Every aspiring beauty-pageant queen knows what to say when asked what she wants most: "World peace." World peace is at least nominally what we all want most. But evidently, we are not very good at making it.Both economics and epistemology suggest that, this being the case, we may not really want world peace as much as we think we do.
Economics is all about the question of assigning value. It believes in humankind as a collection of rational actors who are willing to trade things they value less for things they value more. This isn't just true at the marketplace, where we are trading money for products. It is also true before we get to the marketplace, when we are accepting opportunity costs in order to pursue a given opportunity (instead of others). If we are regularly willing to trade opportunities to pursue good A for opportunities to pursue good B, we value B more than A.
There is a tradition within epistemology that suggests something similar about belief. If you tell me that you believe that the world will end on Thursday, how can I tell if you are serious or not? One way I can tell is if you are taking steps coherent with the world ending on Thursday -- for example, spending all your money on short-term pleasures instead of investments, or mortgaging your house so you can spend your last hours on a world-wide cruise, or not showing up at work all week so that you can be praying in church. Depending on your value system, one of these mechanisms might be a more rational way to spend your last hours than your usual routine would be. If you carry on going to work and investing in your retirement plan as usual, I might have some reason to doubt that you sincerely believe in the end of the world on Thursday.
These are reasonably good arguments if the human mind is generally rational, and generally not compartmentalized. However, both of those assumptions seem to be false assumptions.
So it turns out we have two possibilities. Maybe we really do want world peace -- as Dr. Mead suggests -- but it is simply the case that human beings are very bad at it. Alternatively, maybe there are things you want more than world peace, so that you will reliably trade opportunities to pursue world peace for opportunities to pursue these things.
Let's try a thought experiment to see which is the case. Imagine a computer algorithm has been designed that can reliably achieve peace if humans obey the computers' instructions. Nothing really wild is asked for -- no one has to sacrifice his son, for example -- but you have to do what you are told whether it makes sense to you or not. This program has been proven by experiment at every level, from tribal disputes in Africa to corporate ones in Europe and Japan, and so far it has generated perfect peace and cooperation wherever it has been tried. There is now a proposal before the Senate to ratify a global treaty requiring all people in the world to obey the computer, at all times, without exception. The President has already signed the treaty, so ratification is the last step to making this treaty the law of the land.
If Dr. Mead is right, and we just are bad at making peace, this should be an enormously attractive proposition. Is it?
Don't you mean, "Harsher sentences for parole violators and world peace...?"
ReplyDeleteThe problem's set up to put "peace" against "freedom" - so I will assume away all the practical difficulties (e.g., is everyone else on board? what's the enforcement mechanism? what're the details of "nothing really wild?") -- I think getting into those weeds would be a distraction from the central question.
And yes, I would take that deal.
There's a parallel to an old effort to make economics look ridiculous -- a type of socialist smart-aleck who would ask "is gold worth more than iron?" - the idea being to imply that, since we have practical uses for more iron than gold, the market must be really stupid to set the price of gold higher.
There were lots of problems with that idea -- starting with the fact that it applied only to choosing "all the gold in the world" versus "all the iron in the world" - not the kind of transaction that ever occurs. (It also carried the crude, sub-economic idea that market price should reflect some kind of "intrinsic value" - when there's no reason for that to be so.)
Peace and freedom are also things we value - and fight for. The problem you've set sets up "all the peace in the world" versus "a certain amount of freedom lost." And if the "certain amount" is low enough, I hope that anyone would take that deal.
...this should be an enormously attractive proposition. Is it?
ReplyDeleteBased on ...you have to do what you are told whether it makes sense to you or not.
Not at all. There's nothing peaceful about slavery. No matter how plush and gilded the cage.
Freedom is inherently conflict-ridden. Progress is measured by how well we substitute other conflict resolution techniques for resolution by death so that the conflictees can continue to pursue their own interests and paradigms after the proximate disagreement is resolved.
More, the whole premise assumes that conflicts must be resolved. This is useful, but not necessary. Especially when freedom is in the wind. The presence of conflict is not the same thing as the absence of peace.
As to the supposed trade-off--do I want freedom more than peace so I'm willing to trade the one for the other--assumes, erroneously, that they must be traded, one for the other. No, what's really being traded is one path to both for another path to both.
Eric Hines
P.S. - I suppose you could set up a converse situation, granting a worldwide political order with tremendous freedom and prosperity for individuals - in exchange for the occasional, once-a-century war...(i.e., balancing "all the freedom in the world" against "a limited amount of non-peace")...this would be harsher on our moral instincts because you'd be deliberately agreeing to have people killed versus "not preventing them from being killed."
ReplyDeleteI think Mr. Hines has the sense of it. It's true that you would be trading only some freedom for complete peace; but that isn't all you are trading.
ReplyDeleteYou're also trading away your right to think things through for yourself, that is, to exist as a rational being. Now Aristotle held that rationality was that which was essential to humanity. If you are agreeing to do what you are told whether or not it makes sense to you, you are trading away not just some freedom, but something essential to your humanity.
You'd be doing this because, as it turns out, humans aren't good at making the right calculations. (That's why the example says 'regardless of whether it makes sense' -- presumably often it would not make sense).
You're also trading away your right to think things through for yourself, that is, to exist as a rational being.
ReplyDeleteNo, actually, I wouldn't. "I'm doing something really silly that I don't understand - but I'm doing it to gain a good end, that I know I am gaining by doing this" -- that's not irrational at all. In fact, it's a part of life. (If you're saying I'd have to spend every waking minute of my life obeying these orders - that would fall under my definition of "really wild" - which is why assuming that away was an important part of the answer - because the amount of freedom traded away would be much larger.)
In fact, under the regime you describe, I'd be able to think as I pleased - though not always act the way I thought. There's a huge difference between the two. In fact, I don't see how you could make it through, or even to, adult life without having, sometimes or often, to do things that don't make sense to you.
So, in the era when it was a social standard to wear a hat, and remove it when a lady went by - I know you could explain why these were good customs; but even the people who didn't understand them had to obey (or else be thought rude).
ReplyDeleteIn doing so, they were not giving up their ability to live as rational beings. I dare say the bulk of them understood that "having good manners" is a very important part of life...even if they couldn't say why that particular mannerism should be part of "good manners."
Not so.
ReplyDeleteIt's a cliche about military service that 'you aren't paid to think,' but to execute orders. Yet, actually, that dictum holds only for a while as you are learning. Increasingly, you are meant to think, even if it is only about how best to execute the orders you have been given. That's the point of "commander's intent" -- it gives you guidelines for applying thought to the problems that present themselves while executing orders. You are not rejecting your rationality, but learning (and choosing) to subsume it in a greater order.
In this case, though, you aren't subsuming your rationality in a greater order. You are abandoning it, and simply doing what you are told without regard to whether it seems (as you say) silly, or whether it might even seem improper or immoral or wrong. It can't be "really wildly" against your morality per hypothesis, but it might include things that are mildly so. So you are setting aside some of your freedom, and some of your morality, and all of your status as a being who has the right to decide for himself.
Hmm....
ReplyDeleteI'm doing something really silly...but I'm doing it to gain a good end....
Well, no I'm not. There's nothing good about slavery. Accepting that as my lot in life is not at all rational.
...you're saying I'd have to spend every waking minute of my life obeying these orders...which is why assuming that away....
That is one of the going-in assumptions: you have to do what you are told. At least when I disagree with one of Grim's underlying assumptions, I tell him so, rather than just wishing it away. [g] But in the present case, that underlying assumption is what makes the scenario what it is.
[U]nder the regime you describe, I'd be able to think as I pleased - though not always act the way I thought. There's a huge difference between the two.
Wow. If I can't act on my thoughts, I have no freedom. I choose not to live in a fantasy world where only my thoughts are real, and my actions are dictated by others.
...even the people who didn't understand [the rule of doffing a hat to a lady] had to obey (or else be thought rude).
This is fallacious in the present context. Your man did not at all "have to obey" when the only consequence was a modicum of opprobrium. The outcome of disobedience under Grim's scenario approached blowing up the "peace"-generating program, with unspecified consequence to the miscreant, but surely something more serious than his neighbors shaking their fingers at him.
Eric Hines
So you are setting aside some of your freedom...
ReplyDeleteYes...
and some of your morality...
Not correct; I am simply making a moral choice.
On one side, I can forego the opportunity to end warfare forever; on the other side, I have to -- let's say -- make occasional rude noises in public.
Each of these things is, to some extent, an immoral act (if you could end warfare at no cost by pressing a red button, and you let the chance go by - how would you feel about yourself?). You've set up a situation in which they're balanced against each other. I'm not giving up any morality when I make a moral choice - no more than you would be if (say) you fired through a hostage to stop a terrorist from setting off a bomb. You don't "give up" any of your morality when you make a moral choice or solve a moral dilemma. Or are you treating the initial decision to make the deal, and save all the future victims of war, as a moral nullity? That would be a grave error, I think.
...and all of your status as a being who has the right to decide for himself...
Again, unless these orders are going to take up all my time, that isn't so. My decisions simply operate within constraints, as they already do. (My ability to think is, in this model, totally unconstrained.) No one has got an absolute right, moral or legal, to "decide for himself" everything he's going to do - whether he's in the military or not.
If the "really wild" is defined restrictively (and again, I assumed that problem away to avoid ducking the central issue) then it leaves me as a moral and rational being, who had acceded to some (relatively easy) restraints to accomplish a great good, and a large scope to choose what I like. I don't get to choose everything I'm going to do - but neither does anyone else.
If magic worked, and you used it to do good, it would not be in any way immoral or irrational to use it. This would be so even if you did not understand a word of the incantations, or why you had raise your right hand instead of your left, or why mouse blood wouldn't work as well as a chicken's. And in fact that's what you've really set up - a magical ritual that takes a lifetime to perform, but you know it will work, and as long as you perform it the world stays at peace.
Eric - but that's to definitions.
ReplyDeleteIs it slavery if, for five minutes a week, you have to do something you don't want to do and that you don't understand? How about for half an hour? If this is "slavery" then "non-slavery" is an impossible ideal.
(If it's going on for "every waking minute" - it becomes "really wild" and then I agree the deal is a total loss of freedom and thus a bad one.)
But simply having to do, sometimes, things you don't want to isn't slavery -- or if it is it shouldn't carry the opprobrium we assocaite with that word.
Wow. If I can't act on my thoughts, I have no freedom. I choose not to live in a fantasy world where only my thoughts are real, and my actions are dictated by others.
ReplyDeleteAll your thoughts? Or only some of them? That's what I'm about. "Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't" - that's reality, not slavery.
This is fallacious in the present context. Your man did not at all "have to obey" when the only consequence was a modicum of opprobrium. The outcome of disobedience under Grim's scenario approached...
I wouldn't bet on that - not if he tried it in a bar full of guys like Grim...
There's a difference between 'pressing a red button, or not pressing it' and 'agreeing to do what you're told, on every occasion you are told to do something, for the rest of your life.' The one carries no cost; the other carries a significant cost.
ReplyDeleteNow it's true that against that we have all the horrors of war, for all the people who suffer them, worldwide and potentially forever. That's a very high thing to set against the simple human freedom to think, to choose, to be stubborn and to insist.
However, there is one minor thing to which I must draw your attention. You are not making a moral choice here. The Senate is making it. You either will be commanded to do what you are told, whenever it comes up, forever and without explanation from on high as to why you must do it; or you will not be. Presumably the treaty will not be reconsidered in the future, but will be binding on not-born generations. You won't be involved in the moral choice. You and your children will simply be commanded to lay aside moral choices.
I wasn't asking you to choose. I was asking you -- how attractive is that deal?
To which my answer is - "very." (Again, assuming away this issue of "how wild is wild?" - because without some constraints on that the deal loses its attractiveness.)
ReplyDeleteIt's still a magic ritual - a lengthy one with a lot of participants. You've drafted the whole population to perform it, just as you might draft them all to defend the borders against a massive invasion. If by this "wildness" provision you indicate it's not going to restrain their freedom that much - you've got quite a good deal.
I am simply making a moral choice.
ReplyDeleteHere, I think Grim has the right of it. It can be argued that you've made a moral choice at the outset, but that choice was only to surrender all of your morality and future moral decisions--in perpetuity, to risk redundancy--to an outside entity.
Is it slavery if, for five minutes a week, you have to do something you don't want to do....
There are no time constraints on the requirement--the requirement is to always obey. Without question. All of my decisions are subject to that requirement, whether any particular one of them is selected for control, or another is imposed on me in addition to "my" decisions.
"Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't"
But that's the problem. All of my actions on my thoughts are subject to the program's prior approval. I have no control over that, by construction of the scenario. Nor can I even predict where I'll be overruled, or ruled over; that's from the whether it makes sense part.
This is not freedom; it's slavery. True, I have to obey laws in our present world, but in our present world, I also can both disagree with that law (and act overtly against it--civil disobedience) and/or jawbone with my fellows sufficiently effectively to get the law modified or rescinded. I have no such capacity under the posited scenario. That's also an aspect of this slavery.
Eric Hines
Indeed it compares favorably with something people actually do try - to end war and oppression with the power of prayer.
ReplyDeleteAn orthodox believer might pray to God in simple terms "Dear Lord, please get the Arabs to stop wanting to kill the Jews and push them into the sea; and let there be peace between them in the Middle East." The prayer itself is rational - but it is addressed to a being who says "my ways are not your ways" - who is totally unfathomable and beyond human understanding - and whose answer to that prayer, if he's planning to grant the request at all, is decidedly slow in coming.
But suppose God answered prayers like that? Suppose that you knew you could create that great good end, by means of prayer? The only catch - you can't use words in any language you know; you have to say "iggle squick" and cluck like a chicken, and you don't know why that works -- only, you know that it will work. Have you give up one iota of your rationality when you do it? Of course you haven't. You're using a certain means to a certain end. (Maybe you can use your free time to try to figure out why it works.) Suppose Israel -- to avoid the "foreign intervention" issue - coerced its whole population to take part in this ritual; that's a lot less restrictive than its current regime of universal military service.
It's not exactly the same as your situation - but qualitatively speaking, it's not so far off, either.
There are no time constraints on the requirement--the requirement is to always obey. Without question. All of my decisions are subject to that requirement...
ReplyDeleteBut if this thing is able to say, "You will spend your entire week doing x, y, and z" -- that gets into "really wild" territory and changes the answer. Which (as I mentioned) is a problem I assumed away so as not to dodge the central issue Grim set up.
On the other hand, if the times of the strange orders are unpredictable but rare, then I'm no more unfree than a "minuteman" - who might have to drop his plans at a moment's notice, but still, in practice (if not in strict theory), gets most of his life to himself.
Your man did not at all "have to obey" when the only consequence was a modicum of opprobrium. The outcome of disobedience under Grim's scenario approached...
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't bet on that - not if he tried it in a bar full of guys like Grim...
One more small thing. I took your hat-doffing example to be in the setting of a fairly common social environment. I suggest that a bar full of Grims is not at all typical. I agree that (repeated) rudeness in such a bar would be met with sterner objections.
Eric Hines
I suggest that a bar full of Grims is not at all typical.
ReplyDeleteThe world might be a happier place if it were...
(I'll be away for a few hours but will check up later tonight.)
[I]f this thing is able to say, "You will spend your entire week doing x, y, and z"....
ReplyDeleteBut it has that authority by construction. Moreover, whether it exercises that authority in any particular week is entirely up to it. Also by construction, I have no control over that. Or it.
But to answer the question you've implied a few times in this thread, "Would I accept the deal if the device's authority were only imposed sometimes?" my answer remains an unequivocal "No." That's still slavery. I'm still surrendering control over (a part) of my life to an entity over which I have no control. In our present (idealized for this discussion) world, I do allocate a small part of my freedom to a government, but it's a government over which I have (share with others of our social compact) ultimate control as (a member of) the Sovereign in our compact. Government works for us because it is subordinate to us.
This thing of Grim's has reversed that.
Eric Hines
I suggest that a bar full of Grims is not at all typical.
ReplyDeleteThe world might be a happier place if it were...
Only if everyone agreed with Grim's view of manners and with his view of opprobrium mechanisms.
But there's that conflict thing, again. [g]
Eric Hines
A world full of Grims-in-bars would be a happy world indeed.
ReplyDeleteI suspect people who want world peace mostly want two things: (1) Other people not to fight back when they're pushed around, and (2) other people not to push them around. It goes without saying that they assume their own views of what constitute being pushed around are the correct ones.
ReplyDeleteJoseph W -- that was exactly the movie scene that came into my mind when I read the post.
"I suspect people who want world peace mostly want two things: (1) Other people not to fight back when they're pushed around, and (2) other people not to push them around. It goes without saying that they assume their own views of what constitute being pushed around are the correct ones."
ReplyDeleteWhich is but a couple of reasons why whirled peas will never exist.
Yup, even ants go to war.
It believes in humankind as a collection of rational actors who are willing to trade things they value less for things they value more
ReplyDeleteAnd they say that with a straight face, too!
But it has that authority by coonstruction.
ReplyDeleteIf that's what it means - then my answer changes - because now the offer becomes "all the war in the world" versus "all the freedom in the world." Whereas, read my way, it opposes "all the war in the world" with "a small amount of freedom lost." Which is, as you can readily see, why I framed my answer the way I did. There is a point beyond which the trade is no longer good.
I didn't want to assume the extreme case, because I believed the question was designed to see if we'd run to extremes - "never give up any freedom, even to save these lads and lasses." Which is a proposition I do not accept, at least not under the artificial conditions of this question (e.g., that we know this weird magic works).
"Would I accept the deal if the device's authority were only imposed sometimes?" my answer remains an unequivocal "No." That's still slavery.
"Five minutes of slavery per week" is way different from "slavery night and day" - in terms of the amount of human misery it creates, and therefore its moral impact. (We don't have a separate word for it because, of course, it doesn't exist outside this problem. But even covered with the same word - they are still way different.)
I don't say it's something to accede to lightly - but in the hypothetical Grim's given us, the price is not light.
(btw, I'm not agreeing with Grim's swipe at economics, but that is not central to the question he's posed, so I'll stick with this business for now)
But it has that authority by coonstruction.
ReplyDeleteIf that's what it means
That was my interpretation. Of course it's Grim's construction; he's free to clarify. Our interpretations aren't both correct. It was against the possibility that my interpretation might be wrong that I moved to the limited scope part.
To extend my reaction to a limited scope: "Five minutes of slavery per week" is way different from "slavery night and day"....
Not in the present case, for the reasons I've laid out: I have no control over the government or its rules--it's raw tyranny, no matter how gussied up it might be with pancake makeup. This is a trade I would seriously consider--which principle (if we do argue over which small parts of our freedom to trade and in return for what) we all have already accepted under our social compact--were I able to retain my sovereignty over the government.
Apart form the temporal "limits:" trade a piece of freedom to a slave master for security? It's still slavery, as Benjamin Franklin well understood. So I say, "No deal," to such an entity. "You can't have any part of my freedom, ever, no matter what bribe you offer."
....even to save these lads and lasses.
From what does this save them? Death or a life as slaves is their choice. Death is not the escape alternative I would choose, except as a last resort, but death at least releases them from their slavery. More importantly, as Grim intimated somewhat earlier in this thread, that choice is theirs and their parents' to make; I cannot impose the choice on them.
I lived through the "better dead than Red" era, and I still strongly believe it.
Eric Hines
I'm not agreeing with Grim's swipe at economics, but that is not central to the question he's posed...
ReplyDeleteDid I take a swipe at economics? I didn't mean to do. All I know that I said was that some of its assumptions about the nature of what is sometimes called 'economic man' are bad. But that remark was in the context of a critique of the assumptions of both economics and the school of epistemology I was citing.
What I meant there is that often people really do want X, but also Y. Compartmentalization can make it impossible to reason in a straightforward way about which is more desirable, so that it turns out to be impossible to conduct a trade of the type suggested.
Thus, you could really believe that the world was ending Thursday, which would make going to work this week pointless compared to things like (say) prayer or partying. But you could also hold, with another part of your mind, that your duty to show up at work as usual and fulfill the contracts you've signed was a core and important part of who you are.
So it really turns out that the assumption -- here of epistemology, though economics makes a similar one -- isn't reliable.
But it has that authority by coonstruction.
ReplyDeleteI think Mr. Hines is right that it has that authority potentially, in the way that the state currently has the authority to draft you for your entire life potentially. I wouldn't expect it to be exercised actually, however. It should only come up when there are conflicts that need resolution to which you are proximate enough that your efforts will help resolve them.
There's a problem with people like me in the example, actually. If the Senate were to ratify a treaty that obligated me (and all my descendants) to subordinate our reason to an algorithm of this type, I would probably regard it as a voiding of natural rights of free expression and free exercise, and thus an occasion for starting a new war. The computer would need to mollify me (and people like me) in strong enough terms that I found the bargain acceptable. Thus, you might find yourselves turning over a large part of your paycheck to me every month forever (or for as long as it took) without being told why, or without me knowing why -- all I know is that lots of money shows up at my door ever since this new bargain took place. I'm being given instructions 'to spend it on whatever I like, or save it as I prefer,' i.e., a sop to my free will that might sway me to buying into the contract.
So you're subsidizing me taking long vacations and drinking expensive beer, because I have a sort of native resistance to being pushed around. Your willingness to be pushed around for a good cause is going to prove expensive, which is sort of interesting.
But we get the peace, at least, we do if the deal proves to be so richly rewarding for me that I finally decide not to fight it as long as the benefits continue. (And assuming I can be bought.)
Reflect, though, that your opinions from the "better dead than red" era (which I, too, also remember) -- and the natural rights to free expression and free exercise -- are based on the world we have, and not on the world of this hypothetical. In which magic works, at least if enough people participate in the ritual; and the magic can actually accomplish the goal of perpetual peace. In such a world as that, I suggest our notions of good policy, the proper scope of government power, and even natural rights would be considerably changed. That's why I don't port all my beliefs from this real world into the world of these hypotheticals.
ReplyDeleteAs an example - one reason free exercise of religion is so important to us is the way religion works in the world we know. God's messages always seem to come through human beings, who violently disagree about what he has to say, so that empowering God's word always means empowering fallible human beings...
But what if the gods showed up on Olympus and gave TV appearances and press conferences, and demonstrated beyond all doubt who they were and what they wanted? And were prone to punitive strikes when their displeasure was aroused? Laws against blasphemy and established religions would make much more sense then. "You can't deny Jupter's existence, because he'll thunderbolt the city if you do, and we can't fight him...You've got to pay taxes for sacrifices to Poseidon, because we can't fight him either and we don't want to drown." I doubt the notion of free exercise would ever arise in a world like that, and it wouldn't seem natural, in any sense, at all.
P.S. - If you're free to rebel and start the fighting again, then the program doesn't work and the hypothetical is broken. If it requires "unanimous agreement" to work then it's nothing special. (Which is why the U.N. Charter, by which all the world's countries have already agreed to stop attacking each other, hasn't exactly had that effect...)
No, that's the thing: it does work. It is able to sort out what it would take to prevent conflict, including conflict arising from people who have natural objections to the program itself. Effectively, it has to compromise with us by offering us greater latitude elsewhere, and perhaps by making fewer demands of us (and thus more of you, since you have also to bear the weight of mollifying the people I might anger. The machine can't ask me to do it, because the requests annoy me and push me toward conflict, which it is the function of the machine to avoid).
ReplyDeleteSo, you get peace. You get it even though there are people like me out there. You don't get justice: you've talked about sacrificing liberty (some) or sacrificing reason (maybe), but there's also a price in justice. I get better treatment precisely because I'm against it. It has to pay me off more to make the game worth my while.
That's an assumption from economics, right? Nothing shocking there.
As for the old gods showing up, I don't recall them preventing conflict. My sense is that they tended to provoke conflict, because they were bored and it was exciting to watch (Homer), or as a way of training us to help them out with fights of their own (Valhalla).
ReplyDeleteI know - my gods example was about "free exercise of religion," not "peace" - my point being that opinions about natural rights from this world (such as, that free exercise is one of them) -- don't apply, and would not arise, in a world that worked so differently from our own.
ReplyDeleteNo, that's the thing: it does work. It is able to sort out what it would take to prevent conflict, including conflict arising from people who have natural objections to the program itself. Effectively, it has to compromise with us by offering us greater latitude elsewhere...
If that's what this hypothetical is about...then the underlying assumptions are different than I thought. Basically, the hypothetical is assuming that we're quite close to world peace already - for example, that there's a way of convincing Hamas not to treat "Palestine" as waqf land. (But if they're forced to be so non-recalcitrant in the hypothetical, how come you get to be uber-recalcitrant, and demand massive bribes to go along?) It's assuming, basically, that all the conflicts around the world are things that can be bloodlessly resolved, and the only problem is sorting out the transactions costs by means of the program.
Real-world economics does not, of course, assume any such silly thing; but economic analysis could certainly be done in a world like that. And the right answer would still depend on - how wild is wild, and how high is the cost?
Right, mostly. There are several things at issue. One is whether people really do make trades of this kind. It might finally prove to be incoherent to ask if there is something you would trade for "world peace," because different compartments of the mind handle X ('the desire for world peace') and Y ('that which must be sacrificed to achieve world peace').
ReplyDeleteOr it might be the case that, if the price is high enough, people will make a rational trade. The price just might have to be a lot higher for those disinclined to make the trade (i.e., those who don't especially value peace) than for those who are inclined to it (i.e., those for whom peace has a high value). To take your example of Palestine, it might be the case that there is some set of goods and services that, provided for free to the Palestinians, would make the trade of Israel acceptable. Alternatively, there might be some similar set that would make it acceptable to the Israelis to move. For this to be true, though, the sacred has to be negotiable on something like even terms with material goods and services -- even if it is weighted as quite expensive.
Before we laugh that off, though, it is the premise not just of the experiment but of the "Land for Peace" negotiation scheme. What if it weren't just land? What if every Palestinian were promised free health care of high quality, a generous lifetime pension for themselves and their descendants for three generations, education to bring their descendants up over those generations so that they could compete on easy terms with the rest of the world, and anything else that was necessary to make it good. There's a question here -- I take it to be a serious question -- about whether such a deal is possible or not. Is there a price that is high enough to break the compartments?
If not, then there's a problem with the assumptions of both economics and this school of epistemology, as well as with the assumptions of the diplomats engaged in negotiations. That's one of the questions the experiment is testing.
The one thing that the Senate treaty doesn't do, by the way, is provide a Leviathan mechanism of the sort you're assuming. There will be no divine thunderbolts. The assumption is the one that Dr. Mead is bringing to the table: that world peace is actually one thing we value, presumably very highly, but that we haven't found the right exchange mechanism to actualize. The question at issue is whether such a mechanism really exists: and it strikes me that there are three possibilities.
ReplyDelete1) Such a mechanism exists, and an algorithm that produces it would be highly attractive because world peace really is something we value and will trade for if we can be sure of getting the good.
2) No such mechanism can exist, because the mind compartmentalizes things like the sacred (including values like Freedom of Expression, as well as religiously-sacred ideas) such that a trade across compartments will not work (for at least some large subset of people).
3) Such a mechanism could exist, because we will trade X for Y, but it turns out we don't really value X as much as we claim to do. Thus, the only way we would come to achieve X ('world peace') is if the price became low enough that it was trivial to achieve it.
The reason for omitting a Leviathan is that is a separate hypothesis about the conditions for peace. There, it doesn't matter if we value peace or not: the thought is that we can be MADE to be peaceful by a strong enough force. This is about the question of whether we really value "world peace" enough that a trade mechanism could achieve it.
ReplyDeleteIf not, then there's a problem with the assumptions of both economics and this school of epistemology, as well as with the assumptions of the diplomats engaged in negotiations.
ReplyDeleteNo, ?, and yes. Since economics does not depend on the assumption that either (1) a UN-welfare population full of frustrated young men raised on historical grievances and religious fanaticism will take a certain amount of peaceful goods and services to give up their vengeful ideas forever, or (2) that such an amount of goods and services is actually available in the world we inhabit, let alone (3) that paying such a tribute would not encourage more and further aggression, leading to quite the opposite of peace...
...this isn't a problem with economics at all. There certainly would be a problem with any school of economics that assumed these things - though if someone had evidence for them I'd love to see that evidence. As you note, the history of diplomacy in the region is not encouraging on this point.
"You can't deny Jupter's existence, because he'll thunderbolt the city if you do....
ReplyDeleteOne more shot at this, while accepting your underlying argument as what you meant, with this analogy: the Klingons showed the way with uppity gods.
Effectively, it has to compromise with us by offering us greater latitude elsewhere, and perhaps by making fewer demands of us (and thus more of you, since you have also to bear the weight of mollifying the people I might anger.
But there's nothing in the scenario that specifies the means of world peace achievement. It does not at all have to compromise. It can simply kill Grim, and the rest of us like him, exterminate Hamas, and wipe away the problem. whether it makes sense to [us] or not.
And So, you get peace. ... You don't get justice: you've talked about sacrificing liberty (some) or sacrificing reason (maybe)....
I argue that without justice, without liberty, without reason--without each of these--there might be a lack of conflict, but there will be, there can be, no peace. Look in any slave pen.
Nor can we agree with the deal that takes us, in Joseph's terms, out of our present world. Our individual liberties, and the individual duties associated with them, are endowed in us. We cannot sign any part of them away; they are not ours to rid. They are innate in our existence; we cannot sign any part of them away without signing away our lives. See above about simply killing us for our troubles.
Finally, 1) Such a mechanism exists, and an algorithm that produces it would be highly attractive because world peace really is something we value and will trade for....
And so the algorithm, to pound on a horse for a bit, accepts our trade and kills us for the good of others. Men have made that sacrifice throughout human history.
Eric Hines
The assumption is the one that Dr. Mead is bringing to the table: that world peace is actually one thing we value, presumably very highly, but that we haven't found the right exchange mechanism to actualize. The question at issue is whether such a mechanism really exists...
ReplyDeleteHe's also assuming the "exchanges" can be done peacefully; that there aren't conflicts out there that require someone to be defeated or humiliated before they can be resolved.
In your specific version - where the "irrational acts" involve bribes paid to the aggressors -- there are some additional assumptions - for example, that future aggressors who know the current aggressors were rewarded with bribes won't take that into account in raising their own demands to the limit. This creates a world that isn't, and can't possibly be, like ours at all.
(But in a world like that, appeasement would carry a different moral value than it does in ours; and Kipling's poem about Dane-geld would not ring so true.)
It can simply kill Grim, and the rest of us like him, exterminate Hamas, and wipe away the problem. whether it makes sense to [us] or not.
ReplyDeleteIn which case I would question their contextual definition of peace - and the hypothetical is broken again.
'Killing Grim' may or may not prove to be a trivial problem, depending on whether I am a complete outlier. I think you might find it nontrivial based on the example of, say, Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteRegarding economics, JW, I think the assumption lies too close to the core of the model to give it the out you are giving it. It is a rule that holds ceteris paribus, so providing a case outside those parameters doesn't derail the rule. I might myself be an example of exception within the ceteris paribus standard even though Palestine is not.
Although, as I stated above, it's not impossible to imagine a case that might work even for Palestine: and the algorithm actually solves the problem of humiliation that you're raising. Nobody is told why the Palestinians are being given things, they just are. The Palestinians aren't being asked to make a choice any more than you are. The algorithm has simply calculated that if they are made sufficiently comfortable and well-off, they will stop fighting; and if their descendants are comfortably integrated into the global population over a sufficient period of time, peace will hold. This is never explained to anyone. Nobody makes any choices. They just do what they are told, without knowing why. Thus there is no humiliation: some are just asked to give, and others receive, for reasons we do not know but are told to accept.
In which case I would question their contextual definition of peace....
ReplyDeleteWell, I've been arguing all along whether peace, bought with the price demanded, even exists.
Eric Hines
You and I, Mr. Hines, tend to find that our intuitions point to answer (2) on the possibility question. JW's intuitions point to (1), except that he regards it as a kind of magical improbability (so maybe he's really a (2) as well!). I am nevertheless willing to consider, counter my intuitions, that case (3) is possible.
ReplyDeleteGrim, I think that's the general thrust. However, case (3) seems...unlikely. We haven't even agreed on what constitutes "world peace," the stated goal of the trade.
ReplyDeleteIf my view of (world) peace is accurate, then (3) is not possible.
It may be, too, that either the scenario, or our arguments, or I am muddled. I've also held that conflict is not antithetical to (world) peace, yet it seems that the scenario wants to eliminate conflict in order to get peace.
If conflict is permitted, and a consensual government is constituted to manage the algorithm, such that the Sovereign people can alter or abolish that government and/or that algorithm, then the trade becomes much more bargainable.
One thing that has been elided, but now comes up because it tacitly underlies some of my argument, is that this computer algorithm seems a human construct. As such, no matter the extent of its testing, it's flawed, and so it cannot be given absolute control, nor any control in perpetuity, except at the cost of eliminating justice, liberty, reason--peace.
Eric Hines
Mr. Hines:
ReplyDeleteIs it a human construct? I suppose it is. It's an algorithm, so it's not a genuine artificial intelligence. A genuine intelligence cannot be an algorithm because an algorithm has no free will: inputs determine outputs according to program, whereas a free being's will influences his own outputs.
Still, judged as a rational being, it may be less flawed than its creators. Even if it is not free, and indeed not conscious, it may be more rational. And this brings us to a point that interests me.
All along you've been calling this "slavery," and I think you're right to do so. But it's not just any sort of slavery: it's Aristotelian 'natural slavery.' As you remember, Aristotle argues in the Politics that slavery is only justifiable in certain cases when a man -- for whatever reason -- is deficient in reason. He has enough reason to know what is best for him, but not enough reason to structure his life to make it happen. Thus, he can see that it is best for him to be owned by a more rational force that can direct him toward the better life that his own reason is too weak to ensure.
We might take a drug addict to be a good example of this kind of man. He knows his life would improve if he gave up the drug, but he isn't able to arrange his life according to that reason. So, if we arrange things for him so that he cannot have the drug, he is better off (even though less free, and perhaps unfree if that is what it takes).
This is a case of all of humanity surrendering their freedom and becoming Aristotelian natural slaves. The goal pursued (peace) is rational; the problem is that we aren't rational enough to get there. I wonder what Aristotle himself would have thought of this. It poses some genuine problems.
I think I part company with Aristotle on this to some extent (there's a first...). Aristotle's natural slave, and your more modern examples, strike me more as men who are, or need to be, wards of some institution (perhaps even the state), rather than slaves. I don't see this as a small distinction.
ReplyDeleteFreedom, it seems to me, needs free will, needs a capacity for reason (beyond a child's glimmering beginnings of an ability to recognize some right from some wrong), a capability to act on those. Your examples lack that, as do, in fact, children--it's why we draw a line, however arbitrarily, between the status of "adult" and the status of "not legally capable."
So I don't think the subordination of our selves to this algorithm is Aristotelian slavery; we have those capacities of free will, reason, capability to act on those. That we have trouble achieving peace does not contradict that; it merely shows the difficulty we have achieving that. After all, being very bad at it does not mean anything more than that. It certainly does not mean cannot do it.
Our subordination of our selves to this algorithm is plain, raw slavery. At least when we subordinated ourselves into indentured servitude, there always was, at least nominally, a way to regain our freedom. We have no need of others to do for us.
Eric Hines
I don't think you've exhausted the possibilities there...(1) is not my view of the real world, only of the fantasy world created by this hypothetical - and even then, only with sufficient constraints on what it means to be "really wild."
ReplyDelete(2) No such mechanism can exist, because the mind compartmentalizes things like the sacred (including values like Freedom of Expression, as well as religiously-sacred ideas) such that a trade across compartments will not work... (for at least some large subset of people).
I suspect that, like me, you enjoyed John Robinson's Dungeon, Fire, and Sword. There's a part where an Egyptian princeling has fled to the Crusader states and been taken in by the Templars, and converted to Christianity; but when his enemies offered them 60,000 gold bezants, they ransomed him back cheerfully (and promptly executed him). The Hospitallers complained and compared the Templars to Judas. The Templars responded that they were sure his conversion was a sham. And the author comments, approximately, thus: "Plus, any fool should be able to see there is a world of difference between thirty pieces of silver and sixty thousand pieces of gold..."
Leaving that aside, I have often noted that "sacred" things, religious doctrines, have proven extremely flexible over time -- to superior force or sufficient self-interest. Which is why the Maccabees found they could flex the business of "not working on the Sabbath" enough to defend themselves on that day. People who're sure they would never compromise on sacred things prove otherwise with the right inducement, 'least over time they do.
At the same time, I don't actually believe there is a simple price in peaceful goods that could be paid to create a lasting worldwide peace. It might exist, but I can't see how that would work - or how it could be paid without defeating itself - and I suspect it is prohibitively high. But at the same time I don't think it'd have to be "trivial" before civilized men would pay.
I never read that story, as it happens. But there are counterexamples: Nathan Hale is one.
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to entertain the idea that I might accept conditions of Aristotelian natural slavery if they represented a trivial imposition -- that is, in the example, that I would not only suffer very little by way of interference, but in fact would be subsidized in doing the things I actually cared about. That might be worth setting aside the fight I would otherwise feel obligated to have.
I wouldn't like to think that was true of me, but maybe it is. Maybe if the cost were low and the price were high, it would become a trivial trade to do it your way. Trivial for me; the cost to you would be higher.
But that's economics, isn't it? You're the one who wants us to take the deal; naturally you should be the one paying the freight. I tend to oppose it; naturally I should be compensated for yielding on my opposition. You get what you want, in return for paying a cost; I accept yielding what I want, in return for some other benefit.
Maybe. Or maybe I couldn't do it, in the end. Maybe, at last, that kind of freedom is too sacred for me to sell.
But that's economics, isn't it? You're the one who wants us to take the deal; naturally you should be the one paying the freight.
ReplyDeleteEconomics isn't about "should" in this respect -- it's about how people "do" respond to incentives like that.
And in fact, your scenario gives everyone the incentive to declare himself an extremist for liberty, and demand the largest bribes possible in exchange for not rebelling. "No justice, no peace" writ large. This is part of what makes the thing unworkable.
What you've set up is like a familiar problem in corporate governance - if your charter requires a unanimous vote (or a supermajority) to carry out a very desirable policy, that means one obnoxious stockholder with a small share can hold the whole thing hostage 'til he gets bought out at an outrageous price. In the Federalist, one of the authors explains why certain federal measures should not require unanimous consent of the states (as some propose) - and it's basically the same thing; because one state could hold the whole thing hostage. (This is also a problem with giving vetoes to all the permanent members of the UNSC.)
Well, I'm happy for the system to prove unworkable, because it leaves us in a (2) situation -- which is where my intuition says we ought to be. It shouldn't be possible to pursue peace in this kind of way, because peace isn't the kind of thing that cuts across compartments. So it seems to me: it's desirable, but as a kind of negative good, that is, it's desirable so long as positive goods aren't undercut by the pursuit of it. We are nearly always ready to set it aside in pursuit of some positive good from one of the compartments.
ReplyDeleteAnd if that is really how human beings think about it, well, peace can't be had economically at all. We get it when we get it, and it's great that we do: but it's almost an accident, because it's not how we are wired.