Category: Philosophy

I ran across this on Gretchen Rubin's blog:

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.

William James holds a secure position as one of my favorite thinkers and writers.

Addendum: Maybe it's not James, see the comments.

Joshua Cohen:

We think that politics is more than an unfortunate necessity required
by our inability to live together without killing each other. We think
it is, can be anyway, an arena in which we work out and pursue,
sometimes with notable success, large and constructive purposes. When I
think about the history of democracy in the past century, and think
about its greatest achievements of domestic policy, the areas of real
moral progress, I think of civil rights, women’s equality, and the
halting fight against a class society. With respect, classical liberals
were in the rearguard in every one of these struggles. And for a simple
reason: in each case, the struggle depended on a willingness to fight
against inequality, subordination, exclusion through political means,
through the dread state. And if you mix your classical liberal values
with the classically conservative predisposition to think that politics
is at best futile, at bad perverse, at worst risks what is most
fundamental, then you will always celebrate these gains when the fight
is over: always at the after party, inconspicuous at the main event,
and never on the planning committee.

Hat tip is from Henry, who adds commentary and another link.

Then the target is a better (momentary) state-of-affairs rather than a better whole possible world, or a better whole future. Now, the latter, not the former, should be your ultimate or most basic objective; but, admittedly, it might be acceptable tactically to aim at the former. That is, in order to maximize the value of the whole future–which should be the aim–you might aim for “a much better (momentary) state-of-affairs,”to come into being at some point in the future.

And what point might that be; when is the much better state-of-affairs supposed to come into existence? That is being left indefinite (though,presumably, sooner is better than later).

I interpret “steps toward a (particular) state-of-affairs” as actions (perhaps mere “speech acts”) that make that state-of-affairs more probable. But these actions may also have other effects that ought to be considered, such as making some other state-of-affairs–perhaps quite a bad one–more probable. This points up a serious deficiency: the slogan is blind to risk, failing to incorporate hedging. The circumstance that a certain step that is “toward” a better state-of-affairs (i.e., that makes it more probable) is at the same time also “toward” a worse one should dampen your enthusiasm for taking the step; this is not reflected in the slogan.

There are probably infinitely many possible states-of-affairs, but for expository purposes let me pretend that the number is finite–say, a million. Let us rank these by value. The best will be S1, the worst S1,000,000 (I’ll ignore ties); the actual present state-of-affairs is somewhere in between–say, S100,000. {As you can see, this email program is incapable of representing the numbers as subscripts.}  

There is, for each of these possible states-of-affairs, some probability that it will eventually become actual, given what we have now. The slogan endorses actions that will increase the probability of one of these states-of-affairs–call it ‘Sn’. But this favored possible state-of-affairs is not specified as S1, the best of them. Indeed, I assume n ≠ 1, since the slogan says “much better” rather than “best.” Since Sn is to be better than S100,000, we have 1 < n < 100,000, and since it is much better it must be closer to 1 than to 100,000; let us say 1 < n < 30,000. But beyond this it is completely obscure what  n is or how it was selected. If n is, say, 10,189, you are aiming to make the eventual occurrence of S10,189 more probable. But the motivation for doing precisely this is hardly evident.

Finally, the “small steps” phrase is, presumably, intended as an expression of modesty. But why limit yourself to small steps? If you can take big steps to improve matters, do it! On the other hand, why restrict yourself to optimism? If you can make the world better, of course, do it; but maybe things appear likely to get worse, no matter what you do. You might even find yourself in a situation where there are no steps you can take “toward” Sn for any n < 100,000, perhaps because Prob (Sn/A) = 0, for any n < 100,000 and any possible action A (given that we are in S100,000). It would be well to cover this possibility, too, by presenting yourself as stepping toward the best (in this case, least bad) possible future.

My proposal for reform, then, is simply to advertise yourselves as intending to act in ways that promote maximum expected value throughout the future; in short: “Acting to maximize expected future value.” (If that’s not your intention, why not?)

The bottom line: I believe that James is a kindred spirit and that he indeed lives "Small steps toward a much better world."

All people are equally good at time management, but some people are more willing than others to admit that they are doing what they want to do, while others maintain the illusion they wish they were doing something else.

Here are my previous posts on time management, most of all here and yes this is the single most frequent topic question I receive from MR readers.  I thank Jacqueline for the query.

Addendum: Will comments, worth reading.  My view is simple: forcing yourself to use your time better just isn’t that costly, so if you want to, you can.  What does *Getting Things Done* sell for?  That’s about its marginal value.   It doesn’t reflect a big shift in time use.

Roissy claims there is no afterlife and then writes his life philosophy:

My answer to the philosophical question I posed above is hedonism. It
is the only rational conclusion one can draw faced with the premises I
presented. When there is no second life or higher power to appease;
when our lives are machines – complex misunderstood machines cunningly
designed to conceal the gears and pulleys behind a facade of
self-delusional sublimation, but machines nonetheless – grinding and
belching the choking gritty smoke of status-whoring displays in service
to our microscopic puppetmasters… well, there can be only one
reasonable response to it all. It makes no sense to behave any other
way unless you never questioned the lies.

In my view the reasonable response to uncertainty about your long-term prospects is to be a good person and to try to create some value for other people.  With some probability you are protesting against your enslavement to the games.  With some probability the entire nature of the universe is deeply veiled and you will be fulfilling some higher purpose.  With some probability all possible choices by you are occurring anyway.  With some probability being nice is broadly consistent with hedonism, if not at every margin or every choice.  People will do things for you if you are nice to them.  Being nice is one of the best ways of participating in the mysteries.

Roissy gets too committed to his initial premises and does not sufficiently explore probabilistic reasoning; this is a common mistake in ethical reasoning.  Alex once wrote an excellent paper on this; when making a choice focus on the cases when your choice is likely to matter.

Nonetheless I agree with this paragraph from Roissy’s post:

Spend time with little children and old people. One is innocent, the
other is reacquainted with innocence. Their company is a world away
from the drone and ruckus of all the furious humanity in between. At
the extremes you will find perspective.

In reality Roissy (for the better) pursues a certain quality and vision of life, and for fear of failure he calls this hedonism.

I liked this Michael Bérubé post; here is an excerpt:

…in the 1920s we were told that people with Down syndrome were incapable of learning to speak; in the 1970s, we were told that people with Down syndrome were incapable of learning how to read.  OK, so now the rationale for seeing these people as somewhat less than human is their likely comprehension of Woody Allen films.  Twenty years from now we’ll be hearing “sure, they get Woody Allen, but only his early comedies–they completely fail to appreciate the breakthrough of Interiors.”  Surely you understand my sense that the goalposts are being moved around here in a rather arbitrary fashion…

You’re looking for things people with Down syndrome can’t do, and I’m looking for things they can.  We each have our reasons, of course.  But I don’t accept the premise that cognitive capacity is a useful criterion for reading some people out of the human community, any more than you would accept the premise that we should grant rights to animals on the basis of whether humans think they do or don’t taste good with barbeque sauce.

Via Angus (and do read his snark on TFP), here is Paul Samuelson:

Libertarians are not just bad emotional cripples. They are also bad advice givers.

(Are there "good" emotional cripples?)  Four points should be noted:

1) Paul Samuelson is one of the truly great economists of the 20th century.

2) Hayek did in fact underestimate the robustness of liberty in social welfare states, though it is worth noting that his Constitution of Liberty very much endorses a social safety net and many other policies of the German FDP of that time.

3) This is the same Paul Samuelson who argued, as late as 1989, that the performance of the Soviet economy was a refutation of Hayek’s critique of central planning.

4) When I see people writing sentences of this kind, I imagine them pressing a little button which makes them temporarily less intelligent.  Because, indeed, that is how one’s brain responds when one employs this kind of emotionally charged rhetoric.

As you go through life and read various writers, I want you to keep this idea of the button in mind.  As you are reading, think "Ah, he [she] is pressing the button now!"

I am honored to share a symposium with Garry Kasparov, among other notables, including Robert Reich, Jagdish Bhagwati, Bernard Henri-Levy, Michael Novak, and others.  My answer to the question is "No, on balance" and here is my opening bit:

In matters of morality, the free market functions like an amplifier. By placing more wealth and resources at our disposal, it tends to boost and accentuate whatever character tendencies we already possess. The net result is usually favorable. Most people want a good life for themselves and for their families and friends, and such desires form a part of positive moral character. Markets make it possible for vast numbers of people, at every level of society, to strive for and achieve these common human ends.

There is much more at the links.

Recent research by economists Amy Finkelstein, Erzo Luttmer, and Matthew Notowidigdo suggests that you’ll get a bigger bang for your consumer buck by spending while you’re healthy, before old age starts to take the fun out of life’s indulgences.

Here is more.  I worry about the asymmetry between gaining happiness and avoiding pain.  Surely money for the young is better for the former but how about the latter?

From the hum of the city, while pondering fossil fuel consumption, Megan McArdle writes:

I understand that people’s desires for large houses in leafy suburbs
are every bit as valid as my ardent desire to live near the peaceful
hum of traffic.  Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a policy that
effects everyone equally, and the painful job of being an adult is
doing things we don’t like because they’re the morally right thing to
do.

From my mid-sized house in a leafy suburb, I will assume that a) environmental concerns are real, b) we will fall short of fixing those problems through public policy (Megan uses the word policy but mostly her post is about personal obligation), and c) we do in fact have personal obligations to limit consumption.  The question remains how much fun we can have.  Fossil fuel consumption isn’t necessarily the area of optimal sacrifice.  For instance here are two other options:

1. Send money and other forms of aid to the victims and future victims.

2. Have fewer children than otherwise, if only in the stochastic sense (e.g., don’t move to Alaska at a young age).  Climate change is not the last environmental burden we will place on the world and probably not even the biggest such burden, but fewer people does mean less human pressure along many environmental dimensions, present and future.

Assuming that restriction is indeed called for, either of those might be more personally imperative than:

3. Fly and drive less and buy a smaller house.

Most people focus on #3 because lower energy consumption makes them feel less affiliated with the particular problem at hand.  But instrumentally speaking at a low discount rate #2 is more potent and at any discount rate #1 can be a more effective form of aid to the victims.

In this setting, I can see a few theories of our duties:

a. Do that which yields the highest net social return if only you do it.

b. Do that which yields the highest net social return if many people were to do it.

c. Cut back on your activities which most closely resemble aggressive interference into the lives of others.

d. Perform the action most likely to influence the behavior of others.

Belief in "a" favors sending money.  Belief in "b" favors having fewer children.  Belief in "c" favors restricting your driving and flying.  I am not sure which course of action follows from belief in "d."

You might think that you should do some mix of 1, 2, and 3,  But if your MU schedules are sufficiently flat, an argument from Steven Landsburg implies it is optimal to concentrate your sacrifice in a single "best returns" project.  So it may suffice to pick either 1, 2, or 3 and do it very well.

The bottom line: Perhaps I should call this blog post An Apology for Me.

As Thomas Pogge has noted in his recent biography John Rawls: His Life and Theory of Justice,
Rawls was especially sensitive to issues of luck because of a sad
occurrence in his own life. Two of his brothers died in childhood
because they had contracted fatal illnesses from him. Pogge calls the
loss of the brothers the “most important events in Jack’s childhood.”
In 1928, the 7-year-old Rawls contracted diphtheria. His brother Bobby,
younger by 20 months, visited him in his room and was fatally infected.
The next winter, Rawls contracted pneumonia. Another younger brother,
Tommy, caught the illness from him and died.

That’s from libertarian David Gordon, whom I suspect has never infected anybody.  The hat tip goes to Will Wilkinson, who in his post describes himself as a "neo-sentimentalist."  I can just imagine Kerry (his girlfriend) saying to Will on their third date: "Oh, Will, you’re such a neo-sentimentalist!" 

I don´t usually link to videos but I loved this one.  Note: I believe the action is staged, not real.  But still, all you Chilean pessimists need to reconsider.  You set the bar for Chile pretty high (which is good, I might add).

I thanks Carlos Scartascini for the pointer.

Here is an excerpt:

Q: What does love feel like? A: Like a great misfortune, a monstrous
parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small
pleasures. Q: Have you ever said ‘I love you’ and not meant it? A: All
the time. When I really love someone, I can only show it by making
aggressive and bad-taste remarks. Q: Tell us a secret. A: Communism
will win.

Here is the full interview, via Finoculous.  It contains further revelations.  A few months ago I spent some time browsing his latest book in Borders.  He can’t simply admit: "I was a fool to follow Mao and Stalin" but instead he has to push the line "I just need to reinterpret everybody more and I will still find some movement for "egalitarian terror" [those two words are his] to sign on to."  Grow up, I say, yet he is almost sixty years old.