If I’m understanding correctly, “terminal values” are end-goals.
If we have different end-goals, we need to understand what they are. (Actually, we should understand what they are anyway—but if they’re different, it becomes particularly important to examine them and identify the differences.)
This seems related to a question that David Brin once suggested as a good one to bring up in political debate: Describe the sort of world do you hope your preferred policies will create. …or, in other words, describe your large-scale goals for our society—your terminal values.
My terminal values are to minimize suffering and maximize individual freedom and ability to create, explore, and grow in wisdom via learning about the universe.
If anyone has different terminal values, I’d like to hear more about that.
I don’t think any bumper sticker successfully encapsulates my terminal values. I’m highly sympathetic to ethical pluralism and particularism. I value fairness and happiness (politically I’m a cosmopolitan Rawlsian liberal) with additional values of freedom and honesty which under certain conditions can trump fairness and happiness. I also value the existence of what I would recognize as humanity and limiting the possibility of the destruction of humanity can sometimes trump all of the above. Values weighted toward myself, my family and friends. It’s possible all of these things could be reduced to more fundamental values, I’m not sure. There are cases where I have no good procedure for evaluating which outcome is more desirable.
My terminal values are to minimize suffering and maximize individual freedom and ability to create, explore, and grow in wisdom via learning about the universe.
It is worth noting, if you think these are rationally justifiable somehow, that maximizing two different values is going to leave with an incomplete function in some circumstances. Some options will maximize not suffering but fail to maximize freedom and vice versa.
If anyone has different terminal values, I’d like to hear more about that.
If you were looking for people here with different values, see above (though I don’t know how much we differ). But note that the people here are going to have heavy overlap on values for semi-obvious reasons. But there are people out there who assign intrinsic moral relevance to national borders, race, religion, sexual purity, tradition etc. Do you still deny that?
It seems to me that the terminal values you list are really just means to an end, and that the end in question is similar to my own—i.e. some combination of minimizing harm and maximizing freedom (to put it in terms which are a bit of an oversimplification).
For example: I also favor ethical pluralism (I’m not sure what “particularism” is), for the reasons that it leads to a more vibrant and creative society, whilst the opposite (which I guess would be suppressing or discouraging any but some “dominant” culture) leads to completely unnecessary suffering.
You are right that maximizing two values is not necessarily solvable. The apparaent duality of the goal as stated has more to do with the shortcomings of natural language than it does with the goals being contradictory. If you could assign numbers to “suffering” (S) and “individual freedom” (F), I would think that the goal would be to maximize aS + bF for some values of a and b which have yet to be worked out.
[Addendum: this function may be oversimplifying things as well; there may be one or more nonlinear functions applied to S and/or F before they are added. What I said below about the possible values of a and b applies also to these functions. A better statement of the overall function would probably be fa(S) + fb(F), where fa() and fb() are both—I would think—positively-sloped for all input values.]
[Edit: ACK! Got confused here; the function for S would be negative, i.e. we want less suffering.]
[Another edit in case anyone is still reading this comment for the first time: I don’t necessarily count “death” as non-suffering; I suppose this means “suffering” isn’t quite the right word, but I don’t have another one handy]
The exact values of a and b may vary from person to person—perhaps they even are the primary attributes which account for one’s political predispositions—but I would like to see an argument that there is some other desirable end goal for society, some other term which belongs in this equation.
...there are people out there who assign intrinsic moral relevance to national borders, race, religion, sexual purity, tradition etc. Do you still deny that?
I do not deny this, but I also do not believe they are being rational in those assignments. Why should the “morality” of a particular act matter in the slightest if it has been shown to be completely harmless?
For example: I also favor ethical pluralism (I’m not sure what “particularism” is), for the reasons that it leads to a more vibrant and creative society, whilst the opposite (which I guess would be suppressing or discouraging any but some “dominant” culture) leads to completely unnecessary suffering.
This is my fault. I don’t mean multiculturalism or politcal pluralism. I really do mean pluralism about terminal values. By particularism I mean that there are no moral principles and that the right action is entirely circumstance dependent. Note that I’m not actually a particularist since I did give you moral principles. I would say that I am a value pluralist.
It seems to me that the terminal values you list are really just means to an end, and that the end in question is similar to my own—i.e. some combination of minimizing harm and maximizing freedom (to put it in terms which are a bit of an oversimplification).
But I’m explicitly denying this. For example, I am a cosmopolitan. In your discussion with Matt you’ve said that for now you care about helping poor Americans, not the rest of the world. But this is totally antithetical to my terminal values. I would vastly prefer to spend political and economic capital to get rid of agricultural subsides in the developed world, liberalize as many immigration and trade laws as I can and test strategies for economic development. Whether or not the American working class has cheap health care really is quite insignificant to me by comparison.
Now, when I say I have a terminal value of fairness I really do mean it. I mean I would sacrifice utility or increase overall suffering in some circumstances in order to make the world more fair. I would do the same to make the world more free and the same to make the world more honest in some situations. I would do things that furthered the happiness of my friends and family but increased your suffering (nothing personal). I don’t know what gives you reason to deny any of this.
I do not deny this, but I also do not believe they are being rational in those assignments. Why should the “morality” of a particular act matter in the slightest if it has been shown to be completely harmless?
Now you’re just begging the question. My whole point this entire time is that there is no reason for morality to always be about harm. Indeed, there is no reason for morality to ever be about harm except that we make it so. I frankly don’t even understand the application of the word “rationality” as we use it hereto values. Unless you have a third meaning for the word your usage here is just a category error!
By particularism I mean that there are no moral principles and that the right action is entirely circumstance dependent.
So how do you rationally decide if an action is right or wrong? -- or are you saying you can’t do this?
Also, just to be clear: you are saying that you do not believe rightness or wrongness of an action ultimately derives from whether or not it does harm? (“Harm” being the more common term; I tried to refine it a bit as “personally-defined suffering”, but I think you’re disagreeing with the larger idea—not my refinement of it.)
In your discussion with Matt you’ve said that for now you care about helping poor Americans, not the rest of the world.
Matt (I believe) misinterpreted me that way too. No, that is not what I said.
What I was trying to convey was that I thought I had a workable and practical principle by which poor Americans could be helped (redistribution of American wealth via mechanisms and rules yet to be worked out), while I don’t have such a solution for the rest of the world [yet].
I tried to make it quite clear that I do care about the rest of the world; the fact that I don’t yet have a solution for them (and am therefore not offering one) does not negate this.
I also tried to make it quite clear that my solution for Americans must not come at the price of harming others in the world, and that (further) I believe that as long as it avoids this, it may be of some benefit to the rest of the world as we will not be allowing unused resources to languish in the hands of the very richest people (who really don’t need them) -- leaving the philanthropists among us free to focus on poverty worldwide rather than domestically.
(At a glance, I agree with your global policy position. I don’t think it contradicts my own. I’m not talking about reallocation of existing expenditures—foreign aid, tax revenues, etc. -- I’m talking about reallocating unused—one might even use the word “hoarded”—resources, via means socialistic, capitalistic, or whatever means seems best*.)
(*the definition of this slippery term comes back ultimately to what we’re discussing here: “what is good?”)
Now you’re just begging the question. My whole point this entire time is that there is no reason for morality to always be about harm. Indeed, there is no reason for morality to ever be about harm except that we make it so. I frankly don’t even understand the application of the word “rationality” as we use it here to values. Unless you have a third meaning for the word your usage here is just a category error!
First of all, when I say “harm” or “suffering”, I’m not talking about something like “punishing someone for bad behavior”; the idea behind doing that (whether correct or not) is that this ultimately benefits them somehow, and any argument over such punishment will be based on whether harm or good is being done overall. “Hitting a masochist” would not necessarily qualify as harm, especially if you will stop when the masochist asks you to.
Second… when we look at harm or benefit, we have to look at the system of people affected. This isn’t to say that if {one person in the system benefits more than another is harmed} then it’s ok, because then we get into the complexity of what I’ll call the “benefit aggregation function”—which involves values that probably are individual.
It’s also reasonable (and often necessary) to look at a decision’s effects on society (if you let one starving person get away with stealing a cookie under a particular circumstance, then other hungry people may think it’s always okay to steal cookies) in the present and in the long term. This is the basis of many arguments against gay marriage, for example—the idea that society will somehow be harmed—and hence individuals will be harmed as society crumbles around them—by “changing the definition of marriage”. (The evidence is firmly against those arguments, but that’s not the point.)
Third: I’m arguing that “[avoiding] harm” is the ultimate basis for all empathetic-human arguments about morality, and I suggest that this would be true for any successful social species (not just humans). (by which I mean “humans with empathy”—specifically excluding psychopaths and other people whose primary motive is self-gratification)
I suggest that If you can’t argue that an action causes harm of some kind, you have absolutely no basis for claiming the action is wrong (within the context of discussions with other humans or social sophonts).
You seem to be arguing, however, that actions can be wrong without causing any demonstrable harm. Can you give an example?
So how do you rationally decide if an action is right or wrong? -- or are you saying you can’t do this?
There is no such thing as “rationally deciding if an action is right or wrong”. This has nothing to do with particularism. It’s just a metaethical position. I don’t know what can be rational or irrational about morality.
Again though, I’m not a particularist, I do have principles I can apply if I don’t have strong intuitions. A particularist only has her intuitions.
Also, just to be clear: you are saying that you do not believe rightness or wrongness of an action ultimately derives from whether or not it does harm? (“Harm” being the more common term; I tried to refine it a bit as “personally-defined suffering”, but I think you’re disagreeing with the larger idea—not my refinement of it.)
I don’t believe my own morality can be reduced to language about harm. I’m not sure what “ultimately derives” means but I suspect my answer is no. My morality happens to have a lot to do with harm (again, I’m a Haidtian liberal). But I don’t think that makes my morality more rational than a morality that is less about harm. There is no such thing a “rational” or “irrational” morality only moralities I find silly or abhorrent.
I tried to make it quite clear that I do care about the rest of the world; the fact that I don’t yet have a solution for them (and am therefore not offering one) does not negate this.
If it’s the case that you care about the rest of the world then I don’t think you realize how non-ideal your prescriptions are. You’re basically advocating for redistributing wealth from part of the global upper class to part of the global middle class and ignoring those experiencing the most pain and the most injustice.
I also tried to make it quite clear that my solution for Americans must not come at the price of harming others in the world, and that (further) I believe that as long as it avoids this, it may be of some benefit to the rest of the world as we will not be allowing unused resources to languish in the hands of the very richest people (who really don’t need them) -- leaving the philanthropists among us free to focus on poverty worldwide rather than domestically.
But of course it comes at the price of harming the rest of the world. You’re advocating sacrificing political resources to pass legislation. Those resources are to some extent limited which means you’re decreasing the chances of or at least delaying changes in policy which would actually benefit the poorest. Moreover, social entitlements are notoriously impossible to overturn which means you’re putting all this capital in a place we can’t take it from to give to the people who really need it. Shoot, at least the mega-rich are sometimes using their money to invest in developing countries.
This doesn’t even get us into preventing existential risk. When ever you have a utility-like morality using resources inefficiently is about as bad as actively doing harm.
You seem to be arguing, however, that actions can be wrong without causing any demonstrable harm. Can you give an example?
None you’ll agree with! You’ve already said your morality is about preventing harm! But like it or not there are people who really don’t care about suffering outside their own country. There are people who thing gay marriage is wrong no matter what effects it has on society (just as there are those, like me, who think it should be legal even if it damages society). There are those who do not believe we should criticize our leader under certain circumstances. There are those who believe our elders deserve respect above and beyond what they deserve as humans. There are those who believe sex outside of marriage is wrong. There are those who believe eating cow is immoral; there are others who believe eating cow is delicious. None of these people are necessarily rational or irrational.
I’ll reiterate one question: What do you mean by rational in “rational morality”?
You’re basically advocating for redistributing wealth from part of the global upper class to part of the global middle class and ignoring those experiencing the most pain and the most injustice.
I’ve explained repeatedly—perhaps not in this subthread, so I’ll reiterate—that I’m only proposing reallocating domestic resources within the US, not resources which would otherwise be spent on foreign aid of any kind. I don’t see how that can be harmful to anyone except (possibly) the extremely rich people from whom the resources are being reallocated.
(Will respond to your other points in separate comments, to maximize topic-focus of any subsequent discussion.)
So how do you rationally decide if an action is right or wrong? -- or are you saying you can’t do this?
I don’t know what can be rational or irrational about morality.
This is taken out of context, but I must take issue with it. If you can decide whether an action is right or wrong, then that decision can be made rationally, for any decent definition of ‘rationality’ that is about decisions.
So if you want to claim, “One cannot rationally decide whether an action is right or wrong”, that reduces to “One cannot decide whether an action is right or wrong”. In that case, would it be because your decisions can’t affect your beliefs, or because there is objective morality, or some other reason?
I’m not sure I understand your issue. If this response doesn’t work you may have to reexplain.
If you have some values—say happiness—then there can be irrational ways of evaluating actions in terms of those values. So if I’m concerned with happiness but only look at the effects of the action on my sneakers, and not the emotions of people, well that seems irrational if happiness is really what I care about. Certainly there are actions which can either be consistent or inconsistent with some set of values and taking actions that are inconsistent with your values is irrational. What I don’t see is what it could mean for those values to be rational or irrational in the first place. I don’t think people “decide” on terminal values in the way they decide on breakfast or to give to some charity over another.
Internal terminal values don’t have to be rational—but external ones (goals for society) do, and need to take individual ones into account. Violating an individual internal TV causes suffering, which violates my proposed universal external TV.
For instance… if I’m a heterosexual male, then one of my terminal values might be to form a pair-bond with a female of my species. That’s an internal terminal value. This doesn’t mean that I think everyone should do this; I can still support gay rights. “Supporting gay rights” is an external value, but not a terminal one for me. For a gay person, it probably would be a terminal value—so prohibiting gays from marrying would be violating their internal terminal values, which causes suffering, which violates my proposed universal external terminal value of “minimizing suffering / maximizing happiness”—and THAT is why it is wrong to prohibit gays from marrying, not because I personally happen to think it is wrong (i.e. not because of my external intermediate value of supporting gay rights).
I’m fine with that distinction but it doesn’t change my point. Why do external terminal values have to be rational? What does it mean for a value to be rational?
I finally figured out what was going on, and fixed it. For some reason it got posted in “drafts” instead of on the site, and looking at the post while logged in gave no clue that this was the case.
My terminal values are to minimize suffering and maximize individual freedom and ability to create, explore, and grow in wisdom via learning about the universe.
By ‘minimize suffering’ I assume you mean some kind of utilitarian conception of minimizing aggregate suffering equally weighted across all humans (and perhaps extended to include animals in some way). If so this would be one area we differ. Like most humans, I don’t apply equal weighting to all other individuals’ utilities. I don’t expect other people’s weightings to match my own, nor do I think it would be better if we all aimed to agree on a unique set of weightings. I care more about minimizing the suffering of my family and friends than I do about some random stranger, an animal, a serial killer, a child molester or a politician. I do not think this is a problem.
Much discussion about “minimization of suffering” etc. ensued from my first response to this comment, but I thought I should reiterate the point I was trying to make:
I propose that the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimize suffering.
(Tentative definition: “suffering” is any kind of discomfort over which the subject has no control.)
All other values (from any part of the political continuum) -- “human rights”, “justice”, “fairness”, “morality”, “faith”, “loyalty”, “honor”, “patriotism”, etc. -- are not rational terminal values.
This isn’t to say that they are useless. They serve as a kind of ethical shorthand, guidelines, rules-of-thumb, “philosophical first-aid”: somewhat-reliable predictors of which actions are likely to cause harm (and which are not) -- memes which are effective at reducing harm when people are infected by them. (Hence society often works hard to “sugar coat” them with simplistic, easily-comprehended—but essentially irrelevant—justifications, and otherwise encourage their spread.)
Nonetheless, they are not rational terminal values; they are stand-ins.
They also have a price:
they do not adapt well to changes in our evolving rational understanding of what causes harm/suffering, so that rules which we now know cause more suffering than benefit are still happily propagating out in the memetic wilderness...
any rigid rule (like any tool) can be abused.
...
I seem to have taken this line of thought a bit further than I meant to originally—so to summarize: I’d really like to hear if anyone believes there are other rational terminal values other than (or which cannot ultimately be reduced to) “minimizing suffering”.
I propose that the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimize suffering.
I disagree. I’ll take suffering rather than death any day, thank-you-very-much.
Furthermore, I have reason to believe that, if I were offered the opportunity to instantaneously and painlessly wipe out all life in the universe, many compassionate humans would support my decision not to do so, despite all the suffering which is thereby allowed to continue.
You think you’re disagreeing with me, but you’re not; I would say that for you, death would be a kind of suffering—the very worst kind, even.
I would also count the “wipe out all life” scenario as an extreme form of suffering. Anyone with any compassion would suffer in the mere knowledge that it was going to happen.
If you’re going to define suffering as ‘whatever we don’t like,’ including the possibility that it’s different for everyone, then I agree with your assertion but question it’s usefulness.
That seems related to what I was trying to get at with the placeholder-word “freedom”—I was thinking of things like “freedom to explore” and “freedom to create new things”—both of which seem highly related to “learning”.
It looks like we’re talking about two subtly different types of “terminal value”, though: for society and for one’s self. (Shall we call them “external” and “internal” TVs?)
I’m inclined to agree with your internal TV for “learning”, but that doesn’t mean that I would insist that a decision which prevented others from learning was necessarily wrong—perhaps some people have no interest in learning (though I’m not going to be inviting them to my birthday party).
If a decision prevented learnophiles from learning, though, I would count that as “harm” or “suffering”—and thus it would be against my external TVs.
Taking the thought a little further: I would be inclined to argue that unless an individual is clearly learnophobic, or it can be shown that too much learning could somehow damage them, then preventing learning in even neutral cases would also be harm—because learning is part of what makes us human. I realize, though, that this argument is on rather thinner rational ground than my main argument, and I’m mainly presenting it as a means of establishing common emotional ground. Please ignore it if this bothers you.
Take-away point: My proposed universal external TV (prevention of suffering) defines {involuntary violation of internal TVs} as harm/suffering.
I think you are wrong but I don’t think you’ve even defined the goal clearly enough to point to exactly where. Some questions:
How do we weight individual contributions to suffering? Are all humans weighted equally? Do we consider animal suffering?
How do we measure suffering? Should we prefer to transfer suffering from those with a lower pain threshold to those with a greater tolerance?
How do you avoid the classic unfriendly AI problem of deciding to wipe out humanity to eliminate suffering?
Do you think that people actually generally act in accordance with this principle or only that they should? If the latter to what extent do you think people currently do act in accordance with this value?
There are plenty of other problems with the idea of minimizing suffering as the one true terminal value but I’d like to know your answers to these questions first.
I don’t know. I admitted that this was an area where there might be individual disagreement; I don’t know the exact nature of the fa() and fb() functions—just that we want to minimize [my definition of] suffering and maximize freedom.
Actually, on thinking about it, I’m thinking “freedom” is another one of those “shorthand” values, not a terminal value; I may personally want freedom, but other sentients might not. A golem, for example, would have no use for it (no comments from Pratchett readers, thank you). Nor would a Republican. [rimshot]
The point is not that we can all agree on a quantitative assessment of which actions are better than others, but that we can all agree that the goal of all these supposedly-terminal values (which are not in fact terminal) is to minimize suffering*.
(*Should I call it “subjective suffering”? “woozalian suffering”?)
Point 3 again arises from a misunderstanding of my definition of suffering; such an action would hugely amplify subjective suffering, not eliminate it.
Point 4: Yes, with some major caveats...
First, I think this principle is at the heart of human wiring. Some people may not have it (about 5% of the population lacks any empathy), but we’re not inviting those folks to the discussion table at this level.
Second… many people have been socialized into believing that certain intermediate values (faith, honor, patriotism, fairness, justice, honesty...) are themselves terminal values—but when anyone tries to justify those values as being good and right, the justifications inevitably come down to either (a) preventing harm to others, or (b) preventing harm to one’s self. …and (b) only supercedes (a) for people whose self-interest outweighs their integrity.
Point 3 again arises from a misunderstanding of my definition of suffering; such an action would hugely amplify subjective suffering, not eliminate it.
So, how much suffering would you say an unoccupied volume of space is subject to? A lump of nonliving matter? A self-consistent but non-instantiated hypothetical person?
It’s true that there would be no further suffering once the destruction was complete.
This is a bit of an abstract point to argue over, but I’ll give it a go...
I started out earlier arguing that the basis of all ethics was {minimizing suffering} and {maximizing freedom}; I later dropped the second term because it seemed like it might be more of a personal preference than a universal principle—but perhaps it, or something like it, needs to be included in order to avoid the “destroy everything instantly and painlessly” solution.
That said, I think it’s more of a glitch in the algorithm than a serious exception to the principle. Can you think of any real-world examples, or class of problems, where anyone would seriously argue for such a solution?
Your example exposes the flaw in the “destroy everything instantly and painlessly” pseudo-solution: the latter assumes that life is more suffering than pleasure. (Euthanasia is only performed—or argued for, anyway—when the gain from continuing to live is believed to be outweighed by the suffering.)
I think this shows that there needs to be a term for pleasure/enjoyment in the formula...
...or perhaps a concept or word which equates to either suffering and pleasure depending on signage (+/-), and then we can simply say that we’re trying to maximize that term—where the exact aggregation function has yet to be determined, but we know it has a positive slope.
I don’t know. I admitted that this was an area where there might be individual disagreement; I don’t know the exact nature of the fa() and fb() functions—just that we want to minimize [my definition of] suffering and maximize freedom.
So you want to modify your original statement:
I propose that the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimize suffering.
To something like: “I propose that the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimize [woozle’s definition of] suffering (which woozle can’t actually define but knows it when he sees it)”?
Your proposal seems to be phrased as a descriptive rather than normative statement (‘the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is’ rather than ‘should be’). As a descriptive statement this seems factually false unless you define ‘rational, compassionate human’ as ‘human who aims to minimize woozle’s definition of suffering’. As a normative statement it is merely an opinion and one which I disagree with.
So I don’t agree that minimizing suffering by any reasonable definition I can think of (I’m having to guess since you can’t provide one) is or should be the terminal value of human beings in general or this human being in particular. Perhaps that means I am not rational or compassionate by your definition but I am not entirely lacking in empathy—I’ve been known to shed a tear when watching a movie and to feel compassion for other human beings.
again arises from a misunderstanding of my definition of suffering; such an action would hugely amplify subjective suffering, not eliminate it.
Well you need to make some effort to clarify your definition then. If killing someone to save them from an eternity of torture is an increase in suffering by your definition what about preventing a potential someone from ever coming into existence? Death represents the cessation of suffering and the cessation of life and is extreme suffering by your definition. Is abortion or contraception also a cause of great suffering due to the denial of a potential life? If not, why not?
Second… many people have been socialized into believing that certain intermediate values (faith, honor, patriotism, fairness, justice, honesty...) are themselves terminal values—but when anyone tries to justify those values as being good and right, the justifications inevitably come down to either (a) preventing harm to others, or (b) preventing harm to one’s self. …and (b) only supercedes (a) for people whose self-interest outweighs their integrity.
So everyone shares your self declared terminal value of minimizing suffering but many of them don’t know it because they are confused, brainwashed or evil? Is there any point in me debating with you since you appear to have defined my disagreement to be confusion or a form of psychopathy?
Are you saying that I have to be able to provide you an equation which produces a numeric value as an answer before I can argue that ethical decisions should be based on it?
But ok, a rephrase and expansion:
I propose that (a) the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimizing aggregate involuntary discomfort as defined by the subjects of that discomfort, and (b) that no action or decision can be reasonably declared to be “wrong” unless it can at least be shown to cause significant amounts of such discomfort. (Can we at least acknowledge that it’s ok to use qualitative words like “significant” without defining them exactly?)
I intend it as a descriptive statement (“is”), and I have been asking for counterexamples: show me a situation in which the “right” decision increases the overall harm/suffering/discomfort of those affected.
I am confident that I can show how any supposed counterexamples are in fact depending implicitly on the rationale I am proposing, i.e. minimizing involuntary discomfort.
Actually, no, that’s not quite my definition of suffering-minimization. This is an important issue to discuss, too, since different aggregation functions will produce significantly different final sums.
This is the issue I was getting at when I asked (in some other comment on another subthread) “is it better to take $1 each from 1000 poor people, or $1000 from one millionaire?” (That thread apparently got sucked into an attractor-conversation about libertarian values.)
First, I’m inclined to think that suffering should be weighted more heavily than benefit. More specifically: it’s more important to make sure nobody falls below a certain universal level of comfort than it is to allow people who are already at that level (or higher) to do better. (Free-marketeers will probably spit out their cigars at this statement—and I would ask them how they can possibly justify any other point of view.)
Second… I don’t apply equal weighting to all humans either. I think those who are perceived as “valuable” (an attribute which may have more than one measure) should be able to do better than the “basic level of comfort” (BLoC) -- but that this ability can reasonably be limited if it impairs society’s ability to provide the BLoC.
(Question to ponder: does it really make sense for one person to make ten thousand times as much money as another person? Yes, some people are more valuable than others—but 10e4 times as valuable? Yet we have people living on $10k a year, while others earn hundreds of millions. This suggests to me that the economic system severely overvalues certain types of activity, while severely undervaluing others.)
(Counter: it could be argued that some people have zero, or even negative, value. It gets complicated at this point, and we can have that conversation if it seems relevant.)
Third… it makes sense to me for each individual to have their own set of “most valuable people” to protect, but then most of us don’t (yet) participate directly in policy decisions affecting millions of people. I think if we’re going to do that, we need to be able to see the broader perspective enough to compromise with it—while still looking out for the interests of those we personally know to be valuable. Thus we should be able to reach a consensus decision which does not pay for apparent overall social progress using a currency of scattered personal agonies and individual sacrifices.
A lot of random strangers are very nice people, and I wouldn’t want some random person to suffer just for my benefit.
And finally… I think the evidence is in that we as a society are sufficiently wealthy to provide for everyone at a BLoC while still allowing plenty of room for a large chunk of the population to be everything from “slightly well-off” to “extremely rich”.
First, I’m inclined to think that suffering should be weighted more heavily than benefit. More specifically: it’s more important to make sure nobody falls below a certain universal level of comfort than it is to allow people who are already at that level (or higher) to do better. (Free-marketeers will probably spit out their cigars at this statement—and I would ask them how they can possibly justify any other point of view.)
Part of the justification is in the discussion with Hayek I linked here.
But we are up against this very strong, and in a sense justified resistance of our instincts and that’s our whole problem. A society which is efficient cannot be just. And unfortunately a society which is not efficient cannot maintain the present population of the world. So I think our instincts will have to learn. We shall perhaps for generations still be fighting the problem and fluctuating from one position to the other.
Stop me if I’m misunderstanding the argument—I won’t have time to watch the video tonight, and have only read the quotes you excerpted—but you seem to be posing “markets” against “universal BLoC” as mutually exclusive choices.
I am suggesting that this is a false dilemma; we have more than adequate resources to support socialism at the low end of the economic scale while allowing quite free markets at the upper end. If nobody can suffer horribly—losing their house, their family, their ability to live adequately—the risks of greater market freedom can be borne much more reasonably.
To put this in more concrete terms: I wouldn’t be as bothered by a few people being absurdly stinkin’ rich if I wasn’t constantly worried about whether I could pay my next credit-card bill, or whether I could afford to go to the hospital if I got really sick, or whether we are going to have to declare bankruptcy and possibly lose our home.
Am I missing your point?
On a related note: totally unregulated markets at any level lead to dangerous accumulations of power by largely unaccountable individuals. Does Hayek (or his school of thought) have an answer for that problem?
Addendum: I also disagree with his statement that an efficient society cannot be just. Does he offer a supporting argument for that claim in the video?
Stop me if I’m misunderstanding the argument—I won’t have time to watch the video tonight, and have only read the quotes you excerpted—but you seem to be posing “markets” against “universal BLoC” as mutually exclusive choices.
Your ‘universal basic level of comfort’ seems an awfully slippery concept to me. I imagine the average American’s idea of what it is differs rather markedly from someone living in rural Africa. Both would differ from that of a medieval peasant.
That’s somewhat besides the point though. The reason we can support an unprecedented human population with, on average, a level of health, comfort and material well-being that is historically high is that markets are extremely good at allocating resources efficiently and encouraging and spreading innovations. This efficiency stems in large part from the way that a market economy rewards success and not good intentions. Profits tend to flow to those who can most effectively produce goods or services valued by other market participants. Hayek’s point is that this can lead to a distribution of wealth that offends many people’s natural sense of justice but that attempts to enforce a more ‘just’ distribution tend to backfire in all kinds of ways, not least of which is through a reduction in the very efficiency we rely on to maintain our standard of living.
I am suggesting that this is a false dilemma; we have more than adequate resources to support socialism at the low end of the economic scale while allowing quite free markets at the upper end. If nobody can suffer horribly—losing their house, their family, their ability to live adequately—the risks of greater market freedom can be borne much more reasonably.
Part of the problem is that I believe this reflects an overly static view of the way the economy functions and neglects the effects of changes in incentives on individual behaviour and, in time, on societal norms. The idea of a ‘culture of dependency’ reflects these types of concern. Moral Hazard doesn’t only affect too big to fail banks.
This ties in with my earlier point about defining a ‘basic level of comfort’. I believe Hayek was actually supportive of some level of unemployment insurance. The tremendous inequalities between nations complicate the politics of this issue—many people in the developed world feel they are entitled to a basic level of comfort when unemployed that exceeds the level of comfort of productive workers in the developing world and this has consequences for the politics of free trade, immigration and foreign aid.
On a related note: totally unregulated markets at any level lead to dangerous accumulations of power by largely unaccountable individuals. Does Hayek (or his school of thought) have an answer for that problem?
I’m not sure exactly what Hayek’s position on this issue is but the standard Austrian/libertarian view is that such problems are generally caused by government intervention and would not exist in a true free market. There’s actually quite a bit of common ground between the Chomsky-esque ‘left’ and the libertarian/anarcho-capitalist ‘right’ regarding critiques of the Corporatist nature of the US and other western democracies and the special interest control of government. The diagnosis is pretty similar but the proposed solutions tend to differ.
I don’t think BLoC has to be slippery, though of course in reality (with the current political system, anyway) it would become politicized. This is not a rational reason to oppose it, however.
I don’t know if we can do it for everyone on Earth at the moment, though that is worth looking at and getting some numbers so we know where we are. I was proposing it for the US, since we are the huge outlier in this area; most other “developed” societies (including some less wealthy than the US) already have such a thing.
I would suggest a starting definition for BLoC as living conditions meeting minimum sanitary standards, access to medical care priced affordably for each person (which will mean “free” for some), one or two decent meals a day, access to laundry facilities.
(sanitary standards: working indoor toilet, no leaks in the roof, reasonably well-insulated walls and roof, a phone (prepaid cellular is cheap now), some kind of heat in the winter, a decent bed, and possibly a few other things.)
The reason we can support an unprecedented human population with, on average, a level of health, comfort and material well-being that is historically high is that markets are extremely good at allocating resources efficiently and encouraging and spreading innovations. … Hayek’s point is that this can lead to a distribution of wealth that offends many people’s natural sense of justice but that attempts to enforce a more ‘just’ distribution tend to backfire in all kinds of ways, not least of which is through a reduction in the very efficiency we rely on to maintain our standard of living.
This is still juxtaposing markets and BLoC as being mutually exclusive. Why can’t we have markets for everyone over a certain income level, and universal welfare for those who fall below it? As I said, other countries do this already, and it doesn’t seem to hurt their overall wealth at all.
I would argue that our current system is greatly harmful to overall wealth, as people and businesses often spend valuable resources helping others when they could be spending those resources developing new businesses or being creative. This is also highly selective, actually punishing those who help (they are not compensated for their expenditures), rather than being equitably distributed across all those who benefit from society.
(I’m a perfect example of this: because of the lack of universal health care, I’ve spent most of the last 3 years fighting bureaucracy to get help for an autistic child—and helping to provide care for him, which I am eminently unqualified to do—instead of working on my online store or my computer consulting. Because of that situation, I can’t afford medical insurance, which means I now owe $7k for a life-threatening incident late last year—which I won’t be able to pay anytime soon, and which is therefore driving up costs for everyone else in the Duke Health system, while employees of at least one collection agency are wasting their resources trying to get it from me. This is not “market efficiency”.)
The idea of a ‘culture of dependency’ reflects these types of concern.
Is there any data suggesting that this is actually a problem? As far as I can tell, it’s a conservative myth—like Reagan’s “welfare queens”.
...the standard Austrian/libertarian view is that such problems are generally caused by government intervention and would not exist in a true free market.
This is WAY wrong. Totally unregulated markets are essentially anarchy; this is unstable, as some of those who gain early advantage will inevitably use their power to take down other players (rather than contributing positively) until the board consists of a few very powerful players (and their helpers) with everyone else being essentially powerless. (I suspect that the stable end-state is essentially feudalism, but with the enhanced concentrations of power made possible by modern technology, I can only think it would be far worse than any past feudal system.)
I put it to you that you can’t have markets without regulation—just as you can’t have a game without rules, or an internal combustion engine without valves.
I don’t think BLoC has to be slippery, though of course in reality (with the current political system, anyway) it would become politicized. This is not a rational reason to oppose it, however.
I think it is a rational reason to oppose a role for government in providing it. Governments are bad enough at providing well defined services, a poorly defined goal exacerbates the problem. Just as the vague threat of terrorism provides a cover for ever increasing government encroachment on civil liberties, the vague promise of an ever-rising ‘basic level of comfort’ provides cover for ever increasing government encroachment on economic liberties.
I don’t know if we can do it for everyone on Earth at the moment, though that is worth looking at and getting some numbers so we know where we are. I was proposing it for the US, since we are the huge outlier in this area; most other “developed” societies (including some less wealthy than the US) already have such a thing.
As I lack much of a nationalist instinct I am endlessly puzzled by the idea that we should draw arbitrary boundaries of care along national borders. If your concern is helping others you can do so with much greater efficiency by targeting that help where it is most needed, which is largely outside the US.
Incidentally I don’t think it is a coincidence that many developed countries with advanced welfare states are less wealthy than the US. The difficulties of making economic comparisons across countries with different cultures and histories make it difficult to draw any conclusive conclusions from the data on these differences but some of it is highly suggestive.
Why can’t we have markets for everyone over a certain income level, and universal welfare for those who fall below it? As I said, other countries do this already, and it doesn’t seem to hurt their overall wealth at all.
The claim that it doesn’t seem to hurt their overall wealth at all is highly controversial. Due to the difficulties of controlling for other factors it is always possible to explain away the wealth differences in the data but there are suggestive trends. I don’t really want to get into throwing studies back and forth but saying ‘it doesn’t seem to hurt their overall wealth at all’ suggests either ignorance of the relevant data or unjustified confidence in interpretation of it.
This is WAY wrong. Totally unregulated markets are essentially anarchy; this is unstable, as some of those who gain early advantage will inevitably use their power to take down other players (rather than contributing positively) until the board consists of a few very powerful players (and their helpers) with everyone else being essentially powerless.
Those who gain early advantage inevitably using their power to take down other players sounds like a description of the current corporatist system in the US to me, where incumbents use their political influence to buy state protection from competition. You appear to be ignorant of the kinds of problems highlighted by public choice theory and unaware of the libertarian analysis of how genuinely free markets tend to work against such power concentrations.
A productive market economy requires mechanisms to discourage the use of force as a negotiating chip and a framework to resolve contractual disputes through the rule of law rather than through political patronage, arbitrary decisions or violence but that looks rather different from what I suspect you mean by ‘regulation’.
I think it is a rational reason to oppose a role for government in providing it.
If the government doesn’t provide it, just who is going to?
As I lack much of a nationalist instinct I am endlessly puzzled by the idea that we should draw arbitrary boundaries of care along national borders. If your concern is helping others you can do so with much greater efficiency by targeting that help where it is most needed, which is largely outside the US.
It’s not a matter of loyalty, but of having the knowledge and resources to work with to make something possible. I would certainly like to see such a level of care provided to everyone worldwide, but knowing what little I know about average wealth worldwide, this seems an unrealistic goal for the immediate future. It seems entirely realistic for the US, however.
(Plus… as little influence as I have over US politics, I am at least a citizen and resident; I’m much less likely to be able to have an effect on how things are handled in China… or Uganda, where there are more serious worries like the current campaign to make homosexuality a capital offense.)
Incidentally I don’t think it is a coincidence that many developed countries with advanced welfare states are less wealthy than the US.
There are also countries more wealthy than us who have universal welfare. My understanding is that if you look at the correlation between social welfare and overall wealth, it is positive—not negative, as you seem to imply. However, we do need some numbers for this so we’re not arguing subjective impressions.
I don’t really want to get into throwing studies back and forth...
I think this is exactly what we should be doing, until we have a sufficient sampling of studies that it might actually average out to something approaching reality.
Those who gain early advantage inevitably using their power to take down other players sounds like a description of the current corporatist system in the US to me...
Yes, the current corporatist system is what you get from partial deregulation. I think it is clear that we do not want to go further in that direction.
You appear to be ignorant of the kinds of problems highlighted by public choice theory and unaware of the libertarian analysis of how genuinely free markets tend to work against such power concentrations.
I’m aware of the broad outlines of the theory and some of the particulars, but I’m not aware of how it supports your conclusions.
There is the argument that deregulation of Germany’s currency led to greater prosperity—to which I say (a) we are agreed that too much regulation is a bad thing, but I still maintain that too little is just as bad or worse; (b) I would really like to see some numbers on this; were people really that badly off trading cigarettes? Yes, it was an inconvenience—but how much did it actually affect material wealth?
As you pointed out, recent US history seems to argue for a return to increased regulation.
If you believe there is data which contradicts my conclusions about the dangers of total deregulation and the economic benefits of social welfare for at least the bottom economic tier of society, please do share it.
If the government doesn’t provide it, just who is going to?
Charities, family, friends, well meaning strangers… The desire to help others does not exist because of government. There might be more or less resources devoted to charity in the absence of government intervention, I haven’t seen much evidence either way. Libertarians commonly argue that private charity is more effective than government welfare and that it makes for a healthier society. A typical example of this case is here—the first such argument I found on google. Now you can certainly dispute these claims but you talk as if you are not even aware that such alternative arguments exist.
It’s not a matter of loyalty, but of having the knowledge and resources to work with to make something possible. I would certainly like to see such a level of care provided to everyone worldwide, but knowing what little I know about average wealth worldwide, this seems an unrealistic goal for the immediate future. It seems entirely realistic for the US, however.
You appear to be shifting the goalposts. You started out arguing that your main concern is to minimize suffering:
First, I’m inclined to think that suffering should be weighted more heavily than benefit. More specifically: it’s more important to make sure nobody falls below a certain universal level of comfort than it is to allow people who are already at that level (or higher) to do better.
Now you are saying that because that is an unrealistic goal you instead think it is important to make people who are already relatively well off by global standards (poor Americans) better off than it is to minimize suffering of the global poor. If your goal is really to minimize human suffering I don’t see how you can argue that guaranteeing housing and healthcare for Americans is a more effective approach than anti-malarial medications, vaccines or antibiotics for African children.
My understanding is that if you look at the correlation between social welfare and overall wealth, it is positive—not negative, as you seem to imply. However, we do need some numbers for this so we’re not arguing subjective impressions.
Subtly different question. It is true that many wealthy countries also have relatively generous welfare systems (particularly in Europe) but they have been able to afford these systems because they were already relatively wealthy. Studies that find negative effects are generally looking at relative growth rates but the difficulty of properly controlling such studies makes them somewhat inconclusive.
I think this is exactly what we should be doing, until we have a sufficient sampling of studies that it might actually average out to something approaching reality.
I’ve been down this road before in discussions of this nature and they usually degenerate into people throwing links to studies back and forth that neither side really has taken the time to read in detail. The discussion usually just derails into arguing about why this or that study is not adequately controlled. I think it is fair to say that existing studies are rarely definitive enough to overcome pre-existing ideological biases.
I’m aware of the broad outlines of the theory and some of the particulars, but I’m not aware of how it supports your conclusions.
The two main points to note are that governments in reality are not in the business of implementing ‘enlightened’ policies that address imbalances of power but rather are in the business of creating imbalances of power for the benefit of special interests and the politicians they own and that many government regulations sold as protecting the interests of the general electorate are in actual fact designed to protect particular special interest groups.
Genuine deregulation has a good track record. It should not be confused with false deregulation like that seen in the financial industry which is really just ‘re-regulation’: adjusting an existing distorted playing field to favour the incumbents even more heavily.
[woozle] If the government doesn’t provide it, just who is going to?
[mattnewport] Charities, family, friends, well meaning strangers…
So, why aren’t they? How can we make this happen—what process are you proposing by which we can achieve universal welfare supported entirely by such means?
You appear to be shifting the goalposts. You started out arguing that your main concern is to minimize suffering...
I didn’t state the scope; you just assumed it was global. My goal remains as stated—minimizing suffering—but I am not arguing for any global changes (yet).
Now you are saying that because that is an unrealistic goal you instead think it is important to make people who are already relatively well off by global standards (poor Americans) better off than it is to minimize suffering of the global poor.
Umm… no, I said no such thing. My suggestion does not have any clear effects on the rest of the world. If anything, it would allow Americans to be more charitable to the world at large, as we would not have to be worrying about taking care of our own first.
I am not proposing taking away any existing American aid to other countries. I’m arguing we are wealthy enough to provide for ourselves solely through reallocation of resources internally, not by diverting them away from external causes (or worse, by stealing resources from other countries as we have a long history of doing; indeed, if it turns out that we cannot achieve universal welfare without robbing others, then I would say that we need to stop robbing others first, then re-assess the situation).
It is true that many wealthy countries also have relatively generous welfare systems (particularly in Europe) but they have been able to afford these systems because they were already relatively wealthy. Studies that find negative effects are generally looking at relative growth rates but the difficulty of properly controlling such studies makes them somewhat inconclusive.
Then I would say that your claim that welfare hurts a country’s overall wealth is based on weak data. What is the basis for your belief in this theory, since the studies which might resolve that question have returned inconclusive results?
I’ve been down this road before in discussions of this nature and they usually degenerate into people throwing links to studies back and forth that neither side really has taken the time to read in detail.
If nobody has time to at least compile the results, then there’s really no point in even having the discussion—since looking at existing data is really the only rational way to attempt to resolve the question.
If you actually have some links, I will at least file them on Issuepedia and give you a link to the page where they—and any other related information which may have been gathered (or may be gathered in the future) -- can be found.
I will also try to summarize any further debating we do on the subject, so that neither of us will need to rehash the same ground in future debates (with each other or with other people).
I hope that this addresses your apparent concern (i.e. that exchanging actual data on this topic would be a waste of time).
The two main points to note are that governments in reality are not in the business of implementing ‘enlightened’ policies that address imbalances of power but rather are in the business of creating imbalances of power for the benefit of special interests and the politicians they own and that many government regulations sold as protecting the interests of the general electorate are in actual fact designed to protect particular special interest groups.
That is the reason I think we need to re-invent government. I don’t think government is automatically evil, though it is certainly vulnerable to just the sorts of mechanisms you identify.
This is certainly not the purpose for which government was invented, and saying that government is the problem just because it becomes a problem is like saying guns are always evil because they kill people—or dynamite is always evil because it is used in warfare. Any tool can be misused.
I propose that government is necessary, and that rather than declaring it evil and trying to render it as small and weak as possible, we should be learning how to build it better—and how to regain control of it when it goes astray.
Genuine deregulation has a good track record. It should not be confused with false deregulation...
Can you give me some examples (mainly of genuine deregulation—I got the financial industry non-deregulation; will have to ponder that example)?
Can you give me some examples (mainly of genuine deregulation—I got the financial industry non-deregulation; will have to ponder that example)?
I don’t have time to reply to your whole post right now (I’ll try to give a fuller response later) but telecom deregulation is the first example that springs to mind of (imperfect but) largely successful deregulation.
Amen to that… I remember when it was illegal to connect your own equipment to Phone Company wires, and telephones were hard-wired by Phone Company technicians.
The obvious flaw in the current situation, of course, is the regional monopolies—slowly being undercut by competition from VoIP, but still: as it is, if I want wired phone service in this area, I have to deal with Verizon, and Verizon is evil.
This suggests to me that a little more regulation might be helpful—but you seem to be suggesting that the lack of competition in the local phone market is actually due to some vestiges of government regulation of the industry—or am I misunderstanding?
(No rush; I shouldn’t be spending so much time on this either… but I think it’s important to pursue these lines of thought to some kind of conclusion.)
A little follow-up… it looks like the major deregulatory change was the Telecommunications Act of 1996; the “freeing of the phone jack” took place in the early 1980s or late 1970s, and modular connectors (RJ11) were widespread by 1985, so either that was a result of earlier, less sweeping deregulation or else it was simply an industry response to advances in technology.
This suggests to me that a little more regulation might be helpful—but you seem to be suggesting that the lack of competition in the local phone market is actually due to some vestiges of government regulation of the industry—or am I misunderstanding?
An example of the type of special-interest driven regulation presented as consumer protection that I’m talking about is the established phone companies trying to use the E911 regulations to hamper VOIP companies that threaten their monopolies. This type of regulatory capture is very common.
I think they are a terrible idea. I’m not sure what Hayek’s position was on them but I imagine he would too. They result in the government making decisions about how to invest resources with all the problems that entails.
If I’m understanding correctly, “terminal values” are end-goals.
If we have different end-goals, we need to understand what they are. (Actually, we should understand what they are anyway—but if they’re different, it becomes particularly important to examine them and identify the differences.)
This seems related to a question that David Brin once suggested as a good one to bring up in political debate: Describe the sort of world do you hope your preferred policies will create. …or, in other words, describe your large-scale goals for our society—your terminal values.
My terminal values are to minimize suffering and maximize individual freedom and ability to create, explore, and grow in wisdom via learning about the universe.
If anyone has different terminal values, I’d like to hear more about that.
I don’t think any bumper sticker successfully encapsulates my terminal values. I’m highly sympathetic to ethical pluralism and particularism. I value fairness and happiness (politically I’m a cosmopolitan Rawlsian liberal) with additional values of freedom and honesty which under certain conditions can trump fairness and happiness. I also value the existence of what I would recognize as humanity and limiting the possibility of the destruction of humanity can sometimes trump all of the above. Values weighted toward myself, my family and friends. It’s possible all of these things could be reduced to more fundamental values, I’m not sure. There are cases where I have no good procedure for evaluating which outcome is more desirable.
It is worth noting, if you think these are rationally justifiable somehow, that maximizing two different values is going to leave with an incomplete function in some circumstances. Some options will maximize not suffering but fail to maximize freedom and vice versa.
If you were looking for people here with different values, see above (though I don’t know how much we differ). But note that the people here are going to have heavy overlap on values for semi-obvious reasons. But there are people out there who assign intrinsic moral relevance to national borders, race, religion, sexual purity, tradition etc. Do you still deny that?
It seems to me that the terminal values you list are really just means to an end, and that the end in question is similar to my own—i.e. some combination of minimizing harm and maximizing freedom (to put it in terms which are a bit of an oversimplification).
For example: I also favor ethical pluralism (I’m not sure what “particularism” is), for the reasons that it leads to a more vibrant and creative society, whilst the opposite (which I guess would be suppressing or discouraging any but some “dominant” culture) leads to completely unnecessary suffering.
You are right that maximizing two values is not necessarily solvable. The apparaent duality of the goal as stated has more to do with the shortcomings of natural language than it does with the goals being contradictory. If you could assign numbers to “suffering” (S) and “individual freedom” (F), I would think that the goal would be to maximize aS + bF for some values of a and b which have yet to be worked out.
[Addendum: this function may be oversimplifying things as well; there may be one or more nonlinear functions applied to S and/or F before they are added. What I said below about the possible values of a and b applies also to these functions. A better statement of the overall function would probably be fa(S) + fb(F), where fa() and fb() are both—I would think—positively-sloped for all input values.]
[Edit: ACK! Got confused here; the function for S would be negative, i.e. we want less suffering.]
[Another edit in case anyone is still reading this comment for the first time: I don’t necessarily count “death” as non-suffering; I suppose this means “suffering” isn’t quite the right word, but I don’t have another one handy]
The exact values of a and b may vary from person to person—perhaps they even are the primary attributes which account for one’s political predispositions—but I would like to see an argument that there is some other desirable end goal for society, some other term which belongs in this equation.
I do not deny this, but I also do not believe they are being rational in those assignments. Why should the “morality” of a particular act matter in the slightest if it has been shown to be completely harmless?
This is my fault. I don’t mean multiculturalism or politcal pluralism. I really do mean pluralism about terminal values. By particularism I mean that there are no moral principles and that the right action is entirely circumstance dependent. Note that I’m not actually a particularist since I did give you moral principles. I would say that I am a value pluralist.
But I’m explicitly denying this. For example, I am a cosmopolitan. In your discussion with Matt you’ve said that for now you care about helping poor Americans, not the rest of the world. But this is totally antithetical to my terminal values. I would vastly prefer to spend political and economic capital to get rid of agricultural subsides in the developed world, liberalize as many immigration and trade laws as I can and test strategies for economic development. Whether or not the American working class has cheap health care really is quite insignificant to me by comparison.
Now, when I say I have a terminal value of fairness I really do mean it. I mean I would sacrifice utility or increase overall suffering in some circumstances in order to make the world more fair. I would do the same to make the world more free and the same to make the world more honest in some situations. I would do things that furthered the happiness of my friends and family but increased your suffering (nothing personal). I don’t know what gives you reason to deny any of this.
Now you’re just begging the question. My whole point this entire time is that there is no reason for morality to always be about harm. Indeed, there is no reason for morality to ever be about harm except that we make it so. I frankly don’t even understand the application of the word “rationality” as we use it here to values. Unless you have a third meaning for the word your usage here is just a category error!
So how do you rationally decide if an action is right or wrong? -- or are you saying you can’t do this?
Also, just to be clear: you are saying that you do not believe rightness or wrongness of an action ultimately derives from whether or not it does harm? (“Harm” being the more common term; I tried to refine it a bit as “personally-defined suffering”, but I think you’re disagreeing with the larger idea—not my refinement of it.)
Matt (I believe) misinterpreted me that way too. No, that is not what I said.
What I was trying to convey was that I thought I had a workable and practical principle by which poor Americans could be helped (redistribution of American wealth via mechanisms and rules yet to be worked out), while I don’t have such a solution for the rest of the world [yet].
I tried to make it quite clear that I do care about the rest of the world; the fact that I don’t yet have a solution for them (and am therefore not offering one) does not negate this.
I also tried to make it quite clear that my solution for Americans must not come at the price of harming others in the world, and that (further) I believe that as long as it avoids this, it may be of some benefit to the rest of the world as we will not be allowing unused resources to languish in the hands of the very richest people (who really don’t need them) -- leaving the philanthropists among us free to focus on poverty worldwide rather than domestically.
(At a glance, I agree with your global policy position. I don’t think it contradicts my own. I’m not talking about reallocation of existing expenditures—foreign aid, tax revenues, etc. -- I’m talking about reallocating unused—one might even use the word “hoarded”—resources, via means socialistic, capitalistic, or whatever means seems best*.)
(*the definition of this slippery term comes back ultimately to what we’re discussing here: “what is good?”)
First of all, when I say “harm” or “suffering”, I’m not talking about something like “punishing someone for bad behavior”; the idea behind doing that (whether correct or not) is that this ultimately benefits them somehow, and any argument over such punishment will be based on whether harm or good is being done overall. “Hitting a masochist” would not necessarily qualify as harm, especially if you will stop when the masochist asks you to.
Second… when we look at harm or benefit, we have to look at the system of people affected. This isn’t to say that if {one person in the system benefits more than another is harmed} then it’s ok, because then we get into the complexity of what I’ll call the “benefit aggregation function”—which involves values that probably are individual.
It’s also reasonable (and often necessary) to look at a decision’s effects on society (if you let one starving person get away with stealing a cookie under a particular circumstance, then other hungry people may think it’s always okay to steal cookies) in the present and in the long term. This is the basis of many arguments against gay marriage, for example—the idea that society will somehow be harmed—and hence individuals will be harmed as society crumbles around them—by “changing the definition of marriage”. (The evidence is firmly against those arguments, but that’s not the point.)
Third: I’m arguing that “[avoiding] harm” is the ultimate basis for all empathetic-human arguments about morality, and I suggest that this would be true for any successful social species (not just humans). (by which I mean “humans with empathy”—specifically excluding psychopaths and other people whose primary motive is self-gratification)
I suggest that If you can’t argue that an action causes harm of some kind, you have absolutely no basis for claiming the action is wrong (within the context of discussions with other humans or social sophonts).
You seem to be arguing, however, that actions can be wrong without causing any demonstrable harm. Can you give an example?
There is no such thing as “rationally deciding if an action is right or wrong”. This has nothing to do with particularism. It’s just a metaethical position. I don’t know what can be rational or irrational about morality.
Again though, I’m not a particularist, I do have principles I can apply if I don’t have strong intuitions. A particularist only has her intuitions.
I don’t believe my own morality can be reduced to language about harm. I’m not sure what “ultimately derives” means but I suspect my answer is no. My morality happens to have a lot to do with harm (again, I’m a Haidtian liberal). But I don’t think that makes my morality more rational than a morality that is less about harm. There is no such thing a “rational” or “irrational” morality only moralities I find silly or abhorrent.
If it’s the case that you care about the rest of the world then I don’t think you realize how non-ideal your prescriptions are. You’re basically advocating for redistributing wealth from part of the global upper class to part of the global middle class and ignoring those experiencing the most pain and the most injustice.
But of course it comes at the price of harming the rest of the world. You’re advocating sacrificing political resources to pass legislation. Those resources are to some extent limited which means you’re decreasing the chances of or at least delaying changes in policy which would actually benefit the poorest. Moreover, social entitlements are notoriously impossible to overturn which means you’re putting all this capital in a place we can’t take it from to give to the people who really need it. Shoot, at least the mega-rich are sometimes using their money to invest in developing countries.
This doesn’t even get us into preventing existential risk. When ever you have a utility-like morality using resources inefficiently is about as bad as actively doing harm.
None you’ll agree with! You’ve already said your morality is about preventing harm! But like it or not there are people who really don’t care about suffering outside their own country. There are people who thing gay marriage is wrong no matter what effects it has on society (just as there are those, like me, who think it should be legal even if it damages society). There are those who do not believe we should criticize our leader under certain circumstances. There are those who believe our elders deserve respect above and beyond what they deserve as humans. There are those who believe sex outside of marriage is wrong. There are those who believe eating cow is immoral; there are others who believe eating cow is delicious. None of these people are necessarily rational or irrational.
I’ll reiterate one question: What do you mean by rational in “rational morality”?
I’ve explained repeatedly—perhaps not in this subthread, so I’ll reiterate—that I’m only proposing reallocating domestic resources within the US, not resources which would otherwise be spent on foreign aid of any kind. I don’t see how that can be harmful to anyone except (possibly) the extremely rich people from whom the resources are being reallocated.
(Will respond to your other points in separate comments, to maximize topic-focus of any subsequent discussion.)
This is taken out of context, but I must take issue with it. If you can decide whether an action is right or wrong, then that decision can be made rationally, for any decent definition of ‘rationality’ that is about decisions.
So if you want to claim, “One cannot rationally decide whether an action is right or wrong”, that reduces to “One cannot decide whether an action is right or wrong”. In that case, would it be because your decisions can’t affect your beliefs, or because there is objective morality, or some other reason?
I’m not sure I understand your issue. If this response doesn’t work you may have to reexplain.
If you have some values—say happiness—then there can be irrational ways of evaluating actions in terms of those values. So if I’m concerned with happiness but only look at the effects of the action on my sneakers, and not the emotions of people, well that seems irrational if happiness is really what I care about. Certainly there are actions which can either be consistent or inconsistent with some set of values and taking actions that are inconsistent with your values is irrational. What I don’t see is what it could mean for those values to be rational or irrational in the first place. I don’t think people “decide” on terminal values in the way they decide on breakfast or to give to some charity over another.
Does that address your concern?
See my comment about “internal” and “external” terminal values—I think possibly that’s where we’re failing to communicate.
Internal terminal values don’t have to be rational—but external ones (goals for society) do, and need to take individual ones into account. Violating an individual internal TV causes suffering, which violates my proposed universal external TV.
For instance… if I’m a heterosexual male, then one of my terminal values might be to form a pair-bond with a female of my species. That’s an internal terminal value. This doesn’t mean that I think everyone should do this; I can still support gay rights. “Supporting gay rights” is an external value, but not a terminal one for me. For a gay person, it probably would be a terminal value—so prohibiting gays from marrying would be violating their internal terminal values, which causes suffering, which violates my proposed universal external terminal value of “minimizing suffering / maximizing happiness”—and THAT is why it is wrong to prohibit gays from marrying, not because I personally happen to think it is wrong (i.e. not because of my external intermediate value of supporting gay rights).
I’m fine with that distinction but it doesn’t change my point. Why do external terminal values have to be rational? What does it mean for a value to be rational?
Can you just answer those two questions?
Here’s my answer, finally… or a more complete answer, anyway.
It’s not visible, I think you have to publish it.
I finally figured out what was going on, and fixed it. For some reason it got posted in “drafts” instead of on the site, and looking at the post while logged in gave no clue that this was the case.
Sorry about that!
By ‘minimize suffering’ I assume you mean some kind of utilitarian conception of minimizing aggregate suffering equally weighted across all humans (and perhaps extended to include animals in some way). If so this would be one area we differ. Like most humans, I don’t apply equal weighting to all other individuals’ utilities. I don’t expect other people’s weightings to match my own, nor do I think it would be better if we all aimed to agree on a unique set of weightings. I care more about minimizing the suffering of my family and friends than I do about some random stranger, an animal, a serial killer, a child molester or a politician. I do not think this is a problem.
Much discussion about “minimization of suffering” etc. ensued from my first response to this comment, but I thought I should reiterate the point I was trying to make:
I propose that the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimize suffering.
(Tentative definition: “suffering” is any kind of discomfort over which the subject has no control.)
All other values (from any part of the political continuum) -- “human rights”, “justice”, “fairness”, “morality”, “faith”, “loyalty”, “honor”, “patriotism”, etc. -- are not rational terminal values.
This isn’t to say that they are useless. They serve as a kind of ethical shorthand, guidelines, rules-of-thumb, “philosophical first-aid”: somewhat-reliable predictors of which actions are likely to cause harm (and which are not) -- memes which are effective at reducing harm when people are infected by them. (Hence society often works hard to “sugar coat” them with simplistic, easily-comprehended—but essentially irrelevant—justifications, and otherwise encourage their spread.)
Nonetheless, they are not rational terminal values; they are stand-ins.
They also have a price:
they do not adapt well to changes in our evolving rational understanding of what causes harm/suffering, so that rules which we now know cause more suffering than benefit are still happily propagating out in the memetic wilderness...
any rigid rule (like any tool) can be abused.
...
I seem to have taken this line of thought a bit further than I meant to originally—so to summarize: I’d really like to hear if anyone believes there are other rational terminal values other than (or which cannot ultimately be reduced to) “minimizing suffering”.
I disagree. I’ll take suffering rather than death any day, thank-you-very-much.
Furthermore, I have reason to believe that, if I were offered the opportunity to instantaneously and painlessly wipe out all life in the universe, many compassionate humans would support my decision not to do so, despite all the suffering which is thereby allowed to continue.
You think you’re disagreeing with me, but you’re not; I would say that for you, death would be a kind of suffering—the very worst kind, even.
I would also count the “wipe out all life” scenario as an extreme form of suffering. Anyone with any compassion would suffer in the mere knowledge that it was going to happen.
If you’re going to define suffering as ‘whatever we don’t like,’ including the possibility that it’s different for everyone, then I agree with your assertion but question it’s usefulness.
It’s not what “we”—the people making the decision or taking the action—don’t like; it’s what those affected by the action don’t like.
Learning is a terminal value for me, which I hold irreducible to its instrumental advantages in contributing to my well-being.
That seems related to what I was trying to get at with the placeholder-word “freedom”—I was thinking of things like “freedom to explore” and “freedom to create new things”—both of which seem highly related to “learning”.
It looks like we’re talking about two subtly different types of “terminal value”, though: for society and for one’s self. (Shall we call them “external” and “internal” TVs?)
I’m inclined to agree with your internal TV for “learning”, but that doesn’t mean that I would insist that a decision which prevented others from learning was necessarily wrong—perhaps some people have no interest in learning (though I’m not going to be inviting them to my birthday party).
If a decision prevented learnophiles from learning, though, I would count that as “harm” or “suffering”—and thus it would be against my external TVs.
Taking the thought a little further: I would be inclined to argue that unless an individual is clearly learnophobic, or it can be shown that too much learning could somehow damage them, then preventing learning in even neutral cases would also be harm—because learning is part of what makes us human. I realize, though, that this argument is on rather thinner rational ground than my main argument, and I’m mainly presenting it as a means of establishing common emotional ground. Please ignore it if this bothers you.
Take-away point: My proposed universal external TV (prevention of suffering) defines {involuntary violation of internal TVs} as harm/suffering.
Hope that makes sense.
I think you are wrong but I don’t think you’ve even defined the goal clearly enough to point to exactly where. Some questions:
How do we weight individual contributions to suffering? Are all humans weighted equally? Do we consider animal suffering?
How do we measure suffering? Should we prefer to transfer suffering from those with a lower pain threshold to those with a greater tolerance?
How do you avoid the classic unfriendly AI problem of deciding to wipe out humanity to eliminate suffering?
Do you think that people actually generally act in accordance with this principle or only that they should? If the latter to what extent do you think people currently do act in accordance with this value?
There are plenty of other problems with the idea of minimizing suffering as the one true terminal value but I’d like to know your answers to these questions first.
Points 1 and 2:
I don’t know. I admitted that this was an area where there might be individual disagreement; I don’t know the exact nature of the fa() and fb() functions—just that we want to minimize [my definition of] suffering and maximize freedom.
Actually, on thinking about it, I’m thinking “freedom” is another one of those “shorthand” values, not a terminal value; I may personally want freedom, but other sentients might not. A golem, for example, would have no use for it (no comments from Pratchett readers, thank you). Nor would a Republican. [rimshot]
The point is not that we can all agree on a quantitative assessment of which actions are better than others, but that we can all agree that the goal of all these supposedly-terminal values (which are not in fact terminal) is to minimize suffering*.
(*Should I call it “subjective suffering”? “woozalian suffering”?)
Point 3 again arises from a misunderstanding of my definition of suffering; such an action would hugely amplify subjective suffering, not eliminate it.
Point 4: Yes, with some major caveats...
First, I think this principle is at the heart of human wiring. Some people may not have it (about 5% of the population lacks any empathy), but we’re not inviting those folks to the discussion table at this level.
Second… many people have been socialized into believing that certain intermediate values (faith, honor, patriotism, fairness, justice, honesty...) are themselves terminal values—but when anyone tries to justify those values as being good and right, the justifications inevitably come down to either (a) preventing harm to others, or (b) preventing harm to one’s self. …and (b) only supercedes (a) for people whose self-interest outweighs their integrity.
So, how much suffering would you say an unoccupied volume of space is subject to? A lump of nonliving matter? A self-consistent but non-instantiated hypothetical person?
It’s true that there would be no further suffering once the destruction was complete.
This is a bit of an abstract point to argue over, but I’ll give it a go...
I started out earlier arguing that the basis of all ethics was {minimizing suffering} and {maximizing freedom}; I later dropped the second term because it seemed like it might be more of a personal preference than a universal principle—but perhaps it, or something like it, needs to be included in order to avoid the “destroy everything instantly and painlessly” solution.
That said, I think it’s more of a glitch in the algorithm than a serious exception to the principle. Can you think of any real-world examples, or class of problems, where anyone would seriously argue for such a solution?
The classic one is euthanasia.
Your example exposes the flaw in the “destroy everything instantly and painlessly” pseudo-solution: the latter assumes that life is more suffering than pleasure. (Euthanasia is only performed—or argued for, anyway—when the gain from continuing to live is believed to be outweighed by the suffering.)
I think this shows that there needs to be a term for pleasure/enjoyment in the formula...
...or perhaps a concept or word which equates to either suffering and pleasure depending on signage (+/-), and then we can simply say that we’re trying to maximize that term—where the exact aggregation function has yet to be determined, but we know it has a positive slope.
So you want to modify your original statement:
To something like: “I propose that the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimize [woozle’s definition of] suffering (which woozle can’t actually define but knows it when he sees it)”?
Your proposal seems to be phrased as a descriptive rather than normative statement (‘the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is’ rather than ‘should be’). As a descriptive statement this seems factually false unless you define ‘rational, compassionate human’ as ‘human who aims to minimize woozle’s definition of suffering’. As a normative statement it is merely an opinion and one which I disagree with.
So I don’t agree that minimizing suffering by any reasonable definition I can think of (I’m having to guess since you can’t provide one) is or should be the terminal value of human beings in general or this human being in particular. Perhaps that means I am not rational or compassionate by your definition but I am not entirely lacking in empathy—I’ve been known to shed a tear when watching a movie and to feel compassion for other human beings.
Well you need to make some effort to clarify your definition then. If killing someone to save them from an eternity of torture is an increase in suffering by your definition what about preventing a potential someone from ever coming into existence? Death represents the cessation of suffering and the cessation of life and is extreme suffering by your definition. Is abortion or contraception also a cause of great suffering due to the denial of a potential life? If not, why not?
So everyone shares your self declared terminal value of minimizing suffering but many of them don’t know it because they are confused, brainwashed or evil? Is there any point in me debating with you since you appear to have defined my disagreement to be confusion or a form of psychopathy?
Are you saying that I have to be able to provide you an equation which produces a numeric value as an answer before I can argue that ethical decisions should be based on it?
But ok, a rephrase and expansion:
I propose that (a) the ultimate terminal value of every rational, compassionate human is to minimizing aggregate involuntary discomfort as defined by the subjects of that discomfort, and (b) that no action or decision can be reasonably declared to be “wrong” unless it can at least be shown to cause significant amounts of such discomfort. (Can we at least acknowledge that it’s ok to use qualitative words like “significant” without defining them exactly?)
I intend it as a descriptive statement (“is”), and I have been asking for counterexamples: show me a situation in which the “right” decision increases the overall harm/suffering/discomfort of those affected.
I am confident that I can show how any supposed counterexamples are in fact depending implicitly on the rationale I am proposing, i.e. minimizing involuntary discomfort.
Actually, no, that’s not quite my definition of suffering-minimization. This is an important issue to discuss, too, since different aggregation functions will produce significantly different final sums.
This is the issue I was getting at when I asked (in some other comment on another subthread) “is it better to take $1 each from 1000 poor people, or $1000 from one millionaire?” (That thread apparently got sucked into an attractor-conversation about libertarian values.)
First, I’m inclined to think that suffering should be weighted more heavily than benefit. More specifically: it’s more important to make sure nobody falls below a certain universal level of comfort than it is to allow people who are already at that level (or higher) to do better. (Free-marketeers will probably spit out their cigars at this statement—and I would ask them how they can possibly justify any other point of view.)
Second… I don’t apply equal weighting to all humans either. I think those who are perceived as “valuable” (an attribute which may have more than one measure) should be able to do better than the “basic level of comfort” (BLoC) -- but that this ability can reasonably be limited if it impairs society’s ability to provide the BLoC.
(Question to ponder: does it really make sense for one person to make ten thousand times as much money as another person? Yes, some people are more valuable than others—but 10e4 times as valuable? Yet we have people living on $10k a year, while others earn hundreds of millions. This suggests to me that the economic system severely overvalues certain types of activity, while severely undervaluing others.)
(Counter: it could be argued that some people have zero, or even negative, value. It gets complicated at this point, and we can have that conversation if it seems relevant.)
Third… it makes sense to me for each individual to have their own set of “most valuable people” to protect, but then most of us don’t (yet) participate directly in policy decisions affecting millions of people. I think if we’re going to do that, we need to be able to see the broader perspective enough to compromise with it—while still looking out for the interests of those we personally know to be valuable. Thus we should be able to reach a consensus decision which does not pay for apparent overall social progress using a currency of scattered personal agonies and individual sacrifices.
A lot of random strangers are very nice people, and I wouldn’t want some random person to suffer just for my benefit.
And finally… I think the evidence is in that we as a society are sufficiently wealthy to provide for everyone at a BLoC while still allowing plenty of room for a large chunk of the population to be everything from “slightly well-off” to “extremely rich”.
Part of the justification is in the discussion with Hayek I linked here.
Stop me if I’m misunderstanding the argument—I won’t have time to watch the video tonight, and have only read the quotes you excerpted—but you seem to be posing “markets” against “universal BLoC” as mutually exclusive choices.
I am suggesting that this is a false dilemma; we have more than adequate resources to support socialism at the low end of the economic scale while allowing quite free markets at the upper end. If nobody can suffer horribly—losing their house, their family, their ability to live adequately—the risks of greater market freedom can be borne much more reasonably.
To put this in more concrete terms: I wouldn’t be as bothered by a few people being absurdly stinkin’ rich if I wasn’t constantly worried about whether I could pay my next credit-card bill, or whether I could afford to go to the hospital if I got really sick, or whether we are going to have to declare bankruptcy and possibly lose our home.
Am I missing your point?
On a related note: totally unregulated markets at any level lead to dangerous accumulations of power by largely unaccountable individuals. Does Hayek (or his school of thought) have an answer for that problem?
Addendum: I also disagree with his statement that an efficient society cannot be just. Does he offer a supporting argument for that claim in the video?
Your ‘universal basic level of comfort’ seems an awfully slippery concept to me. I imagine the average American’s idea of what it is differs rather markedly from someone living in rural Africa. Both would differ from that of a medieval peasant.
That’s somewhat besides the point though. The reason we can support an unprecedented human population with, on average, a level of health, comfort and material well-being that is historically high is that markets are extremely good at allocating resources efficiently and encouraging and spreading innovations. This efficiency stems in large part from the way that a market economy rewards success and not good intentions. Profits tend to flow to those who can most effectively produce goods or services valued by other market participants. Hayek’s point is that this can lead to a distribution of wealth that offends many people’s natural sense of justice but that attempts to enforce a more ‘just’ distribution tend to backfire in all kinds of ways, not least of which is through a reduction in the very efficiency we rely on to maintain our standard of living.
Part of the problem is that I believe this reflects an overly static view of the way the economy functions and neglects the effects of changes in incentives on individual behaviour and, in time, on societal norms. The idea of a ‘culture of dependency’ reflects these types of concern. Moral Hazard doesn’t only affect too big to fail banks.
This ties in with my earlier point about defining a ‘basic level of comfort’. I believe Hayek was actually supportive of some level of unemployment insurance. The tremendous inequalities between nations complicate the politics of this issue—many people in the developed world feel they are entitled to a basic level of comfort when unemployed that exceeds the level of comfort of productive workers in the developing world and this has consequences for the politics of free trade, immigration and foreign aid.
I’m not sure exactly what Hayek’s position on this issue is but the standard Austrian/libertarian view is that such problems are generally caused by government intervention and would not exist in a true free market. There’s actually quite a bit of common ground between the Chomsky-esque ‘left’ and the libertarian/anarcho-capitalist ‘right’ regarding critiques of the Corporatist nature of the US and other western democracies and the special interest control of government. The diagnosis is pretty similar but the proposed solutions tend to differ.
I don’t think BLoC has to be slippery, though of course in reality (with the current political system, anyway) it would become politicized. This is not a rational reason to oppose it, however.
I don’t know if we can do it for everyone on Earth at the moment, though that is worth looking at and getting some numbers so we know where we are. I was proposing it for the US, since we are the huge outlier in this area; most other “developed” societies (including some less wealthy than the US) already have such a thing.
I would suggest a starting definition for BLoC as living conditions meeting minimum sanitary standards, access to medical care priced affordably for each person (which will mean “free” for some), one or two decent meals a day, access to laundry facilities.
(sanitary standards: working indoor toilet, no leaks in the roof, reasonably well-insulated walls and roof, a phone (prepaid cellular is cheap now), some kind of heat in the winter, a decent bed, and possibly a few other things.)
This is still juxtaposing markets and BLoC as being mutually exclusive. Why can’t we have markets for everyone over a certain income level, and universal welfare for those who fall below it? As I said, other countries do this already, and it doesn’t seem to hurt their overall wealth at all.
I would argue that our current system is greatly harmful to overall wealth, as people and businesses often spend valuable resources helping others when they could be spending those resources developing new businesses or being creative. This is also highly selective, actually punishing those who help (they are not compensated for their expenditures), rather than being equitably distributed across all those who benefit from society.
(I’m a perfect example of this: because of the lack of universal health care, I’ve spent most of the last 3 years fighting bureaucracy to get help for an autistic child—and helping to provide care for him, which I am eminently unqualified to do—instead of working on my online store or my computer consulting. Because of that situation, I can’t afford medical insurance, which means I now owe $7k for a life-threatening incident late last year—which I won’t be able to pay anytime soon, and which is therefore driving up costs for everyone else in the Duke Health system, while employees of at least one collection agency are wasting their resources trying to get it from me. This is not “market efficiency”.)
Is there any data suggesting that this is actually a problem? As far as I can tell, it’s a conservative myth—like Reagan’s “welfare queens”.
This is WAY wrong. Totally unregulated markets are essentially anarchy; this is unstable, as some of those who gain early advantage will inevitably use their power to take down other players (rather than contributing positively) until the board consists of a few very powerful players (and their helpers) with everyone else being essentially powerless. (I suspect that the stable end-state is essentially feudalism, but with the enhanced concentrations of power made possible by modern technology, I can only think it would be far worse than any past feudal system.)
I put it to you that you can’t have markets without regulation—just as you can’t have a game without rules, or an internal combustion engine without valves.
I think it is a rational reason to oppose a role for government in providing it. Governments are bad enough at providing well defined services, a poorly defined goal exacerbates the problem. Just as the vague threat of terrorism provides a cover for ever increasing government encroachment on civil liberties, the vague promise of an ever-rising ‘basic level of comfort’ provides cover for ever increasing government encroachment on economic liberties.
As I lack much of a nationalist instinct I am endlessly puzzled by the idea that we should draw arbitrary boundaries of care along national borders. If your concern is helping others you can do so with much greater efficiency by targeting that help where it is most needed, which is largely outside the US.
Incidentally I don’t think it is a coincidence that many developed countries with advanced welfare states are less wealthy than the US. The difficulties of making economic comparisons across countries with different cultures and histories make it difficult to draw any conclusive conclusions from the data on these differences but some of it is highly suggestive.
The claim that it doesn’t seem to hurt their overall wealth at all is highly controversial. Due to the difficulties of controlling for other factors it is always possible to explain away the wealth differences in the data but there are suggestive trends. I don’t really want to get into throwing studies back and forth but saying ‘it doesn’t seem to hurt their overall wealth at all’ suggests either ignorance of the relevant data or unjustified confidence in interpretation of it.
Those who gain early advantage inevitably using their power to take down other players sounds like a description of the current corporatist system in the US to me, where incumbents use their political influence to buy state protection from competition. You appear to be ignorant of the kinds of problems highlighted by public choice theory and unaware of the libertarian analysis of how genuinely free markets tend to work against such power concentrations.
A productive market economy requires mechanisms to discourage the use of force as a negotiating chip and a framework to resolve contractual disputes through the rule of law rather than through political patronage, arbitrary decisions or violence but that looks rather different from what I suspect you mean by ‘regulation’.
If the government doesn’t provide it, just who is going to?
It’s not a matter of loyalty, but of having the knowledge and resources to work with to make something possible. I would certainly like to see such a level of care provided to everyone worldwide, but knowing what little I know about average wealth worldwide, this seems an unrealistic goal for the immediate future. It seems entirely realistic for the US, however.
(Plus… as little influence as I have over US politics, I am at least a citizen and resident; I’m much less likely to be able to have an effect on how things are handled in China… or Uganda, where there are more serious worries like the current campaign to make homosexuality a capital offense.)
There are also countries more wealthy than us who have universal welfare. My understanding is that if you look at the correlation between social welfare and overall wealth, it is positive—not negative, as you seem to imply. However, we do need some numbers for this so we’re not arguing subjective impressions.
I think this is exactly what we should be doing, until we have a sufficient sampling of studies that it might actually average out to something approaching reality.
Yes, the current corporatist system is what you get from partial deregulation. I think it is clear that we do not want to go further in that direction.
I’m aware of the broad outlines of the theory and some of the particulars, but I’m not aware of how it supports your conclusions.
There is the argument that deregulation of Germany’s currency led to greater prosperity—to which I say (a) we are agreed that too much regulation is a bad thing, but I still maintain that too little is just as bad or worse; (b) I would really like to see some numbers on this; were people really that badly off trading cigarettes? Yes, it was an inconvenience—but how much did it actually affect material wealth?
As you pointed out, recent US history seems to argue for a return to increased regulation.
If you believe there is data which contradicts my conclusions about the dangers of total deregulation and the economic benefits of social welfare for at least the bottom economic tier of society, please do share it.
Charities, family, friends, well meaning strangers… The desire to help others does not exist because of government. There might be more or less resources devoted to charity in the absence of government intervention, I haven’t seen much evidence either way. Libertarians commonly argue that private charity is more effective than government welfare and that it makes for a healthier society. A typical example of this case is here—the first such argument I found on google. Now you can certainly dispute these claims but you talk as if you are not even aware that such alternative arguments exist.
You appear to be shifting the goalposts. You started out arguing that your main concern is to minimize suffering:
Now you are saying that because that is an unrealistic goal you instead think it is important to make people who are already relatively well off by global standards (poor Americans) better off than it is to minimize suffering of the global poor. If your goal is really to minimize human suffering I don’t see how you can argue that guaranteeing housing and healthcare for Americans is a more effective approach than anti-malarial medications, vaccines or antibiotics for African children.
Subtly different question. It is true that many wealthy countries also have relatively generous welfare systems (particularly in Europe) but they have been able to afford these systems because they were already relatively wealthy. Studies that find negative effects are generally looking at relative growth rates but the difficulty of properly controlling such studies makes them somewhat inconclusive.
I’ve been down this road before in discussions of this nature and they usually degenerate into people throwing links to studies back and forth that neither side really has taken the time to read in detail. The discussion usually just derails into arguing about why this or that study is not adequately controlled. I think it is fair to say that existing studies are rarely definitive enough to overcome pre-existing ideological biases.
The two main points to note are that governments in reality are not in the business of implementing ‘enlightened’ policies that address imbalances of power but rather are in the business of creating imbalances of power for the benefit of special interests and the politicians they own and that many government regulations sold as protecting the interests of the general electorate are in actual fact designed to protect particular special interest groups.
Genuine deregulation has a good track record. It should not be confused with false deregulation like that seen in the financial industry which is really just ‘re-regulation’: adjusting an existing distorted playing field to favour the incumbents even more heavily.
So, why aren’t they? How can we make this happen—what process are you proposing by which we can achieve universal welfare supported entirely by such means?
I didn’t state the scope; you just assumed it was global. My goal remains as stated—minimizing suffering—but I am not arguing for any global changes (yet).
Umm… no, I said no such thing. My suggestion does not have any clear effects on the rest of the world. If anything, it would allow Americans to be more charitable to the world at large, as we would not have to be worrying about taking care of our own first.
I am not proposing taking away any existing American aid to other countries. I’m arguing we are wealthy enough to provide for ourselves solely through reallocation of resources internally, not by diverting them away from external causes (or worse, by stealing resources from other countries as we have a long history of doing; indeed, if it turns out that we cannot achieve universal welfare without robbing others, then I would say that we need to stop robbing others first, then re-assess the situation).
Then I would say that your claim that welfare hurts a country’s overall wealth is based on weak data. What is the basis for your belief in this theory, since the studies which might resolve that question have returned inconclusive results?
If nobody has time to at least compile the results, then there’s really no point in even having the discussion—since looking at existing data is really the only rational way to attempt to resolve the question.
If you actually have some links, I will at least file them on Issuepedia and give you a link to the page where they—and any other related information which may have been gathered (or may be gathered in the future) -- can be found.
I will also try to summarize any further debating we do on the subject, so that neither of us will need to rehash the same ground in future debates (with each other or with other people).
I hope that this addresses your apparent concern (i.e. that exchanging actual data on this topic would be a waste of time).
That is the reason I think we need to re-invent government. I don’t think government is automatically evil, though it is certainly vulnerable to just the sorts of mechanisms you identify.
This is certainly not the purpose for which government was invented, and saying that government is the problem just because it becomes a problem is like saying guns are always evil because they kill people—or dynamite is always evil because it is used in warfare. Any tool can be misused.
I propose that government is necessary, and that rather than declaring it evil and trying to render it as small and weak as possible, we should be learning how to build it better—and how to regain control of it when it goes astray.
Can you give me some examples (mainly of genuine deregulation—I got the financial industry non-deregulation; will have to ponder that example)?
I don’t have time to reply to your whole post right now (I’ll try to give a fuller response later) but telecom deregulation is the first example that springs to mind of (imperfect but) largely successful deregulation.
Amen to that… I remember when it was illegal to connect your own equipment to Phone Company wires, and telephones were hard-wired by Phone Company technicians.
The obvious flaw in the current situation, of course, is the regional monopolies—slowly being undercut by competition from VoIP, but still: as it is, if I want wired phone service in this area, I have to deal with Verizon, and Verizon is evil.
This suggests to me that a little more regulation might be helpful—but you seem to be suggesting that the lack of competition in the local phone market is actually due to some vestiges of government regulation of the industry—or am I misunderstanding?
(No rush; I shouldn’t be spending so much time on this either… but I think it’s important to pursue these lines of thought to some kind of conclusion.)
A little follow-up… it looks like the major deregulatory change was the Telecommunications Act of 1996; the “freeing of the phone jack” took place in the early 1980s or late 1970s, and modular connectors (RJ11) were widespread by 1985, so either that was a result of earlier, less sweeping deregulation or else it was simply an industry response to advances in technology.
An example of the type of special-interest driven regulation presented as consumer protection that I’m talking about is the established phone companies trying to use the E911 regulations to hamper VOIP companies that threaten their monopolies. This type of regulatory capture is very common.
What about Works Progress Administration-style programs?
I think they are a terrible idea. I’m not sure what Hayek’s position was on them but I imagine he would too. They result in the government making decisions about how to invest resources with all the problems that entails.