Category: Philosophy
Hard Determinism and Punishment
Determinists argue that fault and blame have no place in criminal “justice”. Neuroscientist David Eagleman, for example, made this argument recently in The Atlantic:
The crux of the problem is that it no longer makes sense to ask, “To what extent was it his biology, and to what extent was it him?,” because we now understand that there is no meaningful distinction between a person’s biology and his decision-making. They are inseparable.
While our current style of punishment rests on a bedrock of personal volition and blame, our modern understanding of the brain suggests a different approach. Blameworthiness should be removed from the legal argot. It is a backward-looking concept that demands the impossible task of untangling the hopelessly complex web of genetics and environment that constructs the trajectory of a human life.
Eagleman and other determinists are against punishment but they recognize that incarceration still has a role to play because the public has a right to be safe. Philosopher Saul Smilansky now pounces with a timely paper on determinism and punishment.
It is surely wrong to punish people for something that is not their fault or under their control. (Hard determinists agree with this premise.) But incarceration is a type of punishment so under the hard determinist view, justice
requires that when we incarcerate criminals we must also compensate them to make up for the unjust punishment. Smilansky has a bit of a silly name for punishment with compensation, funishment.
Funishment, however, is very likely to cause a big increase in crime and that is also unjust. Smilansky concludes, therefore, that hard determinists have a problem:
[B]y its nature funishment is a practical reductio of hard determinism: it makes implementing hard determinism impossible to contemplate.
Smilansky has put hard determinists into a corner but I fear that they have a type of escape at least in practice if not in theory–it is the one used by many humanitarians in the past–punish people under the guise or belief that you are really doing them good. The inquisitors surely recognized that it was unjust to torture someone who was controlled by the devil. Nevertheless, if torture is what it takes to get the devil out, then torture is not punishment but treatment…and vice-versa. The record of the psychiatric profession and non-punishing treatment of criminals (and others) is not without blemish.
Eagleman goes to some lengths to distance himself from such conclusions. He says, for example, that
To help a citizen reintegrate into society, the ethical goal is to change him as little as possible while bringing his behavior into line with society’s needs.
The tension, as I see it, is that if free will is a myth then it’s not clear why we should have an ethical goal of changing people as little as possible.
American vs. Russian notions of friendship
Not long ago I attended an evening-long discussion group on this topic, comprised mostly of Russian emigrants and their spouses. The Russians were generally keen to argue that they have deeper and closer friendships than do the Americans. They also dislike that Americans will call their acquaintances “friends.” In response I noted that:
1. Relative to Americans, Russians are far more concerned with defining who is truly a friend, or not. (Though Google+ may change this.)
2. Russians are far more likely to conduct purges of their friends. (“A future enemy” is one good Eastern European definition of a friend, or so the joke goes, thanks to BC.)
3. American geographic mobility has been falling for some time and so we might move back toward some closer and more durable notions of friendship; social networks play a role here too.
Since that evening, I’ve formulated a new version of the question in my mind. Putting aside the so-called “intelligentsia” (a Russian phrase, not one which comes quickly to my tongue), are Russian lower-middle class friendships so much more “life and death” than American lower-middle class friendships, especially among the immobile? What if seven guys grow up together in Somerville, MA, never go to college or leave town, work in auto parts stores, and end up reminding you of characters in a Clint Eastwood movie? Maybe they’re pretty tight, albeit with grudges and perhaps even purges along the way.
The new question is then this: why does the “treatment” of greater education have so much less affect on the nature of Russian friendships, relative to American friendships? Are there other dimensions along which the treatment of education influences Russians less? (Examples would be child-bearing age, taste in sports, taste in food, etc.) Influences Americans less? Other groups?
The Russian intelligentsia will be the first to insist how much education matters in their circles, but perhaps they doth protest too loud.
The Great Fiction
Catherine Rampell, Bruce Bartlett, and Matt Yglesias are all pushing the chart below from a paper by Suzanne Mettler. According to this gang, people who use, for example, the mortgage interest deduction or who have a 529 college savings program are willfully ignorant about how they benefit from government (Rampell’s terminology).
As Bastiat said, “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” What Rampell et al. want to do is to make people believe in this great fiction. But there are always taxpayers and taxeaters, even though government has so wormed its way into every organ of the body politic that it is sometimes difficult to tell which are which. (Indeed, part of Mettler’s point is that the government shell game of ‘hide the subsidy, hide the tax’ is often designed to obscure taxpayers and taxeaters.)
Nevertheless, there are dividing lines. In a laissez-faire world we don’t get rid of 529 programs, instead all savings, not just savings for college, become tax-free. A 529 program is not a government program like food stamps, it is the absence of a government tax. (N.B. I am not taking a position here on the best tax structure.)
People who use 529 programs and who think that they have not used a government social program are not willfully ignorant, they are demonstrating a healthy if fading appreciation of the distinction between civil society and government. What Rampell et al. implicitly imagine is that the natural state is slavery and any departure from that state a government benefit. Thus, if the government taxes your saving for a college education less than your other savings, you should be grateful for how government has benefited you and your children.
And if the government doesn’t jail you today, you should be grateful for how government has granted you the benefit of liberty.
This is the attitude of a serf not an American.
*On What Matters, vol. I*, review of Derek Parfit
Derek Parfit is one of my favorite philosophers, and favorite writers at that, so for many years I have been looking forward to his next book, which is now out. The main argument is that rule consequentialism, properly understood Kantianism, and contractualism all can be understood as a broadly consistent moral theory, all climbing up the same mountain from different sides.
The text is recognizably Parfit, but I am not convinced by its major arguments, and I also believe the Parfitian method — any reader of him will understand this reference — does not succeed in all of the new areas under consideration.
The philosophical patron saints of the book are Kant and Sidgwick, and I would suggest also Bloomsbury. Parfit is an extreme rationalist and he thinks (hopes?) we can find, and agree upon, the right answers to moral questions. (At the same time he deeply fears that we cannot, and he is a philosophic conservative as Keynes was.) What’s missing is Hume, not the Hume of is-ought worries but the Hume who came to terms with the tensions between the arguments of philosophy and the experience of everyday human life.
My favorite features of the Parfit book include the early comparison of Kant and Sidgwick and the general concern with the frequency and intensity of moral disagreement.
Parfit at great length discusses optimific principles, namely which specifications of rule consequentialism and Kantian obligations can succeed, given strategic behavior, collective action problems, non-linearities, and other tricks of the trade. The Kantian might feel that the turf is already making too many concessions to the consequentialists, but my concern differs. I am frustrated with this very long and very central part of the book, which cries out for formalization or at the very least citations to formalized game theory.
If you’re analyzing a claim such as — “It is wrong to act in some way unless everyone could rationally will it to be true that everyone believes such acts to be morally permitted” (p.20) — words cannot bring you very far, and I write this as a not-very-mathematically-formal economist.
Parfit is operating in the territory of solution concepts and game-theoretic equilibrium refinements, but with nary a nod in their direction. By the end of his lengthy and indeed exhausting discussions, I do not feel I am up to where game theory was in 1990.
I read the standard game-theoretic results as implying that ethics is a far more indeterminate enterprise than Parfit might like to see. Any particular specification of rule consequentialism tends to require increasingly baroque refinements to cover all the different possible kinds of situations. At the end we’re not left with much in the way of a rule at all, other than a general injunction to tell people to do something good and then to rejigger the rule itself, or complicate it with more contingencies, to cover the required ground.
To pose a simple example: “maximize your marginal impact” won’t as an injunction address a lot of environmental problems. “Maximize your average impact” fails in cases where you are truly decisive. What might other more complex rules be, and what are the expectations those rules are making about the behavior of others, what you infer from their behavior, what they infer from your inference, and so on. The path out of these boxes takes us very far away from a rules concept that say Sidgwick might have found intuitive.
Hume has been locked out of the room and he is not allowed to re-enter in the form of Parfit having a dialogue with Cho and Kreps.
Now maybe, just maybe, that game-theoretic messiness does not have to be fatal for rule-consequentialism. Still, I propose a rewrite. Cut or severely limit the hundreds of pages on this topic, start with what game theory already is showing, describe that mess in philosophic, conceptual terms, and then consider whether that mess is compatible with the analogous messes found in Kantianism and contractualism, Maybe it can be shown that they are (broadly) the same mess. Nonetheless, such a collection of messes may be surrounding the same mountain but they will not scale it and Parfit would have to gaze once again into the abyss of, what is to him, ethical nihilism. (Cut back to David Hume for a different attitude. Perhaps Parfit’s very strong philosophic and personal desire to succeed and solve the whole problem draws him from the path that will get us up the mountain some small degree.)
For these reasons I see the biggest and most central part of the book as a failure, possibly wrong but more worryingly “not even wrong” and simply missing the questions defined by where the frontier — choice theory and not just philosophic ethics — has been for some time.
On other points, the criticisms of subjective and desire-based theories are good, but I view Parfit’s conclusions as already having been established.
The talk of Kantian dignity, and of “treating people as a mere means” I do not think can be well-defined. I kept on wanting to see the Marginal Revolution (the real one, the 1871 one) inform this discussion.
I very much agree with Parfit’s argument that no one — not even evil people — should deserve to suffer. I also agree with Parfit’s notion of the irreducibly normative.
Until the material on consequentialism is nailed, I don’t think the integration with contractualism can work.
I would describe the Parfitian method as “the postulation of bold, minimalist claims, explored by the use of brilliant hypotheticals and counterexamples.” In Reasons and Persons the Parfitian method works because the potential for philosophic vagueness is limited by the vividness of the counterfactual (or real world) examples. Most readers of that book are still thinking about split brains, the Repugnant Conclusion, and Future Tuesday Indifference, among numerous other examples. You could question whether all of the terms were pinned down rigorously, but you still knew that the thought experiment was making you rethink some of your priors. In the subject areas of On What Matters the semantics are too slack, too open to multiple interpretation, and too many of the central concepts cry out for formalization. There are not compelling new metaphors and examples to pin down the discourse. Parfit’s greatest strength is as an imaginer, often outside of traditional philosophic dimensions, and yet here he is so concerned with justifying his disagreements with his peers and colleagues. Their ghosts and comments and discourses are shackling him, and if you visit the best pages of Reasons and Persons you will see they hardly mention the names of other philosophers at all, much less current philosophers.
I do not wish to put you off Parfit. He is a philosopher of major importance and, non-trivially, one of the most philosophical philosophers, perhaps ever. He lives, thinks, feels, breathes, and exudes philosophy in a way which is, in and of itself, a major contribution to human thought and being. Reading him is an unforgettable and illuminating experience. His best arguments have great real world import.
It is stunning to read the last three pages of the preface, which list everybody who gave him comments. It’s a long list, but I’m not sure it was the right list to have chosen.
Addendum: Here is Peter Singer’s review. Here is a review from Constantine Sandis.
The utility function
Wimbledon’s queuing public welcomes the abuse. In fact, the experience is such a delight that some daydream about it all year.
“We get to spend time together—no husbands, no children, no after-school clubs,” said Suzanne Pyefinch, who has queued for 27 years with her sister, Michelle, and seen everyone from Bjorn Borg to Roger Federer. Last weekend she was cooking sausages by her tent.
“Our bacon went off, and we had a bit of a panic,” she said. “The ice melted, and it just went funny in the car. But the important things are done. We’ve got the Pimm’s, so we’re happy.”
Ms. Pyefinch said she was still recovering from an encounter with a snorer. “That guy snoring last night, it was a song—fantastic, absolutely fantastic,” she said. “But you just get on with it. We all look like rubbish at the end of the two weeks, but we’ve had the greatest time ever.”
The article is here (interesting throughout) and for the pointer I thank John Chilton.
Should you start with volume II of Parfit?
Some say not, here’s from an Amazon review:
You get Volume II when you order the Kindle edition of Volume I. And you don’t want to start with Volume II. Trust me.
He is making it harder for me, not easier.
Don’t apply positive discount rates to human lives
Ben Trachtenberg writes:
This Article presents two new arguments against “discounting” future human lives during cost-benefit analysis, arguing that even absent ethical objections to the disparate treatment of present and future humanity, the economic calculations of cost-benefit analysis itself – if properly calculated – counsel against discounting lives at anything close to current rates. In other words, even if society sets aside all concerns with the discounting of future generations in principle, current discounting of future human lives cannot be justified even on the discounters’ own terms. First, because cost-benefit analysis has thus far ignored evidence of rising health care expenditures, it underestimates the “willingness to pay” for health and safety that future citizens will likely exhibit, thereby undervaluing their lives. Second, cost-benefit analysis ignores the trend of improved material conditions in developed countries. As time advances, residents of rich countries tend to live better and spend more, meaning that a strict economic monetization of future persons values the lives of our expected descendents above those of present citizens. These two factors justify “inflation” of future lives that would offset, perhaps completely, the discount rate used for human life. Until regulators correct their method of discounting the benefits of saving human lives in the future, the United States will continue to suffer the fatal costs of underregulation, and agencies will remain in violation of legal requirements to maximize net benefits.
I don’t agree with the “underregulation” argument (growth matters too, especially with a low discount rate), but there is much to be said for Ben’s argument. Do note that there are numerous complications in any correct analysis of this problem.
Ralph Waldo Emerson on books
From his Notebooks, (the best Emerson to read, in my view) circa 1841:
We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over & actually read a volume of 4 or 500 pages. Even the great books. “Come,” say they, “we will give you the key to the world” — Each poet each philosopher says this, & we expect to go like a thunderbolt to the centre, but the thunder is a superficial phenomenon, makes a skin-deep cut, and so does the Sage — whether Confucius, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates; striking at right angles to the globe his force is instantly diffused laterally & enters not. The wedge turns out to be a rocket. I have found this to be the case with every book I have read & yet I take up a new writer with a sort of pulse beat of expectation.
Bryan Caplan vs. Amy Chua debate
Here I am, sitting on a bench in downtown Budapest, reading the Guardian, when on p.20 I see a published debate between Bryan Caplan and Amy Chua. If I have one wish, it is that Chua would put her anecdotal points in the form of a statistical argument. Which assumption behind the twin adoption studies is she rejecting? Or where are those studies engaged in too much aggregation? I suspect she will never tell us. Coming back to the hotel room, I now find Bryan’s commentary on the debate. The two have very different senses of humor, and I bet she wouldn’t think that Bryan’s jokes are funny either.
Plato visits Sicily and Siracusa
With these thoughts in my mind I came to Italy and Sicily on my first visit. My first impressions on arrival were those of strong disapproval-disapproval of the kind of life which was there called the life of happiness, stuffed full as it was with the banquets of the Italian Greeks and Syracusans, who ate to repletion twice every day, and were never without a partner for the night; and disapproval of the habits which this manner of life produces. For with these habits formed early in life, no man under heaven could possibly attain to wisdom-human nature is not capable of such an extraordinary combination. Temperance also is out of the question for such a man; and the same applies to virtue generally. No city could remain in a state of tranquillity under any laws whatsoever, when men think it right to squander all their property in extravagant, and consider it a duty to be idle in everything else except eating and drinking and the laborious prosecution of debauchery. It follows necessarily that the constitutions of such cities must be constantly changing, tyrannies, oligarchies and democracies succeeding one another, while those who hold the power cannot so much as endure the name of any form of government which maintains justice and equality of rights.
The link is here, hat tip goes to Yana.
*Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory*
Patrick Wilcken is the author of this excellent book, excerpt:
Lévi-Strauss began work in the autumn at the New School for Social Research, his name chopped down to Claude L. Strauss, to distinguish himself from the jeans. “The students would find it funny,” he was told by way of explanation. The confusion would plague him throughout his life. “Hardly a year goes by without my receiving, usually from Africa, an order for a pair of jeans,” he told Didier Eribon in the 1980s — though, with fame, Lévi-Strauss found he could almost hold his own. When he gave his name while queuing for a restaurant in San Francisco in the 1980s, the waiter shot back, “The pants or the books?”
Definitely recommended, read the Amazon reviews at the link.
Questions that are rarely asked
If people really fell in love for non-superficial reasons, shouldn’t we expect to see more couples who don’t match on superficial criteria such as age?
That is from Katja Grace. Which observable characteristic of a relationship is the best predictor of its expected depth and non-superficiality?
Sentences to ponder
Despite the length of On What Matters, we glean little of its author’s view on what really does matter.
That’s Peter Singer reviewing the new Derek Parfit, in the new TLS, never to come on-line. In fact what really matters is that the books are finally coming out! Singer claims, probably with justification, that the two-volume set will prove the most important works on ethics since Sidgwick in 1873.
Opportunity cost
I then wrote to a number of well-known philosophers, asking each of them if they would supervise a course-by-mail, consisting of my writing letters to them about their work, getting responses from them, and ultimately providing comments on a paper I wrote. Nancy Cartwright, Lynne Rudder Baker and Nathan Oaklander agreed to do this for me. They were all extremely generous with their time, and I owe all three of them, along with Quentin, an enormous debt.
That is from LA Paul, who has since become a very accomplished philosopher. How many economists would help out in the same way? Hat tip goes to Kieran Healy.
*The Declaration of Independents*
The authors are the renowned Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch and the subtitle is How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America.
This book is a excellent 2011 statement of what libertarianism should be, though I would say the title is more descriptive of the content than is the subtitle. It’s well written throughout, smart to focus on the areas where libertarianism is strongest, and remarkably for an “ideological” book it never ventures into the absurd or makes indefensible claims.
It stresses government as a dysfunctional institution which forces too much bundling, too little choice, and too little real accountability. It explains why the dynamics of political power are so difficult to avoid. It recognizes the numerous ways in which we are freer than in times past and it stresses the cultural dimensions of both recent progress and libertarian thought. It reads like a book which is much smarter for having read blogs written by people of opposing points of view (just my speculation).
Is the book libertarian or liberaltarian? There’s never quite a recipe for how government might, say, shrink to a much smaller share of gdp. The section on health care stresses that health care is not the major determinant of health and that government policy has driven cost inflation. I am never sure how much the latter claim is true. They call for more choice in the hands of consumers, but the details are murky. They call, correctly, for insurance and provider deregulation. There is a call, correctly, for more competition and portable, non-job-attached health insurance policies. But can all that, combined, lead us to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid and still somehow deal with the “people dying in the streets” problem? That case is not made, nor am I sure how much the authors wish to make it. I am also not so sure that current political markets are a crumbling duopoly; we will see.
This is the up-to-date statement of libertarianism. Not warmed-over right-wing politics, but real, true-blooded libertarianism in the sense of loving liberty and wanting to find a new path toward human flourishing.