- Commons and Environmental Regulation in History: The Water Commons Beyond Property and Sovereignty
- Cold-War Commons: Tragedy, Critique, and the Future of the Illiberal Problem Space
- The “Commons” Discourse on Marine Fisheries Resources: Another Antecedent to Hardin’s “Tragedy”
- Savagery, Civilization, and Property: Theories of Societal Evolution and Commons Theory
- Historicizing Elinor Ostrom: Urban Politics, International Development and Expertise in the U.S. Context (1970-1990)
- Indigenous Peoples, Political Economists and the Tragedy of the Commons
- Commons and Cognition
- Confronting Hardin: Trends and Approaches to the Commons in Historiography
- Give Us Back Our Tragedy: Nonrivalry in Intellectual Property Law and Policy
- Re-romanticizing Commons and Community in Israeli Discourse: Social, Economic, and Political Motives
- Impeachment by Judicial Review: Israel’s Odd System of Checks and Balances
- Israel’s “Constitutional Revolution”: A Thought from Political Liberalism
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- The Banality of the Commons: Efficiency Arguments Against Common Ownership Before Hardin
- Before the Tragedy of the Commons: Early Modern Economic Considerations of the Public Use of Natural Resources
- Commons and Environmental Regulation in History: The Water Commons Beyond Property and Sovereignty
- Cold-War Commons: Tragedy, Critique, and the Future of the Illiberal Problem Space
- The “Commons” Discourse on Marine Fisheries Resources: Another Antecedent to Hardin’s “Tragedy”
- Savagery, Civilization, and Property: Theories of Societal Evolution and Commons Theory
- Historicizing Elinor Ostrom: Urban Politics, International Development and Expertise in the U.S. Context (1970-1990)
- Indigenous Peoples, Political Economists and the Tragedy of the Commons
- Commons and Cognition
- Confronting Hardin: Trends and Approaches to the Commons in Historiography
- Give Us Back Our Tragedy: Nonrivalry in Intellectual Property Law and Policy
- Re-romanticizing Commons and Community in Israeli Discourse: Social, Economic, and Political Motives
- Impeachment by Judicial Review: Israel’s Odd System of Checks and Balances
- Israel’s “Constitutional Revolution”: A Thought from Political Liberalism
