Political Confession
I tend to be a fairly mathematical sort of person. While I am almost incapable of handling even basic college calculus, I am quite adept at using particular fields of applied mathematics to model personal behaviours. Social Choice Theory and Game Theory are fundamental tools in my arsenal for dealing with the world.
As a young child, I used to do long-division problems just for the sheer mechanical thrill of it. Sometimes in law school, I still find myself writing out a thirty or forty digit string and dividing it all by seven or something. When I was first introduced (as a college Junior) to systematic numerical modeling of human actions in the form of utility calculus, I was hooked. I now find myself in my boring law classes sketching utility matrices and decision trees far more than long-division problems.
The basic idea behind social choice theory is that when a person is presented with a chance to make a decision, they will make the decision that they believe will make them happiest. If given the option of going to work (and making money) or staying home and playing video games, the person will invariably choose the option that they feel will garner them the most overall happiness. Some individuals will value package 1 more (the disutility of work + the happiness you could buy with your paycheck) over package 2 (the utility of playing video games – the disutility of running out of money to pay your bills). Some people will prefer the reverse. However the individual values different states of existence, he or she will perform actions which seem aimed to bring about those states.
Social choice theory steps in to try to understand how individuals make decisions with other individuals. Suppose that I wish to go out to eat with a friend, and we have the opportunity to eat at a Chinese buffet or a burger joint. I prefer option A, and she prefers option B. How do we come to a decision now?
Kenneth Arrow is an economist and theorist who won a Nobel prize for his proof of what has come to be known as “Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem.” Arrow’s theorem says that there are absolutely no ways for the individuals to make a choice that satisfies all of the following criteria:
-That the social choice (the final choice of the group) is complete and transitive (takes into account all options and ranks those options in a single ordering)
-Pareto Optimality (Unanimous preferences of individuals should amount to the social choice)
-Free of irrelevant alternatives (The social choice should not be affected by non-options)
-Free from dictatorship
Social choice theory applies to politics in a stellar fashion. When trying to aggregate the individual preferences of voters into a single social choice, we must keep in mind Arrow’s theorem. There are absolutely zero ways for the individual voters to come to a social choice without violating one of the above criteria.
It is invariably the position of most Americans that democracy is the best possible political system, and that the truth of that statement is somehow self-obvious. Perhaps it is simply that I have never been particularly affected by much of the socialization I was to have picked up as a child, but the sublime feeling that such was the case stuck to me nearly as well as the existence of God or all of the moral intuitions that people claim to have that I never did.
Among the criteria, freedom from irrelevant alternatives seems to be one that is certainly a good criterion to keep. When I go to a restaurant for only a drink and am offered coffee, tea, or water, I might announce to the waitress, “Bring me a tea, and if you don’t have tea, then coffee, and if you are out of coffee, bring me water.” In choice theory terms, I have said tea>coffee>water. If the waitress says to me, “I’m terribly sorry, but we are completely out of bagels,” my response as to my beverage ranking should not change. If I now replied that in light of the bagel situation (which I had not ordered), I preferred water over coffee, and coffee over tea, you might think I was slightly unhinged. Likewise, if my ranking was Tea>Coffee>Water, and the waitress told me that they had no water for me, I would still be expected to order tea. If I changed my order to Coffee, something would seem unreasonable about that, since my first choice was still available.
Similarly, the Pareto optimality seems to be a good criterion to hold onto. When ordering a pizza and every single person wants the pizza to have sausage, if we order a pizza without sausage, then something seems amiss.
The criterion about completeness and transitivity is a necessity for a coherent social choice. A social choice is not simply a final outcome. When asked about which beverage I prefer, “Tea” is not a social choice. Tea>Coffee>Water is a social choice. Completeness simply means that all options are represented in the social choice ranking (tea, coffee, AND water are all there). The transitivity criterion means that I can place the complete list of options into a single ranking where each one is preferred to others below it on a straight line.
Transitivity is so basic that it is arguably not possible to conceive of ranked non-transitive lists. Try to imagine that you prefer apples to bananas and bananas to lemons. Simple, right? Now imagine that at the same time, you prefer lemons to apples. To do so turns your preference into one of those M.C. Escher stairways that always appears to go up, but comes back to its own first step while ascending.
Dictatorship is widely seen as a bad thing, and so we probably would desire to keep a social choice system that avoids that option.
Majority-rule democracy results in a violation of the completeness and transitivity criterion. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Our beloved system of social choice allows for social choices which are, in actuality, not able to be comprehended due to their circularity.
Imagine three voters, A, B, and C.
A prefers option X to Y, and option Y to Z.
B prefers option Y to Z, and option Z to X.
C prefers option Z to X, and option X to Y.
There are clear majorities to support each of the following positions X>Y, Y>Z, Z>X, which are mutually incompatible as a transitive ordering.
In any social choice situation (any election) where there are 3 or more candidates or options (if policies), and more than 1 voter, intransitivities are possible.
Because one of Arrow’s four criteria must be violated to arrive at social choices, we must decide which of the criteria we are willing to violate. Democracy has made the decision that, of the four criteria, the first is the best one to violate.
I disagree.
A political system which allows for non-rational social choices – choices which are not even possible to think coherently – cannot be the best option.
I would violate fourth option without hesitation. I’m living proof that freedom and the left are not bedmates of necessity.
[stands up and addresses the circle]
My name is [Academian], and I’m an unapologetic Statist seeking his Hobbesian Leviathan and Sovereign.
As a young child, I used to do long-division problems just for the sheer mechanical thrill of it. Sometimes in law school, I still find myself writing out a thirty or forty digit string and dividing it all by seven or something. When I was first introduced (as a college Junior) to systematic numerical modeling of human actions in the form of utility calculus, I was hooked. I now find myself in my boring law classes sketching utility matrices and decision trees far more than long-division problems.
The basic idea behind social choice theory is that when a person is presented with a chance to make a decision, they will make the decision that they believe will make them happiest. If given the option of going to work (and making money) or staying home and playing video games, the person will invariably choose the option that they feel will garner them the most overall happiness. Some individuals will value package 1 more (the disutility of work + the happiness you could buy with your paycheck) over package 2 (the utility of playing video games – the disutility of running out of money to pay your bills). Some people will prefer the reverse. However the individual values different states of existence, he or she will perform actions which seem aimed to bring about those states.
Social choice theory steps in to try to understand how individuals make decisions with other individuals. Suppose that I wish to go out to eat with a friend, and we have the opportunity to eat at a Chinese buffet or a burger joint. I prefer option A, and she prefers option B. How do we come to a decision now?
Kenneth Arrow is an economist and theorist who won a Nobel prize for his proof of what has come to be known as “Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem.” Arrow’s theorem says that there are absolutely no ways for the individuals to make a choice that satisfies all of the following criteria:
-That the social choice (the final choice of the group) is complete and transitive (takes into account all options and ranks those options in a single ordering)
-Pareto Optimality (Unanimous preferences of individuals should amount to the social choice)
-Free of irrelevant alternatives (The social choice should not be affected by non-options)
-Free from dictatorship
Social choice theory applies to politics in a stellar fashion. When trying to aggregate the individual preferences of voters into a single social choice, we must keep in mind Arrow’s theorem. There are absolutely zero ways for the individual voters to come to a social choice without violating one of the above criteria.
It is invariably the position of most Americans that democracy is the best possible political system, and that the truth of that statement is somehow self-obvious. Perhaps it is simply that I have never been particularly affected by much of the socialization I was to have picked up as a child, but the sublime feeling that such was the case stuck to me nearly as well as the existence of God or all of the moral intuitions that people claim to have that I never did.
Among the criteria, freedom from irrelevant alternatives seems to be one that is certainly a good criterion to keep. When I go to a restaurant for only a drink and am offered coffee, tea, or water, I might announce to the waitress, “Bring me a tea, and if you don’t have tea, then coffee, and if you are out of coffee, bring me water.” In choice theory terms, I have said tea>coffee>water. If the waitress says to me, “I’m terribly sorry, but we are completely out of bagels,” my response as to my beverage ranking should not change. If I now replied that in light of the bagel situation (which I had not ordered), I preferred water over coffee, and coffee over tea, you might think I was slightly unhinged. Likewise, if my ranking was Tea>Coffee>Water, and the waitress told me that they had no water for me, I would still be expected to order tea. If I changed my order to Coffee, something would seem unreasonable about that, since my first choice was still available.
Similarly, the Pareto optimality seems to be a good criterion to hold onto. When ordering a pizza and every single person wants the pizza to have sausage, if we order a pizza without sausage, then something seems amiss.
The criterion about completeness and transitivity is a necessity for a coherent social choice. A social choice is not simply a final outcome. When asked about which beverage I prefer, “Tea” is not a social choice. Tea>Coffee>Water is a social choice. Completeness simply means that all options are represented in the social choice ranking (tea, coffee, AND water are all there). The transitivity criterion means that I can place the complete list of options into a single ranking where each one is preferred to others below it on a straight line.
Transitivity is so basic that it is arguably not possible to conceive of ranked non-transitive lists. Try to imagine that you prefer apples to bananas and bananas to lemons. Simple, right? Now imagine that at the same time, you prefer lemons to apples. To do so turns your preference into one of those M.C. Escher stairways that always appears to go up, but comes back to its own first step while ascending.
Dictatorship is widely seen as a bad thing, and so we probably would desire to keep a social choice system that avoids that option.
Majority-rule democracy results in a violation of the completeness and transitivity criterion. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Our beloved system of social choice allows for social choices which are, in actuality, not able to be comprehended due to their circularity.
Imagine three voters, A, B, and C.
A prefers option X to Y, and option Y to Z.
B prefers option Y to Z, and option Z to X.
C prefers option Z to X, and option X to Y.
There are clear majorities to support each of the following positions X>Y, Y>Z, Z>X, which are mutually incompatible as a transitive ordering.
In any social choice situation (any election) where there are 3 or more candidates or options (if policies), and more than 1 voter, intransitivities are possible.
Because one of Arrow’s four criteria must be violated to arrive at social choices, we must decide which of the criteria we are willing to violate. Democracy has made the decision that, of the four criteria, the first is the best one to violate.
I disagree.
A political system which allows for non-rational social choices – choices which are not even possible to think coherently – cannot be the best option.
I would violate fourth option without hesitation. I’m living proof that freedom and the left are not bedmates of necessity.
[stands up and addresses the circle]
My name is [Academian], and I’m an unapologetic Statist seeking his Hobbesian Leviathan and Sovereign.
posted by The Academian | 5:27 AM
14 Comments:
I don't know about what you just wrote, but, for me, knowing that there were no bagels would definitely change my answer to the Tea>Coffee>Water question.
It's just like how you have to know what chips you have before you make the sandwich.
There are several wrinkles I didn't touch on for fear of making it even more long and mechanical. There are issues of gamesmanship, brinksmanship, incomplete information sets, random behaviours, and as in your case, condition-dependant utility preferences. Complicated living makes for complicated theories.
I don't understand how you find the time to post posts like these. It's admirable.
Not to come off as too adversarial, but I thought I might respond to this post by raising a few issues that came to mind. There are those who question whether choices and political views can really be translated into mathematical models. There are a lot of philosophical problems inherent in any attempt to "quantify" abstract things like preferences and choices. Moreover, economic driven analyses must assume rationality and self-interest... those are some pretty big assumptions. This makes me a little cautious as I entertain these sorts of analyses and theories. I think economics can yield enormous insight into our everyday world, but I'm wary of falling into what Heidegger would identify as "technological thinking."
First off, let me say it's good to hear from a 'Marc.' That's my brother's name, and 'Marc's' are a dying breed, losing ground yearly to those with the dreaded 'K' spelling.
Never hesitate to play devil's advocate, or just plain 'advocate,' especially to me. I'll hold my thesis, but without someone presenting me with a convincing case for an antithesis, my thesis will never be refined or rejected. To the extent that my thesis remains identically parsed after an encounter, it is unlikely that I have come closer to the truth.
You level serious criticisms, and I started to take them seriously (by giving them a full treatment), but realized that my answer was quite long (and that says something coming from me). So instead, I'll offer up the summary, which is pretty long anyway.
Altruism/Irrationalities can be accounted for by evolutionary/sociobiological concepts. Evolution is simply a fancy way of seeing market forces act in nature (those with good business plans leave us a lasting legacy). Kin selection accounts for most altruism (my genes are better off when those who share them fare better). For the far lesser amount of altruism between strangers, group selection can account for that (my group fares better when individuals within it fare better). The rare cases of non-group altruism (where I help a Somali by sending food through an organization) typically remain within the species, furthering the credence we should give this idea. Each theory has a drawback that they demand shifting the locus of evolution from the individual organism to either the genetic or the group level. I'm willing to argue that evolution takes place on all three levels (and in fact higher levels too).
Quantifying friendships and sunsets bothers a lot of people, so you aren't alone in that. I've never found the idea problematic, but perhaps that stems from the coldly contractual way I approach the world. If I can rank objects (which would I rather see, a sunset or a movie?) in preference, I must prefer one of them more by some amount. For instance, would I prefer to lose a friend or have my leg chopped off? Each has disutility (in that they would make me unhappy), but if I answered that I would rather have my leg chopped off, the question then can be added to. Would I rather lose a friend (disfavored) or have my leg chopped off PLUS be forced to eat canned spinach? How about if I also was forced to re-read some Kierkegaard? Eventually, you would be able to add enough disutility to overturn my stated preference. If it acts like mathematics, walks like mathematics, and quacks like mathematics, it must be a duck because mathematics can't quack. Or something like that.
I generally prefer using the evolutionary/sociobiological models with game theory and social choice (I would contend that they are simply versions of the same principles expressed in different spheres) because they seem to fulfill both the 'inference to the best explanation' principle and Occam's Razor. Using an economic modelling system, I can explain (in hindsight) and, to some extent, predict human behaviours where other theories fail to account for all the phenomena. Additionally, when presented with numerous theories to explain phenomena, we ought to choose the one which explains the phenomena with the least amount of ad hoc devices. Explaining why humans do things has previously been done with complex disciplines of sociology, history, the innumerable strains of psychology and the like. Here, we can condense it all into a single discipline.
You aren't the first to contend that I might have a bit of technological thinking in me. I submitted the first draft of my political treatise (Evolution and Revolution: The case for neo-Hobbessian statism) to a professor at KU. His only comment when he returned it, in red ink and underlined, was "Aggressive Scientism." If that's the charge, then I'm probably guilty. I'll openly assert that the scientific method is the only tool by which humanity has ever advanced our knowledge of the physical universe. Myth, religion, superstition, and intuition have all failed us miserably in terms of providing comprehensible pictures of the universe in which we function. They may have a place in human study, but not in detailing what is, how it is, or how it works.
Your again blow my mind. I'm not sure I have time really to formulate a worthy response except to say that one of the biggest problems with the theories you espouse is that they reduce all difference to same. They claim the ability to predict results, and perhaps sometimes do, but often they fall short. The theories then attempt to explain away those discrepancies through similar utilitarian arguments. This reduces those differences to the same. If there are discrepancies it MUST be because the other choice was simply more "rational." But why? This sort of explanation reeks of ex post facto analysis, with no ability to predict these "discrepancies" beforehand. One German risks everything to house and save a few jews, while another turns in jews to save his neck. Is there really an economic explanation for this incongruity?
Good analysis, Marc. I haven't had someone critiquing my ideas in any particularly thorough way since I went toe-to-toe with one of my epistemology prof's as an undergrad. I got my rear handed to me on a platter, by the way, so I'm not suggesting that I was his equal or anything.
Three possible responses:
1) Hindsight bias is very real and quite a problem in any explanatory science. Basketball used to be a sport dominated by Jewish players and commentators used to say that Jews were uniquely suited for the sport above all others because of "their natural cleverness." Now African-Americans are excelling and commentators are again claiming that they have natural abilities which make them uniquely suited to dominate the sport. When we know the outcome in advance, it is very easy to create just-so stories to explain why the outcome was necessary and inevitable. Arguing that every decision is rational to the individual does indeed suffer from a hindsight bias problem. Even I have to admit that. But to the extent to which we can predict actions, it gives credence to the economic models sociobiologists and game theorists use. While there are some actions which are not understood, much human behaviour can be explained and predicted, which is the mark of a theory with at least some plausibility. My own theory (the one from the thesis which was overly scientistic for the professor in my last comment) predicts the eventual aggregation of all nations under what I term "the cohesion principle." I believe that the increasing movement toward human rights and powerful central international authority are the birthing steps in this process. Just like any other science, only time will prove my theories correct or flawed.
2) Differences outcomes (the 1940's German hiding jews in one case, and turning them in to the Gestapo in the other) can be explained using economic theories as being derived from the same process of decision-making. While the process may be the same, the results may be wildly different, since the result of the process requires the inputs of wholly subjective personal valuations. This is perhaps the most troubling part of social choice theories, since while I may in theory know my own preferences at all times, I can never truly know the inner mental states of another (a la Descartes and others). Their internal states are forever denied me and I can only guess at their mental states via their actions and statements.
3) On more of a metaphysical level, replacing psychology/sociology/ethnology/history/cultural anthropology with a single discipline that can claim a basis in science seems quite acceptable to me in a reductionist sense. If we accept the idea that the society is the product of human minds, and that human minds are actually identifiable as human brains (propositions for which substantial evidence can be marshaled), then the idea that sociology can be reduced to biology would follow. Biology is clearly governed by chemistry, and chemistry is ultimately governed by physics. Again, my aggressively scientistic mentality is coming to the fore, but in an ideal educational world, all we would need is sufficiently high levels of physics education and lots of computing power to become fluent in every discipline imaginable.
To take it a step further, if we could create a gigantic extra-dimensional computer, capable of knowing the placement of every bit of matter, any movement of the matter, and the strength of all forces in the universe in a single instant (a gigantic photograph, if you will), then I would contend that all of the universe's history and future could be inferred with complete (god-like, to be sure) accuracy.
How's that for aggressively scientistic?
I don't have time to list all of the assumptions your "ifs" and "thens" depend on. But I will quickly point out a couple of thoughts that struck me as I read your response:
1)The claim that humans are merely some sort of biological automotons fails miserably when it tries to explain consciousness. There simply is no adequate scientific explanation for self-awareness.
2)You brought up Decartes, and I think the weakness that plagued his philosophy can be found in your analysis. It is the dilemma of the subject-object distinction. Unless you are willing to dismiss the idea of any sort of human choice and embrace a sort of B.F. Skinner behaviorism where all human actions could be predicted but for our lack of knowledge of all of the triggers and conditioning, you have a problem on your hands. How does one reconcile human agency, free choice, with the idea a world (that includes humans) that is governed by scientific law?
Suggesting that there is no adequate scientific explanation for consciousness is an interesting objection. I can't claim to be an expert in this field, because (I'll admit it) I didn't pay much attention in my philosophy of mind class. Advances in neurobiology certainly shed light on how consciousness functions, though. How consciousness came to exist has long had explanations in evolutionary psychology. I'd have to go back and check (it's been a while since I read either of them), but either "The Red Queen" or "The Origins of Virtue" by Matt Ridley has a nice section on how we (and some non-human animals) came to develop consciousness. As I recall, it was the result of a brinksmanship game (like stockpiling nuclear weapons where each side just keeps trying to have more than his foe) between those adhering to the strategy of deception and those who practice the strategy of cooperation (who want to detect the deceivers). In "Leviathan," Hobbes points out the problem of "the fool" for which he has no adequate answer in his work. When we all give up our autonomy to the sovereign, we gain all of the benefits of living in an orderly society. But these are group benefits and cannot be easily denied to any member of the group due to administrative difficulty (imagine denying national defense to a few scattered houses across the country). Why, then, should an individual submit his autonomy to his sovereign's when he can retain it (secretly of course) and still get the benefits? The answer supplied by evolutionary biology is that his ability to lie to the rest of us about his commitment to the community is weighed against our ability to detect his lies and punish him accordingly. David Gauthier, a Canadian game theorist," argued that while society may not catch all cheaters (not all criminals go to prison, after all), society is open enough to catch some which increases the deterrant power on those who pursue the strategy of non-cooperation.
You've hit what has to be the most unpleasant side-effect of my views for most people. Most people find the idea that they are not in control of their lives unpalatable. Maybe I'm strange in that I don't have any moral intuition to that effect, but I am a complete determinist. Free-will does not exist in my universe, and we are in effect complicated robots performing actions in accord with our pre-programmed genetics and in response to the stimuli with which we are presented. Nothing in our nature is different from that of rocks, trees, or neutron stars, except inasmuch as we are made of differing materials. To go back to my computer example (where it would predict the history and future of the universe), I submit that the computer would not only predict that I would exist, where I would be when I wrote this comment, and what time I would do so, but would predict the words I would write, the revisions I would make, and my decision to go get a banana for breakfast halfway through.
I do recall the sitr I created in my philosohpy of mind class when I suggested that the illusion of consciousness was "the witchcraft of the modern age" (I think that would make a dynamite band name, don't you?). We've always come up with semi-magical explanations for things we didn't understand. You aren't sick, you have demons. The cow didn't die on it's own, it must have been witches. The lightning is scary, so we must have angered Thor. Time and time again, we have slowly unraveled the mysteries and abolished the fanciful explanations which seemed so obvious to us before.
The objection to complete determinism that I fear most comes from within theoretical physics with chaos theory - the central tenet of which is that at the quantum level, there are no appreciable rules and that objects behave randomly. I'm inclined to believe that this is simply lazy science (are we giving up because finding the rules is difficult?), but my credentials in physics are certainly quite low (1 class in college does not a physicist make) compared with the many physicists who will argue that chaos theory is correct.
If it is correct, then my whole world-view comes crashing down around me, since absolute determinism is the only way in which we can predict the actions of larger bodies like falling bodies, movement up an inclined plane, or the mental illness of a schizophrenic.
As I was preparing my books for class this morning, another thought occurred. I wish now that I'd paid far closer attention in my philosophy of mind class as an undergrad because it would have come in useful here. Unfortunately, I had no real interest in the class, and only took it because a girl I knew was taking it and suggested I take it with her. And, of course, because she was attractive, I did what she said.
I'll have to go dig out my PoM textbook now, because you've peaked my interest in the subject like the professor for that class never did. I do recall a husband/wife team of philosophers/neuroscientists who started up a movement called Psychological Eliminativism, which suggested that even describing the mental realm in terms of psychology was fruitless and that eventually, with the growth of neuroscience, the statement "I feel sad today" would be replaced by the statement "My brain is in configuration 349 at the instant." Basically, they said that our choice to describe mental events in non-physical terms has been one of the greatest stumbling blocks in our quest to understand how consciousness really works.
I think the same might be said in this context. Our decision to describe human behaviour in terms of individual will obscures the truth (if it is the truth) that our choices have been made for us.
As I described this, though, a frightful objection just occured to me. If the world does, in fact, run like a gigantic set of clockworks, then economic modeling theories, while correct in a sense, are just another redundant and incomplete science like biology, geology, or chemistry, in that it doesn't describe things in wholly physical terms either. If absolute determinism is the rule of the day, then we should eventually kill off game theory in the same way that we kill off biology (to make way for the advent of physics). I'll have to think on that one. Have I simply advocated another layer of witchcraft to obscure the real science underneath? It's a damning objection if true.
A vigorous debate you’ve started. I apologize if this may be a little long-winded : )
I also claim no expertise in neurobiology myself, but every attempt I’ve seen at explaining consciousness (from Stephen Pinker’s How the Mind Works on down) has struck me as woefully inadequate. They seem to presuppose the very foundation of what they are attempting
Your claim to be a “complete determinist” puzzles me. The implications of such a claim in my mind are astounding. To presuppose that we are all automatons who’s every action is governed by conditioning and hard-wiring means that none of us have any control over our lives. It means everything in the world is completely relative. Since we cannot choose to do anything whatsoever, none of us is responsible for any of our acts. There is no right, nor wrong, no good, nor bad. The Jeffrey Dahmers, Ted Bundys, and Osama Bin Ladens of the world were simply led to do the horrible things they did because of their biological make up. They are innocent of any “wrong doing” because nature required them to do what they did. In that world, as I said before, there is no wrong.
I question whether you fully accept the implications of your “deterministic” theory. You writing seems to betray that determinism. In The Death of American Progressivism bemoan the death of real progressivism. The post implicitly presumes that democratic politicians have had some sort of choice in the course they have chosen. Your post asks a series of questions:
“[W]hen was the last time that a bill was introduced to drastically increase federal subsidy of state education? When was the last time that Kansas (or any other state for that matter) voluntarily increased education funding by more than some paltry amount? Why don't they have modern textbooks? Why is their science and math education falling farther and farther behind the rest of the industrialized world when these are precisely the two subjects that determine the future of the American economy? Why are we allowing the fundamental religious right to further degrade science education by watering down scientific principles on equal par with the idea with the idea that everything we see is made up of smaller bits (atomic theory) or the idea that objects are attracted to each other over great distances because of their masses (the theory of gravity)?”
How can the Democrats “choose” to do anything about these issues? Following your logic, we have no real choice at all. We can’t “choose” who to vote for nor can we “choose” to follow a different course or political path. You claimed FDR and Johnson had the idea that “every person deserves a shot” at the American Dream. But ultimately we can’t “choose” to help these people. Our biology and conditioning will force us to help those we end up helping and there’s simply nothing more that can be done. Ultimately, everything is relative. Those people who aren’t helped don’t matter anymore than trees that are burned down in a fire or wildlife that is drowned in a flood. It’s all simply governed by nature.
I would respond to this sort of deterministic thinking by questioning some of the problematic assumptions on which I think it is grounded. I think it presupposes its own ground by simply assuming without question that our way of “being-in-the-modern-technological-world” and of making sense of our environment as “nature” in that world is self-evident, needing no justification. Implicit in this thinking is the assumption that experience provides direct and unmediated access to these self-evident objects (phenomena) in nature that we are investigating, rather than recognizing that our access to those objects is always mediated and already structured in advance by the horizon of understanding (the world we are born into). There is no pristine point of departure that our scientific journey can depart from, there is no “higher ground” defined by “logic” or “method” from which to rationally and objectively apperceive phenomena as it is in itself (unmediated by our horizon of understanding).
While Hume, Kant and Nietzsche disagreed on a lot, they all argued that any science based on those types of assumptions would always be misguided. They also all showed that causation can never be logically necessary, but is instead merely human inference. We infer that one thing causes another, but from our vantage point can never really know.
Some of Nietzsche’s critiques provided the impetus for the collapse of logical positivism/empiricism in the 1950s and 60s and signaled the last throes to claims that the scientific method was either an objective or universally privileged way of constituting knowledge. Since then science has not been less valued, but has simply moved away from more these problematic grounds. Analytical Philosophy likewise has drifted away from positivism toward pragmatism. In the face of this, Continental philosophy has contented itself to define the limits of science, or more appropriately, the limits within which knowing happens.
You point out some key conceptual flaws in the type of philosophy that I do, Marc. I can’t deny that. Given my own tendency toward verbosity, I can’t fault you an occasional indulgence in the same, either. You’re giving me a greater workout mentally in defending my position than I’ve had in years, so I owe you the opportunity to be as long-winded as you like.
Discussing consciousness in physical terms does tend to presuppose the physical nature of the mind. On a conceptual level, this does amount to circular reasoning. All reasoning ultimately rests upon circularities, since nothing can be known about the outside world without some beginning ground on which to build. Assuming the physical nature of the mind shouldn’t be dismissed, because… well, because it seems so absolutely sensible. When I view two types of rocks, I do not create two separate systems of scientific principles to explain their differences. When I view a rock and a tree, I do not invent two separate systems of scientific principles to explain those either. Neither do I create two separate systems of principles to govern how a mouse and a tree differ. Why should a scientist treat the mind any differently than any of the other phenomena in the world? And particularly when the mind does not intuitively seem any different from other phenomena?
On a practical side, treating consciousness as a physical phenomenon has met with tremendous success compared to all other attempts at explanation that came before the scientific understanding of the mind. “Talking” therapies, exorcisms, psychoanalysis, and folk psychology failed miserably at diagnosing and treating mental irregularities. By viewing internal mental processes in a mechanical fashion, we were able to invent drugs capable of silencing the auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations of schizophrenics. We have been able to create pills that even out the wild mood swings of people suffering from severe bipolar disorder. Aspects of our consciousness respond to physical stimulation (you can trigger memories or perceptions by contacting parts of the brain with electrodes), and our emotions and personality (parts of our consciousness) can be altered accompanying physical changes to the brain (think of Phinneas Gage and the railroad tamp through his skull). Even psychopathy (the phenomenon of having little or no ability to empathize with other people) has been shown to have physical roots and measurable qualities. Operating on the basis of a non-physical mind opens up a massive can of worms in terms of metaphysics as well. How would we know what had consciousness? How would we know other individuals were conscious? How would we know that a diamond wasn’t conscious? That a puddle of water was not in the middle of thinking great thoughts? That a fire was not filled with actual malice to burn us? When we operate on the basis of a physical mind, we can predict which objects have minds based on our current understanding of neural activity.
The determinism issue is thorny because there does not appear to be a unique vocabulary for discussing these issues (or at least not one with which I am familiar). While on the surface using terms like ‘choice,’ ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ and such seems incompatible with absolute determinism, it may be only because I use these terms in unconventional ways. To me, words like those have an artistic quality, or perhaps could be more aptly described as shorthand for the real concepts. A good analogy would be my use of the word ‘soul’ or a phrase like ‘from the bottom of my heart.’ Even though the idea of a soul cannot be squared with my purely materialistic, cause-and-effect driven worldview, and despite modern knowledge that emotion comes from the hind-brain instead of the heart, such expressions are useful communication tools to express concepts with which we are all familiar.
Morality need not be relative in a determinist universe. Ethics and morality simply must be defined in terms compatible with objective criteria. In my case (and I certainly won’t claim that mine is the only way to justify objective bases for morality not involving choice in the free-will sense), “right” could be parsed in some phrase like “best for the propagation of my genes,” and wrong as any deviation from whatever that ultimately ‘best’ rational strategy might be. In our case, the Jeffrey Dahmers and Ted Bundys pursued short-term rational goals while sacrificing the greater long-term rational goals. Ultimately, that ended up being a losing strategy for them.
Suggesting that they are innocent of wrong-doing is only true with your particular definition of wrong-doing. With my definition, they are guilty of the worst type of wrong-doing. They acted against their own self-interest by pursuing short-term self-interested goals. The classic “prisoner’s dilemma” scenario in game theory is a good example. Both prisoners, pursuing self-interest within the rules of the game, end up getting worse outcomes each than if they had abandoned self-interest and cooperated. David Gauthier, in his “Morals by Agreement” (one of my biggest inspirations in terms of philosophy) argued that recognizing the better outcome for each if they cooperated (followed the rules of society) is a higher form of rationality. By realizing that each person is better off when we cooperate in a society, we are capable of following our self-interest to much greater heights than if we had simply pursued short-term selfish gain.
If we follow the “principle of cohesion” that I eluded to from my thesis, we would hold that the larger the society (the greater the number of people cooperating, or following the rules of society), the better off each individual person is because we capture a larger cooperative surplus of utility. For instance, I can catch 5 fish on my own, but together we might haul in a net with 30 fish. A family living in the wilderness with 5 members is better than a single person living on their own in the wilderness. A clan of 50 people is even better. A village of 200 is better still, and a city of 150,000 so much the better. The principle of cohesion demands that we continue to include more and more people in our society so as to better each individual. Osama bin Laden has committed wrong for seeking to make war and for killing the workers of the cooperative society. His actions violate the principle of cohesion, and so constitute a wrong against the State. To the extent to which we damage those outside our society, we have harmed our own self-interest (since those outsiders may be included in our cooperative endeavor which would ultimately better our individual outcomes).
Even criminal justice takes on a different flavor for me. On the one hand, we can colloquially refer to us as punishing the bad actions, but I see this as succumbing to the folk psychology that permeates our archaic view of ‘choice.’ In a real sense, the man who robs the liquor store did not choose to do so. His choice is the result of particular neural pathways, chemical levels, and electrical activity in his brain. These pathways may have been created at birth, or may be the result of after-birth alterations and development (which themselves would be caused by other phenomena). I tend to view criminal justice as not punishing the bad act, but by instead punishing the bad actor. To rehabilitate the actor, we administer certain levels of disutility to him to attempt to create alterations to his neural pathways in order to get him to adopt a higher rationality than the one he used to commit the crime. In an ideal world where we were advanced enough in the mental sciences and surgery, I fully expect that criminal rehabilitation will be possible without the use of prisons or electric chairs, but instead will be accomplished with mechanical implements to make the necessary alterations to people’s minds before they commit the crime in the first place.
Self-interest defines ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ but without succumbing to relativity or short-term rational acts like those of criminals. Indeed, self-interest of the individual actor is precisely why other people are important. I sensed a negative connotation in your correct assertion that “those who aren’t helped don’t matter any more than trees that are burned down in a fire or wildlife that is drowned in a flood.” That is of course absolutely true. Trees are valuable to us because they provide utility. We can sit under them, cut them down for timber, eat of their fruits, and they provide indirect use by providing homes to the non-human animals we can use in other ways. The animals drowned in a flood are valuable to us as well, because they provide us with utility in similar ways (many people are happy when they see a cute rabbit for instance). Other human animals are valuable to the individual actor for similar reasons, although generally, they are capable of producing far greater utility for the individual. In their nature, there is no real difference, and they are important for the same reasons. What is changed is the magnitude of their value, not the reasons for valuing them.
The ultimate ground of a determinist universe is an assumption of just such a ground. You are right there, but the ultimate test of a theory (the highest test a theory can undergo) is its cohesion with other established theories in science. ‘Cause-and-effect’ is a necessary component to the physical study of any phenomenon, else how could we expect any observation to be repeated in the presence of even identical circumstances?
I’m willing to accept that we do not have direct access to physical phenomena. Such access runs counter to what we know of mental processes, and to the extent to which that infers the circularity problem, I grant it. Ultimately though, I will contend that there are only two possible outcomes for a coherent view of the universe: A universe based on evidence (cause-and-effect) or a universe based on non-evidence (magic, astrology, god-did-it-ism, etc.). A non-physical consciousness falls into the second category. Each category can provide a complete explanation for every observable phenomenon in the universe, and each is totally internally coherent. But both must be made on the assumption that they are true before proceeding to apply them to the universe. If each is a complete explanation that is internally coherent (and I maintain that they are), and conflict with each other (as I would maintain that they do), there can be no principled way to apply both to the universe simultaneously. Why should I treat a box moving down an inclined plane differently from the emotion of love? Either both can be explained magically (Venus is in the 3rd house, so the box moved down the plane and God makes us love each other) or both can be explained physically (the frictional and air resistances were not enough to negate the force of gravity on the box and a flood of endorphins results when I see a particular pattern I recognize as a certain female face). Adopting both magical and non-magical thinking is an unnecessary complication and in the end they are unable to logically coexist without putting up arbitrary barriers in the physical universe (like arbitrarily separating consciousness and morality from chemistry and oceanography).
That said, once you assume the paradigm of an evidence-centered existence, positivism and science become both objective and a universally privileged way of constituting knowledge. The critique of pure reason and its progeny were all critiques of the “beweisgrund” (grounding) of rationality. I have no problem admitting this objection. Science IS circular, but so is every system of understanding. The questions to ask, when choosing which one we want to use to understand the universe, are “Which system is internally consistent?” and “Which system provides us with the greatest amount of benefit?”
In this case, I think the answer is clearly in favor of science. While magical thinkers will have trouble explaining why God can exist but astrology is bunk, a scientist will never have trouble explaining the physiological differences between mice and men. While Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions (and frequently die after accidents) because of an ambiguous phrase from scripture about blood being eternal, science has brought us the tools to extract blood from a living human, store it (no small feat), replace it into another living person, and now even to manufacture artificial blood.
Unless we wish to shift to an entirely magical, non-evidence centered universe, or unless we can come up with some non-arbitrary reason to draw a line across human experience dividing it into “things which require evidence” and “things which do not require evidence,” consciousness must be a physical process subject to physical laws and capable of being altered physically with the right processes. Thus, unless we wish to do away with the entire scientific enterprise, and all of the advances it has gifted us with in all of human history, the only valid critiques of game theory and social choice theory can come from within the scientific paradigm.
I’ve been meaning to respond to your post forever, but things got a little crazy and have just recently settled down (just in time for finals). First I’ll cite what I feel are the philosophical problems with your position, then what I feel are the consequences of such thinking:
1) Philosophical Problems: As I look over your last post, it seems to me that your position moves by way of assertion rather than reasoning. What is worrisome is that it easily falls back into dichotomous thinking, assuming as it does that all of the possibilities are on the table. The propositions you advance are not mutually exclusive. Indeed common sense thinking tends to reject such exclusivity, employing instead overlapping and even contradictory registers of discourse that enable various ways of thinking about the world necessary for meaningful understanding and action. It recognizes that to conjoin them all under one heading, a meta-language would be required, something which scientific thinking rejects at the same time that it surreptitiously advances metaphysics all of its own.
You presuppose that the objects or phenomena for which each would seek to give an account would be the same, but facts are not independent from the theories within which they are revealed and made sense of. To accept that is to reassert the subject object distinction and eschew the intentional character knowledge. In any case, that is what Kant seemed to be pointing to when he says that knowledge is a cooperative affair.
There are other ways to think through these issues, for example by way of transcendental (Kant) or phenomenological thinking (Husserl). Neither presupposes causality or magic as a point of departure, rather both endeavor to describe the more fundamental ground upon which either form of revealing reside.
I think it is clear that science cannot ground ethical values. And clearly, measuring benefit depends upon the values that determine what is desirable or not desirable, what is beneficial and not beneficial. So when you ask which provides the more relevant foundation from which benefits can be assessed and claimed, the only answer is neither of your dichotomous categories. I certainly don’t believe magic has anything to do with my view of the religious properly understood.
In supporting your thesis, you cite to consistency, but consistency is never an adequate test of truth. Racism, which developed out of the modern scientific zeal to categorize all life, produced a whole range of consistent categories for classifying human phenomena; unfortunately, they were based on an inadequate primary premise. Most ideologies are highly consistent; indeed that is proof of their circularity.
To reiterate an earlier point, attempts to calculate “benefit,” you must have grounded values on which to base your calculations. Grounding values stands beyond the purview of science. What actually happens is that traditional Judeo-Christian values have been re-digested only to reappear in secular garb called “humanism,” which despite all of its idealism cannot be fully justified by reason alone. Nietzsche was wholly correct in heaping ridicule on their supposed rational and objective protection.
I don’t think anyone who understands the philosophy of science would argue that game theory or science can ever ground themselves from within. It is what Husserl called a psychologism, since every such effort will beg the question in presupposing exactly what it should be proving. It is like trying to secure a foundation for mathematical thinking by way of literary interpretation. As I mentioned before, every epistemological system depends upon ontological assumptions, it is at this level that you will find justifications and their limits for methodological protocols.
As such, it is hard for me to find these conclusions compelling. The idea that game theory and social choice theories can be only be assessed from within the scientific paradigm (many paradigms constitute the horizon of scientific thinking) is simply false. There are a whole range of criticisms that can be articulated from an ontological and an ethical viewpoint. Moreover, I’m not sure either of these theories really is what you could call “scientific,” they seem to have much more in common with mathematics in that they are apriori deductive.
2) Logical Consequences: I think the point of my last post got drowned in the discussion about the inadequate explanations for consciousness. It's not about having a separate scientific system for explaining differences in phenomena. It's about the limits involved in science's attempts to explain the world.
You claim morality need not be relative in a determinist universe, but how can it be otherwise? There simply can be no morality in a deterministic world. People have no choices for which they can be responsible. Nothing could ever be other than the way it is. Evolutionary mechanisms are par for the course. Murder is not wrong, it is survival of the fittest. You claim that "wrong" we be defined as whatever the "'best' rational strategy might be." But in that world there can be no irrationality. Everything is dictated by science and is as it should be. If people pursue a "non-rational" strategy, it is merely because biology and science dictated that they must. You claim that the Dahmers and Bundys are guilty of the worst type of wrong-doing, but how can this be? The "prisoner" dilemma you refer to ONLY works if people have CHOICE. In a deterministic world there would never be a question of which end someone would choose. There would be no "rational" or "irrational"… those very terms signify some sort of mental process that allows for choice. The Dahmers and Bundys are no more "guilty" for pursuing the courses they took than a child is guilty for being born retarded. Nothing can qualify as a "birth" defect under your theory because there can be no "defective." Everything has a proper scientific explanation. If a species dies out, science dictated that it should. Nothing "wrong" happened.
All the theories you refer to are fine for what they are, theories that claim to explain why people joined to make larger societies and why they have made some of the choices they've made. None of them are at odds with the idea of choice though. In fact, they seem to depend on it. They presuppose a "rational" being that can make decisions and they allow for the possibility that sometimes that being can fail to make the "rational" ones. Any attempt at trying to convince people to make more "rational" decisions is one that embraces a theory of choice.
Your arguments really fail to make this distinction. As you discuss the criminal justice system you seem to implicitly argue that we could dispense justice in some other way. But we would have no more control over how we handled miscreants than the "wrong" doers had in committing the acts that they did. You refer to an "ideal" world, but under a deterministic philosophy there can be no ideal world!! There can be no re-habilitation! We are all simply a movie that has already been played. Our respective ends will not change, they have all already been determined. The world simply is at it is and could not be in different. Every time you argue for others to choose a better way more "ideal" way or pursue a different course, you are doing violence to your theory of a pre-determined world.
Part of me questions whether you really accept the deterministic world you claim to embrace. A reading of just a few of your blogs (whether they bemoan the death of progressives in American politics or the failure of people to take seriously cruelty to non-human animals) makes clear that you think people can be influenced through the ideas and actions of others – You seem to readily accept that people DO have choices and can choose DIFFERENTLY, and this is in direct contradiction to any sort of deterministic philosophy. (Similarly, the knife in the side of B.F. Skinner’s behaviorist theories (and one that his critics have so effectively turned and wielded), is that he continually argued for Congress to legislate in such a way to make better effect of his theories – likewise assuming that Congress had some sort of choice in how it legislated – In complete contradiction to his behaviorist theories.
Is it weird that I check this every week or so just to see if you've responded?
me too,
could someone throw in some kirkegaard please?
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