Statements similar to ‘the purpose of government is to keep citizens safe’. One way these statements can be confusing is because they don’t have the agent argument, but they can also be confusing in a different way. If Carol is an ordinary citizen, the phrase ‘the purpose of government to Carol is to keep citizens safe’ is not much better. The reason, I think, is that Carol probably has not optimized government very much for that goal. In fact she probably has not optimized government much for any goal since it’s generally out of her control.
Statements like ‘the purpose of government is Y’ imply that there is a process which has optimized the institution of government according to some criteria, but there is no obvious agent or process to have optimized it. If you take voter irrationality seriously anyway.
Using purpose as a synonym of has optimized for also makes sense of phrases like ‘the evolutionary purpose of cat tails is increased balance’, even though evolution is not an agent, since it seems quite plausible that evolution has optimized cat tails so they increase their balance.
Other examples:
‘The purpose of a doorstop is to hold open doors’. The manufacturer has optimized the doorstop to be good at holding open doors, and doorstop owners have optimized (by selection) for the same purpose.
‘The purpose of TV is to keep the masses distracted’. Implies some process has optimized TV for distracting the masses. What process that is, is not obvious.
I think using the word “purpose” to describe optimizations by non-human agents makes it too easy to anthropomorphize the relevant agents and should be avoided. I am not sure what a good non-technical substitute word might be. Maybe “point”?
Elaboration on purpose
Statements similar to ‘the purpose of government is to keep citizens safe’. One way these statements can be confusing is because they don’t have the agent argument, but they can also be confusing in a different way. If Carol is an ordinary citizen, the phrase ‘the purpose of government to Carol is to keep citizens safe’ is not much better. The reason, I think, is that Carol probably has not optimized government very much for that goal. In fact she probably has not optimized government much for any goal since it’s generally out of her control.
Statements like ‘the purpose of government is Y’ imply that there is a process which has optimized the institution of government according to some criteria, but there is no obvious agent or process to have optimized it. If you take voter irrationality seriously anyway.
Using purpose as a synonym of has optimized for also makes sense of phrases like ‘the evolutionary purpose of cat tails is increased balance’, even though evolution is not an agent, since it seems quite plausible that evolution has optimized cat tails so they increase their balance.
Other examples:
‘The purpose of a doorstop is to hold open doors’. The manufacturer has optimized the doorstop to be good at holding open doors, and doorstop owners have optimized (by selection) for the same purpose.
‘The purpose of TV is to keep the masses distracted’. Implies some process has optimized TV for distracting the masses. What process that is, is not obvious.
I think using the word “purpose” to describe optimizations by non-human agents makes it too easy to anthropomorphize the relevant agents and should be avoided. I am not sure what a good non-technical substitute word might be. Maybe “point”?