Category: Philosophy
The culture that is Bryan Caplan
A new paper finds that your philosophic beliefs matter for your real world performance, or at least they predict it:
Do philosophic views affect job performance? The authors found that possessing a belief in free will predicted better career attitudes and actual job performance. The effect of free will beliefs on job performance indicators were over and above well-established predictors such as conscientiousness, locus of control, and Protestant work ethic.
The pointer comes from Vaughn Bell on Twitter. One interpretation is that a "belief in free will" corresponds to private information about the likelihood of being successful, and wanting to take credit for that success. A second interpretation is that the belief itself makes you more successful, by encouraging you to take responsibility for your choices.
Who are the interesting collaborators?
Pensans, an MR reader of uncertain loyalty, requests:
How about a really systematic exploration of other contemporary collaborators with totalitarian regimes whose propaganda you would like to tout to unsettle readers? Or, would that disturb the shocking effect of your bold free thought on your readership?
The following names come to mind as "collaborators" worth reading or otherwise imbibing:
Martin Heidegger, Pablo Neruda, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean-Luc Godard, Susan Sontag, Ezra Pound, Eric Foner, Eric Hobsbawm, and I have lost track of who exactly apologized for Castro but it is many smart people.
H. Bruce Franklin, editor of "The Essential Stalin," was a splendid teacher and he had a notable influence on me.
There's a long list of Western intellectuals and Founding Fathers who apologized for slavery and violent imperialism. Although that does not fit the word "totalitarianism" exactly, it was often a form of totalitarianism — or worse – for those who suffered under it.
Sentences to ponder
Gabriel Josipovici, a research professor at the University of Sussex, is disenchanted with the absence of disenchantment with the world.
*Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea*
The author is C. Bradley Thompson and this new book is in broad terms an Objectivist ("Randian") critique of neoconservatism and Leo Strauss. Here is one summary bit:
Inevitably, the neocons are epistemological relativists (though of an anti-egalitarian nature), which is the source, as we shall see momentarily, of their moral relativism. Because the political good in their world is mutable and always changing, the neoconservatives do not want fixed principles to which they are hbeholden, nor do they strive to be morally or politically consistent. Their power and authority is generated and sustained by the illusion that the world is in a state of constant change and that it is governed by what Machiavelli called fortuna. The truth or falsity of an idea is, according to the neocons, determined by its usefulness in a particular situation and for particular people. What is true today, they argue, may not be true tomorrow if an idea or an action fails to work in new and different situations. In such a world, there can be no certainty, no absolutes, no fixed moral principles.
The author writes — correctly – "hoi polloi," instead of the redundant "the hoi polloi."
Thompson argues that Leo Strauss showed sympathies for the Italian fascism of Mussolini, at least relative to liberalism and religion.
At times the book sounds like Bryan Caplan criticizing me, though I take such ripostes to say more about Bryan than about me.
When I was young, I very much enjoyed reading John Robbins's Calvinist answer to Ayn Rand (revised here), even though I did not agree with much of it. I often learn more when ideas clash in relatively stark forms.
In my view, principles and politics don't always mix but the problem is neither epistemological nor moral. Ill-informed voters, especially in diverse societies, can only swallow so much in the form of principle. If one is committed to intellectual discourse, but within the range of the politically feasible, a lot of intellectual principle is difficult to sustain. I do believe in principles, but I don't see that any point of view has overcome this quite general problem. In that sense I do not blame neoconservatism per se. But am I a neoconservative? No, and Brad's book gives some of the reasons why not.
*Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography*
Gellner's general view of the world of advanced liberal capitalism is by now familiar: it is a relatively open world in which science prospers, bringing both affluence and diminished moral certainty — with Danegeld doing a good deal to secure social cohesion.
This splendid intellectual biography, by John A. Hall, should be read by all those interested in Hayek, Popper, Berlin, Oakeshott, and the foundations of a free society. You can order it here. I spent $33 on the book and it paid back every penny and then some. Here is Henry on the book.
Annualized interest rates of two hundred percent a year?
I read someone, somewhere arguing that Elizabeth Warren was the nominee to shut them down. I am curious about the modern liberal take on autonomy and credit. Let's say that two gay men, of unknown health status, want to have informed, consensual, unprotected sex. Should the law prohibit this? I believe the answer is no. Furthermore it is not just a matter of enforcement difficulty, it is a question of autonomy. If you don't think so, modify the example so that two heterosexual people want to have consensual but unprotected sex. And so on.
The unprotected sex is riskier and less prudent than borrowing money at an annualized rate of two hundred percent. Why prohibit one and not the other? Many of the borrowers are being fooled, but others have legitimate reasons to seek the money, such as wanting to buy a birthday present for a visit to one's child, living with a separated spouse.
Is it that sex is sacred but borrowing money is not? What if you're borrowing money to catch a plane to go have sex? Isn't sex a big reason why people might borrow money at high annualized rates? Aren't "sex decisions" some of the least rational we make and the most prone to error?
When I use the ATM, often I am outside the network and thus I am paying annualized interest rates of over two hundred percent a year. Should someone (other than Natasha) stop me? Should they only stop me when I am younger and poorer than is the current Tyler? What about equality before the law?
How many of you would support this same woman — with enthusiasm — if she wanted to ban risky but consensual sex?
Preachers who are not believers
In Preachers who are not believers, a provocative new paper in Evolutionary Psychology, Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola interview five preachers who no longer believe in God. Here's one bit:
A gulf opened up between what one says from the pulpit and what one has been taught in seminary. This gulf is well-known in religious circles. The eminent biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman’s widely read book, Misquoting Jesus (2005), recounts his own odyssey from the seminary into secular scholarship, beginning in the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, a famously conservative seminary which required its professors to sign a statement declaring the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, a declaration that was increasingly hard for Ehrman to underwrite by his own research. The Dishonest Church (2003), by retired United Church of Christ minister, Jack Good, explores this “tragic divide” that poisons the relationship between the laity and the clergy. Every Christian minister, not just those in our little study, has to confront this awkwardness, and no doubt there are many more ways of responding to it than our small sample illustrates. How widespread is this phenomenon? When we asked one of the other pastors we talked with initially if he thought clergy with his views were rare in the church, he responded, “Oh, you can’t go through seminary and come out believing in God!” Surely an overstatement, but a telling one. As Wes put it:
…there are a lot of clergy out there who — if you were to ask them — if you were to list the five things that you think may be the most central beliefs of Christianity, they would reject every one of them.
One can be initiated into a conspiracy without a single word exchanged or secret handshake; all it takes is the dawning realization, beginning in seminary, that you and the others are privy to a secret, and that they know that you know, and you know that they know that you know. This is what is known to philosophers and linguists as mutual knowledge, and it plays a potent role in many social circumstances. Without any explicit agreement, mutual knowledge seals the deal: you then have no right to betray this bond by unilaterally divulging it, or even discussing it.
It was interesting to me that this account is related to the ideas of preference falsification developed by Timur Kuran, sacrifice and stigma developed by Larry Iannaccone and common knowledge by Robert Aumann.
Robin Hanson responds on cryonics
Does Tyler think the world would be equally better off if foodies were to act contrary to type, express less via buying less fancy food, and give the difference to charity? If so, why has he never mentioned it in his hundreds of food posts?
Could it be Tyler knows that tech nerds are low status in our society and fair game for criticism? Is this really any different than rich folks complaining about inner city kids who buy $100 sneakers instead of saving their money or giving it to charity, even while they buy $1000 suits and dresses instead of saving their money or giving it to charity?
There is much more here. This is not essential to the points under discussion, but I should add that I consider tech nerds to be a relatively high status group in American society, at least above the age of thirty.
Why pick on cryonics?
A few of my lunch compadres have asked why I compare cryonics (unfavorably) to acts of charity, rather than comparing other acts of personal consumption (I enjoy the gelato here in Berlin) to charity. My view is this: the decision to have one's head frozen is not primarily instrumental but rather expressive. Look at the skewed demographics of the people who do it, namely highly intelligent male readers of science fiction, often with tech jobs. Is it that they love their lives especially much? Unlikely. Instead it's a chance to stand for something and in a way which sets them apart from many others. It's a chance to stand for instrumental rationality, for Science, for attitudes which go beyond traditional religion, for the conquering of limits, for probabilistic reasoning, and for the notion that the subject sees hidden possibilities and resources which more traditional observers do not.
It's like voting for a very unusual political candidate.
In my view the people interested in cryonics are often highly meritorious, as is Robin. So I'm very sympathetic with a) letting them do what they want, and b) praising them and their affiliations, simply because they are productive and smart and also not harming others. Those factors militate in favor of cryonics and indeed I am happy to endorse laissez-faire for the practice but still I don't find myself settling into really liking the idea.
Let's say I use another Hansonian construct and put everyone behind a contractarian veil of ignorance. I then ask: given that we don't know who will be born into which position, which expressive symbols do we want these highly intelligent individuals to send, and also to identify with, given that reputation is limited and publicity is scarce? Keep also in mind that society is insufficiently appreciative of intelligence and we would prefer that more people had greater respect for analytic thinking. There are also many worthy causes out there.
I don't see the positive deal here. I believe the world would be better off, and the relative status of the virtuous nerds higher, if instead the cryonics customers sent more signals which were perceived as running contrary to type. Ignoring cryonics, and promoting charity, would do more to raise the status of intelligence and analytical thinking than does cryonics.
On the practical side, while I am a non-believer, I also think that charity has a greater chance of bringing a longer life to one's self – or immortality — than does signing a cryonics contract. That's an even stronger triumph for probabilistic thinking than what the cryonics customers have on tap.
Addendum: If you haven't already, do go back and read both Quentin and #44 on these issues. Bracing stuff.
Profile of Robin Hanson and Peggy Jackson (his wife)
Shortly after they met, Peggy and Robin decided to read each other’s favorite works of literature. Peggy asked Robin to read “The Brothers Karamazov,” and he asked her to read “The Lord of the Rings.” She hated it. “I asked him why he loved it, and he said: ‘Because it’s so full of detail. This guy has invented this whole world.’ He asked me why I hated it, and I said: ‘Because it’s so full of detail. There was nowhere for the reader to imagine her own interpretation.’ ” Robin, less one for telling stories, describes their early days more succinctly. “There was,” he says not without tenderness, “a personality-type convergence.”
That's from the NYT, by Kerry Howley, most of it is on cryonics and attitudes toward death. For the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson. Here is Robin himself on the article. Here is Bryan on Kerry on Robin. My question is: why not save someone else's life instead?
There is more I could say…but I won't!
James Crimmins on the portfolio approach
He writes to me:
While dogmatism seemingly requires balance so do most of life’s activities mental or otherwise. Show me the adventurous eater or traveler and I will show you a stick in the mud reader, investor, dresser. Show me the wide-eyed dreamer in one area and the odds are she or he has an anchor to windward somewhere else, if only what they wear to work or play. Human beings who are wildly adventurous in one area, say sports, tend to dine on hamburgers, but think they are adventurous in all things. he same applies to free thinkers who are downright sodden when it comes to design. The chance takers forget they also have their safe sides. We tend to huddle with like chance takers, somehow our security blankets are seldom shared.
I am likely to bring up such points, especially to some of my colleagues who think of themselves as non-conformists.
Who should a utilitarian root for in the World Cup?
The very excellent Sandor writes to me:
From a maximum utility point of view, who's the right team to root for in the 2010 FIFA World Cup (TM)?
The off-the-top-of-head first order model seems something like
num_native_fans * (joy_of_native_fans_upon_winning –
misery_upon_losing) + num_foreign_fans * (joy – misery),where the second term is probably negligible compared to the first,
except maybe for Uruguay and Paraguay. The "joy" term probably is larger the longer it's been since the team won? But maybe the misery is less for teams that have never gotten far—wouldn't Ghanaians be
pretty thrilled with a loss in the semifinal?What are the second order and higher effects? Germany's lost productivity from a long tournament run is worth more in absolute terms but maybe less in utility terms? Do we need terms for foreign anti-fans?—I've heard a surprising number of people express extreme anti-Germany and anti-Brazil feelings, the former for past crimes, the latter for general arrogance.
I'm attracted to the Netherlands and the two 'Guays, which are probably the lowest three in utility terms. Maybe I'm just a misanthrope.
Does Derek Parfit like football?
My view is that a Brazilian victory does the most to maximize happiness, although I worry about the effects on second-order violence.
If you wish to rationalize the victory of a small country team, try the argument that too many young people invest career time in becoming athletes. By having a small nation grab the glory, this wasteful effect is minimized.
Are there hidden codes in Plato?
Take this one with a grain of salt, but here is the latest:
Kennedy's breakthrough, published in the journal Apeiron this week, is based on stichometry: the measure of ancient texts by standard line lengths. Kennedy used a computer to restore the most accurate contemporary versions of Plato's manuscripts to their original form, which would consist of lines of 35 characters, with no spaces or punctuation. What he found was that within a margin of error of just one or two percent, many of Plato's dialogues had line lengths based on round multiples of twelve hundred.
The Apology has 1,200 lines; the Protagoras, Cratylus, Philebus and Symposium each have 2,400 lines; the Gorgias 3,600; the Republic 12,200; and the Laws 14,400.
Kennedy argues that this is no accident. "We know that scribes were paid by the number of lines, library catalogues had the total number of lines, so everyone was counting lines," he said. He believes that Plato was organising his texts according to a 12-note musical scale, attributed to Pythagoras, which he certainly knew about.
Do note this:
Kennedy believes his findings restore what was the standard, mainstream view which held for 2,000 years "from the first generation of Plato's followers, up through the renaissance". This held that "he wrote symbolically and that if you worked hard and became wise you could understand the symbols and penetrate his text to his underlying philosophy." Only in the last few hundred years has an emphasis on the literal meanings of texts led to a neglect of their figurative meanings.
It also explains why it is that Aristotle, Plato's pupil, emphatically claimed that Plato was a follower of Pythagoras, to the bafflement of most contemporary scholars.
I used to consider allegiance to this idea (Montaigne, also, for symbolic codes) as one of my absurd beliefs, but maybe now it is looking better. I will have to look elsewhere.
Profile of David Mitchell
Here is one good bit of many:
“I can’t bear living in this huge beautiful world,” Mitchell said, gesturing to the rolling green hills and the glittering calm sea, “and not try to imitate it as best I can. That’s the desire and the drive. But it’s maybe closer to hunger or thirst. The only way I can quench it is to try to duplicate it on as huge a scale as I can possibly do. I want to capture that,” he said, turning in a circle on the sand and gesturing beyond the beach and the hills, “all the way around the world and all the way to your home and all the way around and back. I want to do all of that here and transmit it through ink.”
David Hume on signaling
Longterm Guy, a long-standing MR reader, sends me this:
A Treatise Of Human Nature, by David Hume, Volume Two
BOOK II OF THE PASSIONS
PART I OF PRIDE AND HUMILITY
SECT. XII OF THE PRIDE AND HUMILITY OF ANIMALSIt is plain, that almost in every species of creatures, but especially of the nobler kind, there are many evident marks of pride and humility. The very port and gait of a swan, or turkey, or peacock show the high idea he has entertained of himself, and his contempt of all others. This is the more remarkable, that in the two last species of animals, the pride always attends the beauty, and is discovered in the male only. The vanity and emulation of nightingales in singing have been commonly remarked; as likewise that of horses in swiftness, of hounds in sagacity and smell, of the bull and cock in strength, and of every other animal in his particular excellency. Add to this, that every species of creatures, which approach so often to man, as to familiarize themselves with him, show an evident pride in his approbation, and are pleased with his praises and caresses, independent of every other consideration. Nor are they the caresses of every one without distinction, which give them this vanity, but those principally of the persons they know and love; in the same manner as that passion is excited in mankind. All these are evident proofs, that pride and humility are not merely human passions, but extend themselves over the whole animal creation.