If you can achieve the same outcome using an easy way, or using a hard way, then the easy way is preferable, and you do not get any extra point for using the hard way. Your utility points depend on the outcome, your virtue points are proportional to the difficulty of the easy way—whether you actually took it or not.
If you can achieve an outcome only using the hard way, your utility points depend on the outcome, your virtue points are proportional to the difficulty of the hard way.
That is, your utility points always depend on the outcome. Your virtue points… seem proportional to the easiest way that way possible to you. You get the virtue points for going towards the outcome (as opposed to not doing anything), but you do not get extra virtue points for making it more difficult than it needed to be.
If you are a Superman (all tasks are super easy for you), does it mean you can’t get many virtue points? Not at all; you just need to do a lot of tasks. So much that it will be difficult to do all of them… which is kinda the point.
This is all about what you should do as an individual who works alone. Then we also need to consider implications (for virtue points and utility points) of dividing the labor (by trade or otherwise) between people who have different skills.
Intuitively, the group utility points depend on the total outcome produced. The group virtue points should be calculated based on the most reasonable division of labor (everyone following their relative advantages); there should be no extra points for being idiots and assigning each work to the person least fit to do it.
Trade allows you to increase total utility. I mean, if for person A it is easy to do X, but difficult to do Y; and for person B it is difficult to do X, but easy to do Y; if they agree that A does all X, and B does all Y, they can produce more in total.
But it seems like the trade does not allow you to increase total virtue. I mean, assuming that you spend 100% of your energy when you were working along, then whatever trade you arrange, ultimately you can only spend 100% of your energy doing your part, so even if you produce more… you don’t get more virtue points.
But then, if we ignore the utility points for a moment, is there any point to engage in trade from the virtue perspective? I think the answer is that if you know there is an opportunity to trade, but you refuse it, you should be docked some virtue points for needlessly choosing the more difficult way (i.e. your virtue points now do not depend on how hard you actually work, but how hard would you have to work if you used the benefits of trade).
This all works out in short term—each individual independently maximizing their virtue points is aligned with more output. What about long term? Virtue points are awarded for the fraction of your current capacity that you use, but in long term, there is a question of increasing your capacity (or refusing to do so). As you say, working on increasing your capacity is a virtuous thing. Having your capacity increased is not; you did the virtuous thing in the past, but you are not doing it now.
If you can achieve the same outcome using an easy way, or using a hard way, then the easy way is preferable, and you do not get any extra point for using the hard way. Your utility points depend on the outcome, your virtue points are proportional to the difficulty of the easy way—whether you actually took it or not.
If you can achieve an outcome only using the hard way, your utility points depend on the outcome, your virtue points are proportional to the difficulty of the hard way.
That is, your utility points always depend on the outcome. Your virtue points… seem proportional to the easiest way that way possible to you. You get the virtue points for going towards the outcome (as opposed to not doing anything), but you do not get extra virtue points for making it more difficult than it needed to be.
If you are a Superman (all tasks are super easy for you), does it mean you can’t get many virtue points? Not at all; you just need to do a lot of tasks. So much that it will be difficult to do all of them… which is kinda the point.
This is all about what you should do as an individual who works alone. Then we also need to consider implications (for virtue points and utility points) of dividing the labor (by trade or otherwise) between people who have different skills.
Intuitively, the group utility points depend on the total outcome produced. The group virtue points should be calculated based on the most reasonable division of labor (everyone following their relative advantages); there should be no extra points for being idiots and assigning each work to the person least fit to do it.
Trade allows you to increase total utility. I mean, if for person A it is easy to do X, but difficult to do Y; and for person B it is difficult to do X, but easy to do Y; if they agree that A does all X, and B does all Y, they can produce more in total.
But it seems like the trade does not allow you to increase total virtue. I mean, assuming that you spend 100% of your energy when you were working along, then whatever trade you arrange, ultimately you can only spend 100% of your energy doing your part, so even if you produce more… you don’t get more virtue points.
But then, if we ignore the utility points for a moment, is there any point to engage in trade from the virtue perspective? I think the answer is that if you know there is an opportunity to trade, but you refuse it, you should be docked some virtue points for needlessly choosing the more difficult way (i.e. your virtue points now do not depend on how hard you actually work, but how hard would you have to work if you used the benefits of trade).
This all works out in short term—each individual independently maximizing their virtue points is aligned with more output. What about long term? Virtue points are awarded for the fraction of your current capacity that you use, but in long term, there is a question of increasing your capacity (or refusing to do so). As you say, working on increasing your capacity is a virtuous thing. Having your capacity increased is not; you did the virtuous thing in the past, but you are not doing it now.