Different members have different opinions, because they’re not perfect reasoners and because their interests don’t reliably align with those of the group.
I’m going to channel Margaret Thatcher: there is no such thing as society. That is, there is no such thing as “the group’s interests” and attempting to compare the solution you have to the “group’s interests” is the wrong question. The real question is, how do you aggregate the opinions of those members?
It seems almost impossible to me that there will be a “universally correct” solution, especially if where to draw group boundaries is part of the problem. If the optimal economic organization is hierachical groups existing in a non-hierarchical ecosystem, then it seems wrong to claim hierarchy is universally correct (when it is terrible applied globally) or that non-hierarchical is universally correct (when it can be terrible applied locally).
A board of twelve people is in charge of deciding which grant proposals to accept. Their foundation’s stated goal is to maximize the average number of hedons among the human race.
A corporation is trying to maximize its expected profits. Numerous decisions must be made on behalf of the corporation.
A constitutional government is charged with taking the action whose outcome will most please the majority of its citizens, while obeying the constitution.
A board of twelve people is in charge of deciding which grant proposals to accept. Their foundation’s stated goal is to maximize the average number of hedons among the human race.
So they need to work out wtf a hedon is, put as many as possible in one person then kill all other humans?
You had best phrase your offer in a way that will appeal to whoever is trying to maximize average hedons. This, of course, means showing why they can put hedons into you more efficiently than they can anyone else. The maximisation process will involve killing nearly your entire species, leaving you alone. This being the case the selected candidate will be one who takes sadistic delight in the death of others, currently has no meaningful bonds with his or her fellow humans and above all has absolutely no standards regarding what will give them hedonistic pleasure.
The first and third examples make me cringe. How in the world does one measure a hedon? And how are the citizenry supposed to predict the behavior of the law? A proper government exists to define the board, not direct the pieces.
As for the second example, typically people talk about “net present value” rather than “expected profits.” They cash out similarly, but NPV explicitly includes factors like discounting and risk which expected profits generally do not do. And there it’s easy to see how opinions will clash- how much do we value intangibles like reputation? What is our risk tolerance?
Those problems highlight my point- there is no objective “net present value” that we just need to discover. There are about as many net present values as there are decision-makers, and if they aren’t coherent the corporation will be working at cross-purposes.
But how to make them cohere is a complicated problem, and I suspect that any solution that does not approach the problem in its complexity will be a vacuous solution.
I’m going to channel Margaret Thatcher: there is no such thing as society. That is, there is no such thing as “the group’s interests” and attempting to compare the solution you have to the “group’s interests” is the wrong question. The real question is, how do you aggregate the opinions of those members?
It seems almost impossible to me that there will be a “universally correct” solution, especially if where to draw group boundaries is part of the problem. If the optimal economic organization is hierachical groups existing in a non-hierarchical ecosystem, then it seems wrong to claim hierarchy is universally correct (when it is terrible applied globally) or that non-hierarchical is universally correct (when it can be terrible applied locally).
Examples:
A board of twelve people is in charge of deciding which grant proposals to accept. Their foundation’s stated goal is to maximize the average number of hedons among the human race.
A corporation is trying to maximize its expected profits. Numerous decisions must be made on behalf of the corporation.
A constitutional government is charged with taking the action whose outcome will most please the majority of its citizens, while obeying the constitution.
So they need to work out wtf a hedon is, put as many as possible in one person then kill all other humans?
Great idea, I’m sold. I heroically sacrifice myself to be the hedon-recipient.
You had best phrase your offer in a way that will appeal to whoever is trying to maximize average hedons. This, of course, means showing why they can put hedons into you more efficiently than they can anyone else. The maximisation process will involve killing nearly your entire species, leaving you alone. This being the case the selected candidate will be one who takes sadistic delight in the death of others, currently has no meaningful bonds with his or her fellow humans and above all has absolutely no standards regarding what will give them hedonistic pleasure.
So volunteering to be involved in such a horrible plan is actually a pretty good start.
That’s one hell of a grant proposal/foundation.
That’s one hell of a goal.
The first and third examples make me cringe. How in the world does one measure a hedon? And how are the citizenry supposed to predict the behavior of the law? A proper government exists to define the board, not direct the pieces.
As for the second example, typically people talk about “net present value” rather than “expected profits.” They cash out similarly, but NPV explicitly includes factors like discounting and risk which expected profits generally do not do. And there it’s easy to see how opinions will clash- how much do we value intangibles like reputation? What is our risk tolerance?
Those problems highlight my point- there is no objective “net present value” that we just need to discover. There are about as many net present values as there are decision-makers, and if they aren’t coherent the corporation will be working at cross-purposes.
But how to make them cohere is a complicated problem, and I suspect that any solution that does not approach the problem in its complexity will be a vacuous solution.