If welfare of strangers is something you value, then it is not a net cost.
Yes, there is an old-fashioned definition of altruism that assumes the action must be non-self-serving, but this doesn’t match common contemporary usage (terms like effective altruism and reciprocal altruism would be meaningless), doesn’t match your usage, and is based on a gross misunderstanding of how morality comes about (if written about this misunderstanding here—see section 4, “Honesty as meta-virtue,” for the most relevant part).
Under that old, confused definition, yes, altruism can not be rational (but not orthogonal to rationality—we could still try to measure how irrational any given altruistic act is, each act still sits somewhere on the scale of rationality).
It does not.
You seem very confident of that. Utterly bizarre, though, that you claim that not infringing on people’s rights is not part of being nice to people.
But the social contract demands much more than just not infringing on people’s rights. (By the way, where do those right come from?) We must actively seek each other out, trade (even if it’s only trade in ideas, like now), and cooperate (this discussion wouldn’t be possible without certain adopted codes of conduct ).
The social contract enables specialization in society, and therefore complex technology. This works through our ability to make and maintain agreements and cooperation. If you know how to make screws, and I want screws, the social contract enables you to convincingly promise to hand over screws if I give you some special bits of paper. If I don’t trust you for some reason, then the agreement breaks down. You lose income, I lose the screws I need for my factory employing 500 people, we all go bust. Your knowledge of how to make screws and my expertise in making screw drivers now counts for nothing, and everybody is screwed.
We help maintain trust by being nice to each other outside our direct trading. Furthermore, by being nice to people in trouble who we have never before met, we enhance a culture of trust that people in trouble will be helped out. We therefore increase the chances that people will help us out next time we end up in the shit. Much more importantly, we reduce a major source of people’s fears. Social cohesion goes up, cooperation increases, and people are more free to take risks in new technologies and / or economic ventures: society gets better, and we derive personal benefit from that.
I think we have a pretty major disagreement about that :-/
The social contract is a technology that entangles the values of different people (there are biological mechanisms that do that as well). Generally, my life is better when the lives of people around me are better. If your screw factory goes bust, then I’m negatively affected. If my neighbour lives in terror, then who knows what he might do out of fear—I am at risk. If everybody was scared about where their next meal was coming from, then I would never leave the house for fear that what food I have would be stolen in my absence—economics collapses. Because we have this entangled utility function, what’s bad for others is bad for me (in expectation), and what’s bad for me is bad for everybody else. For the most part, then, any self defeating behaviour (e.g. irrational attempts to be nice to others) is bad for society, and, in the long run, doesn’t help anybody.
If welfare of strangers is something you value, then it is not a net cost.
Having a particular value cannot have a cost. Values start to have costs only when they are realized or implemented.
Costlessly increasing the welfare of strangers doesn’t sound like altruism to me. Let’s say we start telling people “Say yes and magically a hundred lives will be saved in Chad. Nothing is required of you but to say ‘yes’.” How many people will say “yes”? I bet almost everyone. And we will be suspicious of those who do not—they would look like sociopaths to us. That doesn’t mean that we should call everyone but sociopaths is an altruist—you can, of course, define altruism that way but at this point the concept becomes diluted into meaninglessness.
We continue to have major disagreements about the social contract, but that’s a big discussion that should probably go off into a separate thread if you want to pursue it.
Values start to have costs only when they are realized or implemented.
How? Are you saying that I might hold legitimate value in something, but be worse off if I get it?
Costlessly increasing the welfare of strangers doesn’t sound like altruism to me.
OK, so we are having a dictionary writers’ dispute—one I don’t especially care to continue. So every place I used ‘altruism,’ substitute ‘being decent’ or ‘being a good egg,’ or whatever. (Please check, though, that your usage is somewhat consistent.)
But your initial claim (the one that I initially challenged) was that rationality has nothing to do with value, and is manifestly false.
I don’t think we understand each other. We start from different points, ascribe different meaning to the same words, and think in different frameworks. I think you’re much confused and no doubt you think the same of me.
The social contract enables specialization in society, and therefore complex technology. This works through our ability to make and maintain agreements and cooperation. If you know how to make screws, and I want screws, the social contract enables you to convincingly promise to hand over screws if I give you some special bits of paper. If I don’t trust you for some reason, then the agreement breaks down.
Either you’re using a broader definition of the social contract than I’m familiar with, or you’re giving it too much credit. The model I know with provides (one mechanism for) the legitimacy of a government or legal system, and therefore of the legal rights it establishes including an expectation of enforcement; but you don’t need it to have media of exchange, nor cooperation between individuals, nor specialization. At most it might make these more scalable.
And of course there are models that deny the existence of a social contract entirely, but that’s a little off topic.
If you look closely, I think you should find that legitimacy of government & legal systems comes from the same mechanism as everything I talked about.
You don’t need it to have media of exchange, nor cooperation between individuals, nor specialization
Actually, the whole point of governments and legal systems (legitimate ones) is to encourage cooperation between individuals, so that’s a bit of a weird comment. (Where do you think the legitimacy comes from?) And specialization trivially depends upon cooperation.
Yes, these things can exist to a small degree in a post-apocalyptic chaos, but they will not exactly flourish. (That’s why we call it post-apocalyptic chaos.) But the extent to which these things can exist is a measure of how well the social contract flourishes. Don’t get too hung up on exactly, precisely what ‘social contract’ means, it’s only a crude metaphor. (There is no actual bit of paper anywhere.)
I may not be blameless, in terms clearly explaining my position, but I’m sensing that a lot of people on this forum just plain dislike my views, without bothering to take the time to consider them honestly.
Actually, the whole point of governments and legal systems [...] is to encourage cooperation between individuals [...] And specialization trivially depends upon cooperation.
I have my quibbles with the social contract theory of government, but my main objection here isn’t to the theory itself, but that you’re attributing features to it that it clearly isn’t responsible for. You don’t need post-apocalyptic chaos to find situations that social contracts don’t cover: for example, there is no social contract on the international stage (pre-superpower, if you’d prefer), but nations still specialize and make alliances and transfer value.
The point of government (and therefore the social contract, if you buy that theory of legitimacy) is to facilitate cooperation. You seem to be suggesting that it enables it, which is a different and much stronger claim.
I think that international relations is a simple extension of social-contract-like considerations.
If nations cooperate, it is because it is believed to be in their interest to do so. Social-contract-like considerations form the basis for that belief. (The social contract is simply that which makes it useful to cooperate.) “Clearly isn’t responsible for,” is a phrase you should be careful before using.
You seem to be suggesting that [government] enables [cooperation]
I guess you mean that I’m saying cooperation is impossible without government. I didn’t say that. Government is a form of cooperation. Albeit a highly sophisticated one, and a very powerful facilitator.
I have my quibbles with the social contract theory of government
I appreciate your frankness. I’m curious, do you have an alternative view of how government derives legitimacy? What is it that makes the rules and structure of society useful? Or do you think that government has no legitimacy?
If nations cooperate, it is because it is believed to be in their interest to do so. Social-contract-like considerations form the basis for that belief. (The social contract is simply that which makes it useful to cooperate.)
The social contract, according to Hobbes and its later proponents, is the implicit deal that citizens (and, at a logical extension, other subordinate entities) make with their governments, trading off some of their freedom of action for greater security and potentially the maintenance of certain rights. That implies some higher authority with compelling powers of enforcement, and there’s no such thing in international relations; it’s been described (indeed, by Hobbes himself) as a formalized anarchy. Using the phrase to describe the motives for cooperation in such a state extends it far beyond its original sense, and IMO beyond usefulness.
There are however other reasons to cooperate: status, self-enforced codes of ethics, enlightened self-interest. It’s these that dominate in international relations, which is why I brought that up.
If welfare of strangers is something you value, then it is not a net cost.
Yes, there is an old-fashioned definition of altruism that assumes the action must be non-self-serving, but this doesn’t match common contemporary usage (terms like effective altruism and reciprocal altruism would be meaningless), doesn’t match your usage, and is based on a gross misunderstanding of how morality comes about (if written about this misunderstanding here—see section 4, “Honesty as meta-virtue,” for the most relevant part).
Under that old, confused definition, yes, altruism can not be rational (but not orthogonal to rationality—we could still try to measure how irrational any given altruistic act is, each act still sits somewhere on the scale of rationality).
You seem very confident of that. Utterly bizarre, though, that you claim that not infringing on people’s rights is not part of being nice to people.
But the social contract demands much more than just not infringing on people’s rights. (By the way, where do those right come from?) We must actively seek each other out, trade (even if it’s only trade in ideas, like now), and cooperate (this discussion wouldn’t be possible without certain adopted codes of conduct ).
The social contract enables specialization in society, and therefore complex technology. This works through our ability to make and maintain agreements and cooperation. If you know how to make screws, and I want screws, the social contract enables you to convincingly promise to hand over screws if I give you some special bits of paper. If I don’t trust you for some reason, then the agreement breaks down. You lose income, I lose the screws I need for my factory employing 500 people, we all go bust. Your knowledge of how to make screws and my expertise in making screw drivers now counts for nothing, and everybody is screwed.
We help maintain trust by being nice to each other outside our direct trading. Furthermore, by being nice to people in trouble who we have never before met, we enhance a culture of trust that people in trouble will be helped out. We therefore increase the chances that people will help us out next time we end up in the shit. Much more importantly, we reduce a major source of people’s fears. Social cohesion goes up, cooperation increases, and people are more free to take risks in new technologies and / or economic ventures: society gets better, and we derive personal benefit from that.
The social contract is a technology that entangles the values of different people (there are biological mechanisms that do that as well). Generally, my life is better when the lives of people around me are better. If your screw factory goes bust, then I’m negatively affected. If my neighbour lives in terror, then who knows what he might do out of fear—I am at risk. If everybody was scared about where their next meal was coming from, then I would never leave the house for fear that what food I have would be stolen in my absence—economics collapses. Because we have this entangled utility function, what’s bad for others is bad for me (in expectation), and what’s bad for me is bad for everybody else. For the most part, then, any self defeating behaviour (e.g. irrational attempts to be nice to others) is bad for society, and, in the long run, doesn’t help anybody.
I hope this helps.
Having a particular value cannot have a cost. Values start to have costs only when they are realized or implemented.
Costlessly increasing the welfare of strangers doesn’t sound like altruism to me. Let’s say we start telling people “Say yes and magically a hundred lives will be saved in Chad. Nothing is required of you but to say ‘yes’.” How many people will say “yes”? I bet almost everyone. And we will be suspicious of those who do not—they would look like sociopaths to us. That doesn’t mean that we should call everyone but sociopaths is an altruist—you can, of course, define altruism that way but at this point the concept becomes diluted into meaninglessness.
We continue to have major disagreements about the social contract, but that’s a big discussion that should probably go off into a separate thread if you want to pursue it.
How? Are you saying that I might hold legitimate value in something, but be worse off if I get it?
OK, so we are having a dictionary writers’ dispute—one I don’t especially care to continue. So every place I used ‘altruism,’ substitute ‘being decent’ or ‘being a good egg,’ or whatever. (Please check, though, that your usage is somewhat consistent.)
But your initial claim (the one that I initially challenged) was that rationality has nothing to do with value, and is manifestly false.
I don’t think we understand each other. We start from different points, ascribe different meaning to the same words, and think in different frameworks. I think you’re much confused and no doubt you think the same of me.
Either you’re using a broader definition of the social contract than I’m familiar with, or you’re giving it too much credit. The model I know with provides (one mechanism for) the legitimacy of a government or legal system, and therefore of the legal rights it establishes including an expectation of enforcement; but you don’t need it to have media of exchange, nor cooperation between individuals, nor specialization. At most it might make these more scalable.
And of course there are models that deny the existence of a social contract entirely, but that’s a little off topic.
If you look closely, I think you should find that legitimacy of government & legal systems comes from the same mechanism as everything I talked about.
Actually, the whole point of governments and legal systems (legitimate ones) is to encourage cooperation between individuals, so that’s a bit of a weird comment. (Where do you think the legitimacy comes from?) And specialization trivially depends upon cooperation.
Yes, these things can exist to a small degree in a post-apocalyptic chaos, but they will not exactly flourish. (That’s why we call it post-apocalyptic chaos.) But the extent to which these things can exist is a measure of how well the social contract flourishes. Don’t get too hung up on exactly, precisely what ‘social contract’ means, it’s only a crude metaphor. (There is no actual bit of paper anywhere.)
I may not be blameless, in terms clearly explaining my position, but I’m sensing that a lot of people on this forum just plain dislike my views, without bothering to take the time to consider them honestly.
I have my quibbles with the social contract theory of government, but my main objection here isn’t to the theory itself, but that you’re attributing features to it that it clearly isn’t responsible for. You don’t need post-apocalyptic chaos to find situations that social contracts don’t cover: for example, there is no social contract on the international stage (pre-superpower, if you’d prefer), but nations still specialize and make alliances and transfer value.
The point of government (and therefore the social contract, if you buy that theory of legitimacy) is to facilitate cooperation. You seem to be suggesting that it enables it, which is a different and much stronger claim.
I think that international relations is a simple extension of social-contract-like considerations.
If nations cooperate, it is because it is believed to be in their interest to do so. Social-contract-like considerations form the basis for that belief. (The social contract is simply that which makes it useful to cooperate.) “Clearly isn’t responsible for,” is a phrase you should be careful before using.
I guess you mean that I’m saying cooperation is impossible without government. I didn’t say that. Government is a form of cooperation. Albeit a highly sophisticated one, and a very powerful facilitator.
I appreciate your frankness. I’m curious, do you have an alternative view of how government derives legitimacy? What is it that makes the rules and structure of society useful? Or do you think that government has no legitimacy?
The social contract, according to Hobbes and its later proponents, is the implicit deal that citizens (and, at a logical extension, other subordinate entities) make with their governments, trading off some of their freedom of action for greater security and potentially the maintenance of certain rights. That implies some higher authority with compelling powers of enforcement, and there’s no such thing in international relations; it’s been described (indeed, by Hobbes himself) as a formalized anarchy. Using the phrase to describe the motives for cooperation in such a state extends it far beyond its original sense, and IMO beyond usefulness.
There are however other reasons to cooperate: status, self-enforced codes of ethics, enlightened self-interest. It’s these that dominate in international relations, which is why I brought that up.