Doesn’t this make some very big assumptions about the fixity of people’s circumstances? If my life is so bad that smoking crack begins to seem rational, then surely, taking actual steps to improve my life would be more rational. Similarly, I imagine that the $5 spent on a lottery ticket could be better spent on something that was a positive first step toward improving even the worst of circumstances. Seems the only way this wouldn’t be true would be if you simply assert, by fiat, that the person’s circumstances are immutable, but I’m not sure whether this accords with reality. (One’s politics are clearly implicated here.)
If my life is so bad that smoking crack begins to seem rational, then surely, taking actual steps to improve my life would be more rational.
I don’t see how this automatically follows. If U < 0 for all mental states you inhabit except being high on crack, then you should do crack. There may be a discounting effect here, meaning you might want to avoid smoking crack until you have enough resources to smoke even more crack later. Your point seems to imply that “improving your life” would change your utility function, which doesn’t really fly as a rational argument.
While I can imagine a situation where one’s utility function would be as you described, it’s a pretty contrived one, e.g., a destitute crack addict suffering from a painful terminal illness, where the second best choice would be suicide. More importantly, for the typical crack user—the kind Phil Goetz was referencing—there’s almost always going to be something they could be spending the money on that would give them a higher expected utility over the long run (“bettering one’s situation”). It’s no small claim to say there isn’t.
While my example is a bit contrived, Phil said “some of them”, not “most of them”. I don’t understand the typical crack user very well, but I can pretty easily conjecture a ruined mind requiring some quite high threshold of stimulation to enjoy itself.
So let’s weaken the example, and make them fixable. From there I’d say asserting that they should almost always be able to rationally derive a reliable method of repairing their broken state with higher expected return than smoking crack for the rest of their life is no small claim. But really, I have no idea what it’s like to be them.
Doesn’t this make some very big assumptions about the fixity of people’s circumstances? If my life is so bad that smoking crack begins to seem rational, then surely, taking actual steps to improve my life would be more rational. Similarly, I imagine that the $5 spent on a lottery ticket could be better spent on something that was a positive first step toward improving even the worst of circumstances. Seems the only way this wouldn’t be true would be if you simply assert, by fiat, that the person’s circumstances are immutable, but I’m not sure whether this accords with reality. (One’s politics are clearly implicated here.)
I don’t see how this automatically follows. If U < 0 for all mental states you inhabit except being high on crack, then you should do crack. There may be a discounting effect here, meaning you might want to avoid smoking crack until you have enough resources to smoke even more crack later. Your point seems to imply that “improving your life” would change your utility function, which doesn’t really fly as a rational argument.
While I can imagine a situation where one’s utility function would be as you described, it’s a pretty contrived one, e.g., a destitute crack addict suffering from a painful terminal illness, where the second best choice would be suicide. More importantly, for the typical crack user—the kind Phil Goetz was referencing—there’s almost always going to be something they could be spending the money on that would give them a higher expected utility over the long run (“bettering one’s situation”). It’s no small claim to say there isn’t.
While my example is a bit contrived, Phil said “some of them”, not “most of them”. I don’t understand the typical crack user very well, but I can pretty easily conjecture a ruined mind requiring some quite high threshold of stimulation to enjoy itself.
So let’s weaken the example, and make them fixable. From there I’d say asserting that they should almost always be able to rationally derive a reliable method of repairing their broken state with higher expected return than smoking crack for the rest of their life is no small claim. But really, I have no idea what it’s like to be them.