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2 years ago
in Well-Being as Nature-Fulfillment? WTF?! on Will Wilkinson
Our specific nature (pianist specializing in contemporary muic, philosophy professor specializing in ethics, or libertarian blogger) certainly isn't given in advance. We start with certain goals, we attempt to realize them, but the goals often look different when realized. Perhaps we realize them poorly or anyway, not well enough to become quite what we'd had in mind (e.g., a concert pianist who can support himself by performing alone). Or perhaps we find that, although we're pretty good at our goal (being the witty life of the party), the achievement of the goal persuades us that it was a shallow goal, or a goal that others chose for us. We may decide upon realizing or attempting to realize our goals, that the goals are not really "us" after all. We then reconsider our goals and attempt to adjust them to what our attempts to realize those old goals have taught us about our real values and how we are cut out to realize them. The hope is that we can ultimately achieve a life that viewed from the outside, we would regard as a realization of our deepest self. But that deepest self in its individual details will be as much a creation of this dialectic of goal and realization as it is a discovery made in the process.
However, at a more general level, I think this creative trial-and-error adjustment of goals to means and means to goals is itself the expression of our natures as rational agents. The World Controllers in Huxley's Brave New World attempt to achieve maximal happiness for their people by denying them this expression of their human/rational nature. Therefore, in the terms of Will's post above, they are attempting to give people happiness at the expense of their well-being.
(Subjective happiness, I think, is best understood as the sense of well-being -- i.e., it is a usually reliable, but not infallible indicator of well-being. The world controllers are like dieticians who design a delicious food that makes people feel full but which provides no nutritional value whatever -- not even calories -- and who prescribe it for every meal.)
Our rational nature plus our talents certainly cannot provide us with a recipe for correct self-expression, but it does put some constraints on self-expression. (It also may reconcile us to the nature of our lives -- dissatisfaction is, on this account, an essential part of the dialectical process leading to our individual self-expression.)
However, at a more general level, I think this creative trial-and-error adjustment of goals to means and means to goals is itself the expression of our natures as rational agents. The World Controllers in Huxley's Brave New World attempt to achieve maximal happiness for their people by denying them this expression of their human/rational nature. Therefore, in the terms of Will's post above, they are attempting to give people happiness at the expense of their well-being.
(Subjective happiness, I think, is best understood as the sense of well-being -- i.e., it is a usually reliable, but not infallible indicator of well-being. The world controllers are like dieticians who design a delicious food that makes people feel full but which provides no nutritional value whatever -- not even calories -- and who prescribe it for every meal.)
Our rational nature plus our talents certainly cannot provide us with a recipe for correct self-expression, but it does put some constraints on self-expression. (It also may reconcile us to the nature of our lives -- dissatisfaction is, on this account, an essential part of the dialectical process leading to our individual self-expression.)
2 years ago
in NIM, PUB and Cognitive Paternalism on Will Wilkinson
Your point is a good one: when one is trying to find a solution to a problem with markets, it's easy to idealize government beyond all recognition, and vice versa. Morals legislation is all to often based on the most extreme version of this irrationality: the omnipotence of law. If you outlaw prostitution or marijuana, you are punishing prostitutes and drug users, and possibly driving up the price of both, but you are certainly not wiping out either one by fiat.
Paternalism is justified by reference to the imperfection and irrationality of human nature, but these same traits count against human beings acting through government to limit imperfection and irrationality.
This is a good point, but the level of abstraction at which you raise it makes it sound more damaging to the paternalist case than it really is. A smoker intentionally lights up under the influence of nicotine cravings. Even a legislature consisting only of chain smokers will not be led by their nicotine cravings to write a law promoting smoking. The imperfections/irrationalities of human beings in government are not necessarily the same as those of the individual. In a particular instance (e.g., smoking bans) a paternalist might argue that government is clearer-sighted and deliberative IN THAT INSTANCE than the individual. (At the same time, leaders' besetting vice is a tendency to lose touch with reality -- submitting them to elections by the people, sobers up the government in ways that IT needs sobering up.)
I can certainly see how two imperfect friends, who are imperfect in different ways might make each other more perfect by offering their advice and recognizing each other's area of superiority. Individuals and their democratically elected, constitutionally limited government might balance each other similarly.
As for your final conclusion, if I understand what you mean by ameliorative markets correctly (e.g., sulfur-tax or carbon-tax, cap and trade?), these seem best suited to getting agent A to recognize a cost to agent B as a cost to himself -- they "internalize" externalities.
When we come to correcting for an individual's failure to appreciate his own long-term good, they seem to fall afoul of a much more pernicious version of the problem you raise for paternalism: they attempt to use the individual's long term rationality to correct for his deficiency in long-term rationality. They try to correct individual long-term irrationality (with respect to health) by appeal to his long-term rationality (with respect to money). This seems silly, because very few people value their money more than their health -- the problem is an irrational discounting of future satisfactions brought by either health or money. What you need to compensate for the long-term irrationality of smoking is a short term inconvenience, like having to go out and smoke in the cold, not another long-term disincentive, like finding yourself more deeply in debt at the end of the year than you would otherwise have been (a disincentive you can avoid by never adding up how much cigarettes have cost you over the year).
Paternalism is justified by reference to the imperfection and irrationality of human nature, but these same traits count against human beings acting through government to limit imperfection and irrationality.
This is a good point, but the level of abstraction at which you raise it makes it sound more damaging to the paternalist case than it really is. A smoker intentionally lights up under the influence of nicotine cravings. Even a legislature consisting only of chain smokers will not be led by their nicotine cravings to write a law promoting smoking. The imperfections/irrationalities of human beings in government are not necessarily the same as those of the individual. In a particular instance (e.g., smoking bans) a paternalist might argue that government is clearer-sighted and deliberative IN THAT INSTANCE than the individual. (At the same time, leaders' besetting vice is a tendency to lose touch with reality -- submitting them to elections by the people, sobers up the government in ways that IT needs sobering up.)
I can certainly see how two imperfect friends, who are imperfect in different ways might make each other more perfect by offering their advice and recognizing each other's area of superiority. Individuals and their democratically elected, constitutionally limited government might balance each other similarly.
As for your final conclusion, if I understand what you mean by ameliorative markets correctly (e.g., sulfur-tax or carbon-tax, cap and trade?), these seem best suited to getting agent A to recognize a cost to agent B as a cost to himself -- they "internalize" externalities.
When we come to correcting for an individual's failure to appreciate his own long-term good, they seem to fall afoul of a much more pernicious version of the problem you raise for paternalism: they attempt to use the individual's long term rationality to correct for his deficiency in long-term rationality. They try to correct individual long-term irrationality (with respect to health) by appeal to his long-term rationality (with respect to money). This seems silly, because very few people value their money more than their health -- the problem is an irrational discounting of future satisfactions brought by either health or money. What you need to compensate for the long-term irrationality of smoking is a short term inconvenience, like having to go out and smoke in the cold, not another long-term disincentive, like finding yourself more deeply in debt at the end of the year than you would otherwise have been (a disincentive you can avoid by never adding up how much cigarettes have cost you over the year).
