The Dumping Ground

From the Outbox -- What Am I, a Fucking Park Ranger?

2011-02-22T12:03:00.003-05:00

You know, it's the little things that make The Big Lebowski a true masterpiece, a contender for my favorite overall film, as opposed to just an awesome one. One thing that just occurred to me, dudes, is that Walter was probably under the impression that an actual marmot invaded the Dude's home. This would explain why Walter, though no park ranger, brings up aquatic rodents and wild animal law.

From the Outbox -- If Marijuana Were Legal and Taxed, Would A Large Percentage of People Grow Their Own?

2011-02-17T11:39:00.004-05:00

You ask: "how many people will really want to pay commercial prices plus taxes when they can grow their own (thus knowing exactly what they are getting) for next to nothing?"

I answer: lots, even assuming a tax proportional to that on cigarettes. Growing one's own would almost certainly not be the preferred option for most tokers. It's a non-trivial process in terms of space, time (e.g., care and feeding), upkeep (e.g., plant food, avoiding fertilization), and encroachment (e.g., smell). Of course, it's an easier undertaking if one lives in an appropriate climate and can grow outdoors. But it's still nowhere near as easy and efficient as it would be for the Philip Morris of the green economy. Moreover, it seems likely that the product of Big Pot, at least at the high end, would be way better than the homegrown alternatives for a number of reasons. And it would sure be marketed as such.

I mean, maybe it's largely a cultural thing, but most smokers don't roll their own cigarettes even though I believe they could save a considerable amount of money doing so. Don't underestimate the combined forces of laziness and branding. And note that branding -- and regulated selling -- includes a number of substantive signals such as consistency, product data, and the opportunity to support a government cool enough to legalize it.

***

I'm no expert, but my impression is that growing kind bud isn't easy. Maybe pot plants thrive in most climates without much attention, but I think producing a good yield of potent buds requires significant attention and know-how. In today's circumstances, this is of course partially due to the need to avoid detection, but it's also due to the finicky procedures necessary to induce optimal THC production. This has two main implications. First, commercial growers likely could grow significantly better stuff. They'd have better machines, better methods, and better strains. I don't see why these things couldn't be kept proprietary. Second, people love convenience. Maybe you think they're often suckers for it, but that's irrelevant to this discussion. What matters is that many people would pay to avoid having to go through all of the hassle and initial investment of growing -- even people who know they'll be partaking regularly. People are lazy and shortsighted; DIYers are idiosyncratic to varying degrees. I mean, what percentage of people get most of their produce from gardens? What percentage of people even make their own coffee? I think the situation would basically be like homebrewing.

***

I agree that the tax revenue might not be that substantial. I suspect legal pot would be quite cheap in general, but companies might be able to charge a fair amount for designer strains, alternative active ingredient delivery mechanisms, and the like. Regardless, I'd like to get back to the issue of how prevalent homegrowing would be.

You raise some valid points, but I think you're overstating your case. Consider:

Moichandising. It seems to me that there would be sizable market segments that would inhale the commercial offerings. Connoisseurs, tourists, first-timers, and "social smokers" come to mind. Connoisseurs would be curious about the latest strains being promoted by the various brands and headshops. Tourists and first-timers obviously would be unlikely to have homegrower connections. And by social smokers I mean the kinds of people who would primarily or exclusively partake in clubs and the like. I mean, just imagine what things would be like if pot were flat-out legal in California. Yeah, you'd have plenty of homegrowers, communes, and underground farmers' markets (green markets?). But you'd also have loads of commercialization.

The "soft costs" of homegrowing. I've already mentioned the nontrivial time and effort I believe it would take to grow high-end product. Raising, cultivating, farming, gardening -- whatever you want to call it -- is work; it's something that people who are wealthy enough (and who generally have less free time) would not be keen on doing unless they enjoyed it. But I also think many people would psychologically and/or socially be deterred from becoming homegrowers. They may worry about being stigmatized, and even if that's too harsh a word, in the early stages of legalization, there would at least be a lot of skittishness. Lastly, there's the product itself. I don't see why you think corporations wouldn't be able to produce significantly better stuff. They have more resources, and pot appears to have a lot of potential for resource-intensive development. Companies could isolate which combinations of cannabinoids produce which effects and then engage in hybridization and/or genetic modification. They could also presumably enhance other qualities such as aroma, potency, and appearance. And they might be able to breed strains that would produce very efficient yields compared to what's out there. Now, of course, some of this technology would eventually be reverse-engineered or otherwise discovered. But a lot of it could be kept proprietary, and a lot of it simply requires a corporate amount of resources to take advantage of. Additionally, companies could let users know exactly what they're smoking (strain, THC content, cannabinoid profile, etc.) so they can figure out their preferences and take on less risk.

In sum, people are willing to shell out for convenience and consistency. We wouldn't be a nation of gardeners if the climate were cooperative and arable land were ubiquitous.

From the Outbox -- Good People and Bad People

2011-02-17T10:00:00.004-05:00

We can't really tell what's going on in other people's heads. And there's a (basically useless) sense in which all voluntary actions are done out of self-interest. Nevertheless, I perceive instances in which I do a better or a worse job of controlling my urges to do things I regard as bad. It's possible that my perception of self-control variation is an illusion and that what's really going on is that the urges win out when they're sufficiently strong and/or when my capacity for self-control is sufficiently low. But I just don't think that's how it is with me. I think I rarely actually "lose it" and instead in some sense choose to go apeshit by giving into perverse desires (a combination of self-pity and attention-seeking being a particularly gross example). Now who knows if this is what goes on with other people (though maybe we could increase our confidence through neuroscience and psychology). But I'm pretty sure my internal mental experiences aren't fundamentally idiosyncratic. Of course, people do have different capacities, temperaments, and inclinations, so the point at which someone's being a dick -- i.e., being weak-willed about behaving properly -- varies; external behavior alone isn't sufficient to confidently judge someone. But if I know what it's like to be a dick and also what it's like to resist the urge, then presumably we're all fighting the same internal battle, just on different battlefields. And I doubt we all have the same win percentage. So some of us are worse people than others.

Do some of us get away with it more than others? Absolutely. Such is life. But the closer you get to someone, the easier it is to look into her heart, and the harder it is for her to get away with it.

***

Suppose everyone who comes off as a good person is really motivated ultimately by something selfish (such as wanting to be praised or feeling better about himself because he's doing good), just like everyone who comes off as a bad person. What then? At least there's a real difference, and the more you engage with someone, the better you can tell how they're going to behave and whether you like them. Practically, in the words of Bill Munny, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

In other words, the universe may have no moral arc, but we have moral compasses. Your concern is analogous to one's decision whether or not to eat meat even though he "knows" it's wrong. Some rationalize, some say "fuck it," and some stop (to some extent). With questions like this, there's no issue of "hiding" one's badness. It's simply a question of caring enough about doing the right thing, for whatever reason. So yeah, maybe the guy who gets his caring/willpower from a selfish wellspring is no better, in some sense, than the guy who says, "fuck it, meat's too tasty and my friends would give me shit if I gave it up." But in a real sense he is a better person.

In sum:

1. Some people seem to care about being good people; others seem to embrace selfishness.

2. Perhaps, either way, we all ultimately care about feeling good about ourselves, about being able to live with ourselves.

3. One who does good because he feels good about being a good person is still a good person.

From the Outbox -- Have We Taken Irony Too Far?

2011-02-16T14:50:00.005-05:00

I'm cynical, too. I mean, just consider these four facts: (i) it's very hard for a person to turn out decently enough -- a lot of genetic and environmental things have to go right at the right times; (ii) it's very hard to solve countless collective action problems, particularly global ones that require action well in advance of the manifestation of the harms; (iii) we know so little about so many important things, including our ignorance, so our actions are often very risky; and (iv) we as a species have global dominance. So, in a sense, we're "destined" to fuck shit up. We as a species may of course end up thriving if technological progress continues for long enough, but a lot of damage will have been done in the meantime, and a lot of good things will have been irrevocably lost. So, yeah, "everything" turns to shit.

I lack the knowledge to really evaluate David Foster Wallace's claim that, in your words, "we've gone through an irony revolution that has made earnestness and sincerity seem campy and risible," but it does resonate with me. It seems that everyone who's taking something seriously, especially a cause, has to toe a fine line to avoid being accused of self-righteousness, self-importance, overearnestness, heavy-handedness, and/or overzealouness. This may have always been true to some extent -- none of our opposition to these things is purely cultural -- but it does seem to have become more an issue these days. I suppose there are at least two main reasons: (i) the business of modern real-time mass media, which thrives on controversy, gossip, and the like, and often creates or amplifies these things when they don't really exist (e.g., giving every issue two sides, characters, and a traditional narrative, even if it's not an open question and/or is more complicated); and (ii) changes in our culture. I can't really speak to (ii), which of course is intertwined with (i), but I think I know what Wallace is getting at. People tend to be regarded as uncreative, lame, self-indulgent, too personal, and the like when they don't throw in enough self-reflection, self-awareness, and ironic distance from their concerns . It's like people have to put up disclaimers for their passion and sincerity, especially if it's about an issue that "everyone" already "gets." It's like people have to apologize for speaking from the heart, as if everything that comes from the heart is sentimental bullshit. (Perhaps one way of looking at this is that the logic of the anti-emo movement has been overextended. Perhaps another way is that everyone's so afraid of being "called out," so we wrap our basic points in irony, complexity, and qualifiers, which reduces clarity and dilutes our messages -- at least until the time comes when we feel comfortable being straightforward about these messages.) That said, I think we do want this "ironic check" to exist in our society to some extent. Some people should be mocked for the lack of self-awareness and critical distance that comes from never taking the ironic pose. But yeah, we're too inclined to say "Get over yourself!" Some selves aren't worth getting over.

Incidentally, I love that things like The Daily Show exist, because they seem to be able to get away with more passion and sincerity by virtue of being funny and possessing an overarching irony of sorts.

From the Outbox -- On College Rankings

2011-02-16T14:33:00.005-05:00

In order to simultaneously post more and remain lazy -- I make no representation that standards have not fallen -- I'm going to periodically post material drawn from my deep well of emailed ramblings, starting, arbitrarily, with the following:

The U.S. News school rankings seem sort of like a natural monopoly to me, in that despite the absence of anti-competitive practices (as far as I know), it's virtually impossible for a competing ranking system to obtain any market share. The vast majority of students understandably take the rankings into account when deciding where to go to school, and they have been doing so for years -- the rankings aren't perfect, but it's certainly better to take them into account than to ignore them. In order for a competing ranking system to achieve any influence, enough students would have to rely on it instead. But what incentive do most students have to take the risk of relying on rankings that most of their peers will likely ignore and that aren't necessarily any better?

For example, suppose U.S. News ranks School A #5 and School B #10, and a critical competitor ranks School B higher on its own list. Could the competitor succeed? Almost certainly not. To begin with, as flawed as the U.S. News rankings are, they do heavily take into account the factors that most college-bound students care about (average SAT score, GPA, class size, etc.). They do a good job of indicating where the most qualified students go to school. Therefore, a credible competitor couldn't have substantially different rankings, such as one with no Ivy League schools in the top 10. Unlike in, say, the market for portable electronic devices, there's only so much innovating a competitor can do. Furthermore, even if the competitor's methodology seems more credible, there is a real risk that it's no better, especially given the great lengths to which schools go to massage the data they report. Finally, there's the fact that most students consult the U.S. News rankings due to their ubiquity and don't even consider the more obscure competition. Thus, most students who get into both School A and School B will go to School A, meaning that School A will continue to get the better students. A student who thinks that School B may, in fact, be better may nevertheless choose to go to School A to be with his more accomplished peers. The U.S. News rankings are therefore self-perpetuating.

Because of the power of the rankings, and the money at stake, schools have worked hard at gaming the system. Once one school successfully games the system, other schools naturally feel pressured to follow suit (kind of like with grade inflation). Then we end up with what we have now: a system that's almost completely gamed. Indeed, it would be better if every school gamed the system in the same way, because then no school would be ahead by virtue of its better gamesmanship. For example, if every school equivalently inflated its employment statistics by creating jobs for its unemployed graduates, no school would have an unfair advantage. Obviously, this isn't the case: some schools have moved way up the rankings due to dishonest practices. The other obvious tragedy is that certain data in the rankings simply can't be trusted.

In sum, we have a classic example of a system that's bad but that everyone understandably relies on anyway. The only potential solution seems to be government intervention of some sort, which of course may be more trouble than it's worth. At least, as this article mentions, there are organizations committed to the public service of exposing these serious frauds.

Review - Let the Right One In

2011-02-09T02:08:00.014-05:00

Let the Right One In is a recent vampire movie, but it’s also one of the better melancholy films I’ve seen. It’s set in a small Swedish town that lies in the shadow of the Iron Curtain and under a foot of snow. Oskar, a withdrawn and bullied 12-year-old, lives in a small apartment with his mother, an unconcerned parent. (In a clichéd, but nonetheless poignant, scene, she asks him how he got a cut on his face and unhesitatingly accepts his answer, admonishing him to be more careful on the playground.) Oskar dreams of exacting violent revenge on his tormentors, going so far as to act out scenes with a pocketknife. He also covertly collects newspaper clippings about murders and other grisly incidents. But the most troubling thing about him is his apparent detachment from his predicament. It’s not that he’s underconcerned or perversely content with being bullied; it’s that, outwardly at least, he responds dispassionately, as if he’s come to terms with hopelessness. He doesn’t ever run, cry, or raise his voice, even though he’s clearly suffering and has been engaged in an internal struggle over whether, and if so when, to strike back. Notably, we have every reason to believe that he regards striking back as the ideal. It is not compassion or an aversion to “lowering” himself that stays his hand, but rather something else, such as the inherent gravity of revolutionary action. Perhaps he is also concerned with the physical act of revenge, for he takes up weight training under the tutelage of his amiably eccentric gym teacher.

One night, in the snowfield outside his apartment building, Oskar meets Eli (pronounced “elly”), who recently moved in next door. She is also 12, in her words, “more or less.” Though Oskar maintains his emotional flatness in her presence -- even after she confirms her sanguinivorous nature -- he is obviously fascinated. He begins, shly, to let her in. He tells her about the bullies, and she advises him to hit back. He questions her willingness to kill, and she points out his. Eli and Oskar are both sympathetic characters in that they are constantly victimized by circumstance, but they are not innocent characters. They are both outsiders, but they must confront the conventional world. Naturally, they are drawn together, certain irreconcilable differences be damned. The subsequent plot developments are largely unremarkable, but their execution is wondrous and moving.

Often, the film successfully resonates by economizing on the explicit, in the same way that a lingering shot of a snowscape can say more about doleful desolation than could even a Roy Batty voiceover. For instance, there are two scenes in which I recall Oskar expressing childlike delight in contrast to his usual aloofness: one where he goes sledding while visiting his dad, and another where he and his mom start brushing their teeth in unison and turn to each other with amusement in their eyes, perhaps engaging in a nightly ritual for the thousandth time. These glimpses of realistic domesticity -- a rare treat in film -- flesh out the viewer’s psychological portrait of Oskar; they suggest that he is not entirely consumed by his bullying and not always so removed from the viscerality of emotion -- that he feels his pleasure and therefore his pain. In another telling domestic scene, a man arrives while Oskar is hanging out at the dinner table with his dad, and the relaxed mood immediately shifts: Oskar stiffens, and his father, invoking the obligation of hospitality, gets the door and pours a couple of drinks. Oskar quickly leaves, and we are left to wonder what prompted his anxiety. His dad comes across as a genial, easygoing man, but is he a horrible drunk? Is the other man his lover? Was Oskar simply crushed by the disruption of his fragile tranquility? Such moments bow my heart strings as much as the bullying, because they convey the tortuous inner life of a tortured child. And like the wordless scenes of delight, they do so in a way that leaves unnecessary details to the richness of imagination.

Let the Right One In also succeeds atmospherically. From the opening fade-in of a gentle flurry, snow plays a prominent role in the film. Fittingly, there is something about snow that complements the vampiric. Perhaps it is that snow signifies short, dark days. Perhaps it is that in its presence we cling bitterly to the very warmth that the vampire craves. Perhaps it is the lifelessness of a whited-out landscape. Perhaps it is simply our association of cold and death. At any rate, the omnipresence of snow contributes to the town’s air of remoteness and repose. There is little vivacity in the dead of winter, and the moonlight, reflected and amplified by the snow, bathes the town in a subdued, blue-tinged glow. Practically, it is hard to argue that a vampire wouldn’t be better off in a big city, where victims are anonymous and hideouts are plentiful, but aesthetically Eli has come to the right place. Overall, the film’s atmosphere is in harmony with its pacing -- the exposition of important plot developments is unhurried, and the viewer is given time and space to reflect on characters’ experiences. Thus, while the film has its share of violent and passionate events, its intensity is never at odds with its contemplative tone.

I am compelled to discuss Let the Right One In’s take on vampirism, because a review of a vampire movie isn’t worth its weight in blood without such a discussion, and also because the film presents a particularly compelling account. Most significantly, Let the Right One In does not glamorize vampirism. Many vampires, particularly the more recent creations, are charismatic creatures who -- bloodthirst and daylight curfew aside -- have transcended their physicality in the manner of ageless superheroes. We are inclined to envy them, especially in this age of blood banks and limitless indoor stimulation. Not so with Eli, who, in the vein of Nosferatu, elicits an uneasy sympathy. She is trapped in a child’s body, so she is limited in her ability to function independently and feed ethically. She possesses preternatural physical prowess, but she is unable to seduce or entrance her victims. When she is underfed, she smells of death. She derives no apparent pleasure from the taking of life. Yet take life she does, wantonly at that, so we cannot comfortably sympathize. She is still childlike in many respects, despite her apparently great age, so perhaps her responsibility is diminished. Indeed, with the selfishness of a child, she has rationalized her murderousness as a need, and is apparently unburdened by the arguable moral imperative to end her life. Moreover, we cannot help but perceive her as a child, for fundamental elements of her identity have been frozen in time. But there is no escaping the fact that she is a serial killer, albeit probably not the first one you’ve rooted for.

Oskar certainly seems to have few qualms about this fact. After all, he is 12 and troubled, and he is in love, or something like it. But so is Eli. At first, she prudently attempts to dissuade his efforts at friendship, but it is clear that she, too, is suffering from loneliness. (For how long has she endured a life of permanent juvenility, perpetual night, forced seclusion, and desensitized murder?) Soon it is not just Oskar who is opening his heart.

It is wonderful to watch their love unfold, but it is also tragic. The romantic endeavors of 12-year-olds do not ordinarily inspire such gravity, but in this case it feels appropriate. Together Oskar and Eli have found a happiness it seems they had never known, but it is a happiness that cannot last. Oskar will become a teenager, then a man, and they will have to let each other go. But all is not lost if they never regret having let each other in.

Rating: 8/10

The Life Akratic With Gideon Rosen

2010-12-29T12:13:00.008-05:00

I'm posting this discussion here because my blog seems to be a forum conveniens.

DG
Do you think people are inculpable for self-serving, mistaken moral judgments?

Me
I think it depends on why one made the mistake. Do you mean an honest (i.e., trying to do the right thing) mistaken moral judgment that happens to be self-serving? If so, the question seems to be whether the honest mistake was also acceptable and not negligent or the like.

That said, as you know, I don’t think there’s a satisfactory “model” for moral blame. I’m down with the Gideon Rosen stuff (which has a lot in common with the “basic argument” that Strawson outlined in The Stone but does not rely on determinism), which concludes that we should be skeptics about moral responsibility because all allegedly culpable acts presumably stem ultimately from nonculpable ignorance of some sort. Then there are alternatives such as your person-based position, which I haven’t gotten around to really thinking about (I still need to reread that long email you sent awhile back and read a handful of articles before I feel comfortable making any claims about it).

Speaking of reading things, I did very well on this paper I wrote for a philosophy seminar. I remember feeling confused upon rereading it, thinking I got mixed up somewhere, maybe got tautological. But it has at least some merit and is relevant to your question. I’d appreciate your thoughts.

DG
I suppose I think the existence of a self-serving tendency in mistaken judgments undermines the idea of an “honest” mistake; don’t you?

I think the tendency of someone’s mistakes to be convenient is a counterexample to the putative principle that mistaken judgments are non-culpable (which I take to be a premise of Rosen’s view, though I am not that well-versed in his views).

Me
On the traditional notion of moral responsibility, if someone reasonably tried to be honest (non-self-serving) in making a moral judgment but ended up getting it wrong in a way that was self-serving, he’s not culpable. Rosen would argue that one isn’t culpable for the self-serving tendency because it ultimately stems from something non-culpable. It’s a straightforward, neat argument.

DG
That’s really more like the “basic argument” from the NYT. Rosen’s position is (depends on the claim that), to be morally blameworthy, you must correctly judge an action to be wrong and nonetheless undertake that action. That loses its force if you can be culpable for taking a “convenient” wrong moral judgment. Now Rosen would retreat to his weaker notion of skepticism -- he is not saying that moral responsibility is impossible, just that it’s very hard to confidently identify. But I think the “convenience” of a moral judgment can appear so powerfully that this is not availing.

But yeah you’re eliding Rosen’s position with the blunter form of skepticism sketched in the “basic argument,” probably because you find that argument very persuasive.

Me
I do find it persuasive, and I’m not sure about the subtlety you’re trying to get at. I take it you’re imagining someone who convinces himself of a certain moral position by either (i) somehow intentionally convincing himself of it because it’s self-serving (culpable on the traditional account), (ii) negligently coming to believe it (culpable, albeit less so, on the traditional account), or (iii) reasonably coming to believe it in good faith, though perhaps unconsciously disposed to believe it due to its self-serving nature (not culpable). Are you simply saying that (i) and (ii) are often easy to identify? If so, so what? This just pushes the problem back a step -- is the person really culpable for intentionally or negligently coming to believe the position?

I guess an underlying issue is how much metacognition we should expect of people when making moral judgments. This is, of course, a question that must be resolved by intuition to avoid infinite regress. But we can come up with an answer (e.g., a “reasonable” amount) and practically judge people.

I imagine most people whose moral judgments are both really off base and really self-serving don’t really believe the judgments or are really good at something like self-deception (for which they may or may not be culpable on the traditional account).

All this stuff makes me curious about all these neuroscience-based “models” of cognition that people are working on that really mess with concepts such as belief and intention. A lot of this stuff seems to come down to these seemingly irresolvable (at least with our current tools!) age-old debates, such as whether akrasia is possible, etc. I’m not sure we can get anywhere worthwhile if we start by assuming one side of these questions.

JB
This is a rather thorny problem, I remember discussing it in college. I think Rosen is persuasive and sophisticated on this issue, and basically lays it out in the right way, although I think I come down on the other side of the result.

It doesn’t seem like I have in any of the forwards an explanation of what level of subtlety DG thought you were missing. But what seems missing to me is the virtue-ethical (character trait) component of the problem, which you ignore in this response but mention later when you discuss tendency to self-serving self-deception.

So, assume culpable akrasia. I think it’s much easier to then apply blame to a pervasive, self-serving character trait developed and maintained over time.

Any individual bad act or bad belief or whatever, you can apply the honest mistake argument. But if these are read as blameworthy merely because they supervene on bad character, well I don’t think there are very many reasons why you could have self-serving self-deceptive bad character over the long term other than akrasia. Which is, by hypothesis, culpable.

I think about this in essentially statistical terms. For an individual bad act there’s only one trial, the probability of doing the bad act as an honest mistake even without akrasia is high compared to the probability of doing the bad act as result of akrasia. For the self-serving character trait there are many trials, the probability of maintaining the character trait without culpable akrasia falls to zero as the number of trials increases. Thus the self-serving character trait is culpable, even if you are very willing to give people the benefit of the doubt as to honest mistake (except maybe in children, who’ve had less chance to take responsibility for their character traits over time, fewer trials, thus less justification for attributing their bad acts to culpable A.)

I thought this point of view was right in college, since then I’ve changed my mind about some pretty foundational issues without necessarily following through all of the implications, but it still seems reasonable to me.

Me
Don’t think DG really spelled it out, but it seems like the position you're advocating.

You say: “I don’t think there are very many reasons why you could have self-serving self-deceptive bad character over the long term other than akrasia.” Hmm. I was assuming that once the initial self-serving self-deception “kicks in,” the agent doesn’t reflectively maintain or reinforce it with every judgment; rather, it changes the basis of his specific moral deliberations such that in adhering to it he thinks he’s doing the right thing. In other words, I was assuming at most one “instance” of akrasia -- the self-deceived agent is already deceived and therefore no longer akratic. Is this psychologically realistic? I’m not sure, but I think it’s close. I imagine successful self-deception doesn’t involve much metacognition about the fact! The upshot is that it would be misguided to blame someone for “maintaining” a self-serving moral system that he’s simply come to believe (i.e., I’m not sure how realistic your statistical “model” is).

There remains, of course, the question of how likely it is that akrasia is the basis for an agent coming to believe a moral system that happens to be self-serving. To what extent are people really capable of intentionally sculpting their honest moral beliefs so that they will end up serving themselves whenever they subsequently make good faith moral judgments? I guess this is where Rosen raises an eyebrow. I forget what he says about the psychology of akrasia, but I guess he doubts that people have so much intentional control. This is where I start to wonder about the whole model of straightforward intentional decision-making. How do we really form “foundational” moral beliefs/systems? To what extent to we reflect on them when “applying” them? Can neuroscience help us?

Anyway, I think you raise some provocative points, but I’m inclined to side with Rosen, perhaps simply because of the basic difficulties with conceptualizing akrasia (even though I know a discussion of the traditional account of moral blame must assume its possibility!).

JB
Look, I agree with you, DG and Rosen that it all comes down to your concept of akrasia. I tend to think, for Kantian reasons, that however we construct our concept of free will, it must be in such a way that validates moral responsibility. I.e. that validating moral responsibility is a basic criterion that an account of free will has to satisfy. I understand that it’s hard to reconcile culpable akrasia with determinism or other core concepts (this is what Critique of Pure Reason is about, right? Inasmuch as I understood it). So we could talk about what free will would look like such that it validates akrasia, I think it’s hard not to end up with something that looks rather like religion, but that’s another story.

The other side of the issue is the model of character. Basically the question is your model of “bad character”: is a “bad character” strongly persistent, such that once it kicks in it requires no further culpable actions, or is it not. I think this is actually two issues: First can you get by without considering the issue of whether you are a bad guy, and need to think things through. Second, given that you’ve considered the issue is it realistic to expect to to try to resculpt your character so that you’re not such a bad guy any more.

I think issue one is pretty easy and you sort of brush it over in the opposite direction in a really implausible way. It’s not like you can just, you know, develop a trait of consistent self-deception and then never consider it again, unless you live in total isolation. Culture prompts you quite a lot to question your values and think about integrity. I think this is actually basically what a lot of popular culture is for, and why people are interested in it. Hey, sometimes individuals prompt you, although I’ve come to learn that this is considered rude.

Issue two is harder but look: I don’t think you really believe that it’s impossible for people to resculpt their character. I think you at most really believe either that it’s possible, but sort of too expensive for us to reasonably expect more than a small number of people to do it. Note that this isn’t really a logical or metaethical objection: There’s nothing about the concepts of right and wrong or blaming which says that it has to be easy to do the right thing. But many people have the intuition that if a moral system is so harsh that it cannot be satisfied without extraordinary pain or difficulty or effort then it is not a “moral” system at all (I don’t have this intuition). I don’t know what this issue is called, I think of it as the problem of moral gravity (in the sense of weight. I think I’m thinking of Giles Corey).

Look, neuroscience could tell us that it’s not really possible for people to resculpt their character but I don’t really expect it do do so.

Another dimension which I haven’t addressed arises from moral uncertainty; “right action” or “right character” aren’t known and might not really be knowable for an individual which might make us suspicious of the idea of restructuring our character, or suspicious of people who restructure their character.

PS, I think I don’t believe that people have foundational moral beliefs or systems. Or rather I don’t think that people really rely on them very much when making private moral decisions - I think the function that moral systems serve is more a way of organizing public moral decision-making in society.

Me
Interesting ideas in your first paragraph; seem promising to me. I also more or less agree with your last four paragraphs. But I want to distinguish two things that you seem to mention together in paragraph 4: the requirements of morality and the requirements of blameworthiness. I share your intuition that a correct moral obligation need not be “sufficiently easy” to follow, only possible. But the fact that it’s likely possible (i.e., with the right education, training, effort, etc.) for most sane people with bad characters to restructure their characters doesn’t mean that we are necessarily entitled to blame them for having bad characters; justified blame requires a judgment that someone reasonably should have acted differently. Now that I think about it, this is simply another way of saying that blame depends on how much control and understanding we could reasonably expect of someone (e.g., we'd blame the choleric teenager less than, I don’t know, Lord Russell for the same offense), but the right thing to do doesn’t operate on the same sliding scale.

As for issue one (“can you [realistically] get by without considering the issue of whether you are a bad guy”), I think it comes down to the level at which one’s self-reflection about his moral judgments occurs. For a simplified example, imagine someone who thinks at the levels of (i) what moral “system” (basically, consequentialist or deontological algorithms and heuristics) should I adopt, and (ii) am I reasonably and honestly applying it to a given situation? (I know this isn’t super realistic, but I think anyone who tries to be morally “consistent” necessarily bifurcates his reasoning like this, even if his moral system is incomplete, semi-conscious, and somewhat shifty.) As I touched on in my previous emails, I doubt that much straightforward intentional reasoning is involved in (i); I think it’s largely shaped by temperament and intuition (which, in turn, shape which moral arguments -- essentially intuition pumps -- appeal to a person and shape his moral system). Moreover, people don’t seem to reflect on (i) all that much. So it’s hard for me to see where akrasia is likely to enter the process at the level of (i). Sure, I think it’s inevitable that some self-interest seeps in, and likely with it self-deception, but I doubt whether akrasia is involved in the very act of self-deceiving. Effective self-deception seems to rely on internal mental opacity. And, of course, once someone has truly deceived himself such that he thinks he’s honestly arrived at an acceptable moral system, one is no longer akratic in unreflectively maintaining it.

I see more room for akrasia at the level of (ii). I mean, I can’t help but consider myself akratic in some cases (occasionally eating factory-farm-produced meat, downloading pirated music): I believe I do certain morally bad things because I derive enjoyment from them and am not sufficiently troubled by their badness. But I wonder about other people. And I wonder what neuroscience could tell us about this. I want to reread what Rosen says, because I think this is where the rubber hits the road. I vaguely remember him saying that he doesn’t really perceive himself as akratic, which surprises me. Then again, I’m under the impression -- and I confess to deriving a feeling of superiority from this! -- that most people are much less honestly self-reflective, and more self-deceptive, than I. (Or maybe they’re just better people, though they probably have worse moral systems!)

On "Chimp Brain"

2010-08-26T12:36:00.014-04:00

A friend of mine believes that the desire for recognition and admiration is generally something to be overcome, not acted on. He maintains that this desire is a detrimental vestige of our simian ancestry, a maladaptive tendency in a world in which generalized status-seeking is only worthwhile for aspiring politicians, celebrities, and the like. In other words, people like me should stop thinking with their "chimp brains" and should instead focus on attaining more substantive returns such as knowledge about an interesting subject, better financial discipline, or the esteem of a few close friends. (Or we should become aspiring politicians, celebrities, and the like.) For instance, I shouldn't care if someone is wrong on the internet, except insofar as it shapes my position on an issue worth taking a position on.

As a blogger (someone is right on the internet!), simiophile, and all-around highly competitive person, this view ruffled my feathers. I wondered whether I'm indeed unduly concerned with what an unduly broad group of people think of me -- a group that surely includes some people who, taking after Howard Roark, don't think of me. After all, I was basically serious when, in my first post (on why I'm blogging), I wrote: "I want to show off. (It’s okay now that I admit it, right?) I want you to think I’m even more insightful, funny, interesting, reasonable, and infallible."

On reflection, I agree with my friend that I would be better off if my chimp brain were less active. Although I believe that most activities and interactions are inevitably competitive and relevant to one's status (think of, say, any conversation in which you were striving to be funny, smart, and/or sociable, even if you weren't consciously trying to outperform your friends), I would like to approach them in a less competitive and status-seeking manner. I would also like to devote more time and energy towards activities that provide me with non-status-based rewards (e.g., reading up on issues instead of blogging about them, assuming blogging even advances my status). But these things are easier said than done, and it's not clear to me what the optimal balance is -- competitiveness and status-seeking are not inherently bad things.

That said, I want to endeavor to act more in accordance with the higher parts of my brain. For one, I want to pick my intellectual battles more wisely. I've always been reluctant to end an argument by "agreeing to disagree," because I believe that the vast majority of disagreements between reasonable people are not the result of differences in values, of which true impasses are made. Rather, I think that given enough effort and patience, reasonable people can pin down and work out the empirical and/or logical differences that underlie their disagreements. But putting in -- and demanding -- such effort and patience is not always worth it; it depends on the importance of the issue in question and the characteristics of the parties, and it risks breeding animosity. Accordingly, I want to keep in mind that agreeing to disagree does not necessarily entail writing off one's interlocutor as unreasonable, irrational, or both (except on an internet forum) -- it can simply be the result of the mature recognition that the truth is not worth pursuing at all costs.

A second practical example of the more elevated thinking to which I aspire is, frankly, having more reasonable expectations about the amount of attention I can get by demanding it. To quote my initial post again, I wrote that "I'm always happy to devote some time to the works of friends; there's something markedly more interesting about the products of minds with which I am familiar." (Naturally, I made this statement in the context of blegging for readers.) Perhaps this is a common sentiment, but I feel it's particularly strong in me. For example, I would be eager to look at a friend's paintings or listen to a friend's music, even if I didn't expect them to be dripping with artistic merit (feel free to call me on this). Indeed, I feel compelled to read my friends' blogs (and, until a recent bout of sensibility, Google Reader feeds) in their entirety, even if not every post is my cup of tea. On the other hand, most people I know are much more selective in their attentions. They're willing to give my creations and recommendations some precedence, but they're more willing to just pursue their interests. Ultimately, I shouldn't expect others to share my interests so closely. People, no matter how compatible, are inescapably separated by myriad differences in genes and environment. And we're all full of foibles. Healthy relationships of all kinds thus involve tolerance, humility, and sacrifices. This, too, I will keep in mind.

In light of the above, this will probably be my last post. Thanks for reading.

In the Backseat

2010-08-24T11:36:00.006-04:00

You may have come across this Pulitzer Prize-winning article about caring parents who carelessly leave their babies to die in their hot cars. The article rekindled my anger at the moralizing masses (likely the same people who make it impossible for state legislatures and prison wardens to end the counterproductive, torturous, and widespread practice of long-term solitary confinement) and sparked the following rants, culled from a couple of emails I wrote.

Most people's reactions to these cases ("frothing vitriol" in the author's words) -- like most people and their reactions to most bad things -- are unreasonable and disgusting. People need to be taught to reason about emotional issues. Why don't schools teach subjects such as personal finance and practical psychology (which, of course, has implications for personal finance)? I've long believed that understanding one's limitations is a significant step in freeing oneself from them. For example, I've fortunately always been disinclined to make the fundamental attribution error, but learning about it (in high school) -- about how demonstrably flawed most people's judgments are -- really hammered the point home. Unfortunately my psychology teacher didn't emphasize that the experiments we studied are revealing about how we are inclined to think and act in the real world. Although this observation is obvious to us -- it's the whole idea of experimental psychology -- that doesn't mean it shouldn't be underscored in the classroom. A little preaching can be a good thing.

Also, we should have trained, vetted, professional jurors.

***

Basically, it's essential to think about one's own thinking -- to metacogitate -- and to not just react like so many people do. I think the main reason why we prosecute 60% of the parents who unintentionally leave their babies to die in their cars is because people think they could never do something like that, that it's something only a monster or a reckless person could do. That's not true, and prosecuting the parents is counterproductive -- it costs society resources that could be used to prosecute real criminals; it further ruins the lives of these parents and the rest of their families (including any other kids they have to care for); and it encourages a moralistic, as opposed to a practical, justice system. People often talk about being willing to leave certain matters "in God's hands." Well, this is precisely the kind of situation where the human justice system should lay off.

The Economic Justifications for Government Support of Technological Advancement

2010-08-12T00:20:00.004-04:00

The following is culled from a paper I wrote (footnotes omitted):

The development and deployment of technologies for combating climate change should not be left to the private sector alone, even if governments were to take the essential step of pricing the externality of greenhouse gas emissions. Economics demonstrates that implementing a carbon tax or an emissions permit trading system is the most cost-effective method of achieving the indispensable goal of inducing private actors to factor the social cost of emissions into their decisions. Instituting such a policy is the single most significant step that governments can take to mitigate climate change. But it is a necessary step, not a sufficient one. For economics also demonstrates that the technology sector is plagued by its own set of market failures, which entail that emissions pricing alone will not give firms the optimal incentive to develop and deploy technologies for producing cleaner energy. In turn, the marginal cost of achieving a given unit of emissions reduction will be higher than is ideal. The public sector must intervene in order to ensure the efficient level of technological investment. As Adam B. Jaffe, Richard G. Newell, and Robert N. Stavins aptly recapitulate, we should

view technological change relative to the environment as occurring at the nexus of two distinct and important market failures: pollution represents a negative externality, and new technology generates positive externalities. Hence, in the absence of public policy, new technology for pollution reduction is, from an analytical perspective, doubly underprovided by markets.

The importance of factoring technological change into an analysis of the cost of abating greenhouse gas emissions should not be underestimated. As explained previously, the development of new technologies, the commercialization of viable innovations, and the employment of readily available advancements make up the world’s toolkit for enabling the benefits of ravenous energy consumption not to come at the cost of our planet and our future. The aforementioned authors note that “the single largest source of difference among modelers’ predictions of the cost of climate policy is often differences in assumptions about the future rate and direction of technological change.” Good technology policy should render these assumptions more favorable, thereby lowering the expected cost of emissions abatement.

The first subsection below explicates the failures in the R&D market that justify public support. The second subsection deals specifically with the related, but distinct, set of market failures that impede the private deployment and diffusion of clean energy technology.

Failures in the Market for Research and Development

The primary failure in the R&D market is that technological innovation creates positive externalities in the form of “knowledge spillovers,” so the market produces too little innovation. R&D generates knowledge that has the characteristics of a public good: one individual’s consumption of the good does not reduce the amount of the good available for consumption by others, and no one can effectively be excluded from using the good. Because firms cannot capture all of the benefits of R&D, they have socially suboptimal incentives to engage in it. Some studies of commercial innovation have concluded that, on average, originators only appropriate about half of the gains from R&D. Hence the value of government intervention in the market.

A second basis for intervention is that most of the benefits of climate change mitigation are so long-term as to be outside the planning horizons of private funding instruments. Private firms are obligated to focus on private costs, benefits, and discount rates in order to satisfy their shareholders. This can result in insufficient emphasis on returns, however valuable, that will not materialize until far into the future, when many shareholders have reached the Keynesian long-run. Moreover, these issues are compounded by the considerable uncertainty – and perceived uncertainty – about climate change, which renders long-term returns impossible to precisely quantify. Several studies have found that the “implicit discount rates” that firms use when making decisions about investment in long-term climate change mitigation are frequently much higher than market interest rates due to various market barriers and failures, such as inadequate information. Firms are generally suboptimally aware of energy conservation opportunities and often lack the expertise necessary to implement them – another instance of the underprovision of the public good of knowledge.

A final impediment to R&D funding is the asymmetry of information between innovators and potential investors about the prospects of new technologies. Innovators tend to be in a better position to assess the potential of their work, so favorable assessments are usually met with skepticism and demands for greater risk premiums. This intensifies the knowledge spillover problem because subsequent producers of a successful technology will be able to obtain financing on better terms. All of the above difficulties are surely magnified in today’s credit-constrained market, preventing even more of the up-front funding that R&D requires.

One means of addressing the mismatch of private and social returns is the enforcement of intellectual property rights. For example, patents grant innovators temporary monopolies on their innovations, which they can use to charge monopoly prices and thereby possibly recoup their share of the full social value of their innovations. In the absence of such protections, creators who market new technologies will likely soon face competition from others who take advantage of the technologies’ public availability and produce their own versions. Although the original developer may have a head start in marketing her development and may be able to command a greater market share due to her status as originator, these market-based incentives are tenuous, ephemeral, and uncertain. For instance, it is equally likely in theory that an imitator will be able to produce the good or service more cheaply or at a higher quality. It is also likely that consumers will anticipate the entrance of such competitors and therefore refrain from consumption during the innovator’s initial marketing. Thus economic analysis supports the use of intellectual property rights to ensure that inventors will be adequately driven by the profit motive. Patents are certainly a key component of any pro-innovation policy scheme.

However, intellectual property rights are neither a sufficient nor always desirable response to the failures of the R&D market. To begin with, much of the value of a given R&D project may consist of knowledge that is, for good reason, outside the scope of the intellectual property rights regime. The Stern Review offers the example of “tacit knowledge,” which is vague and does not satisfy the requirements of patentability. Another concern is that due to the inherent uncertainty of legal regulation, patents and the like do not always preclude all of the competition that prevents innovators from reaping their full rewards. Additionally, the prospect of monopoly pricing may not be a sufficient incentive to encourage risky, large-scale basic research. Analogously, pharmaceutical companies are known not to develop treatments for diseases that affect a sufficiently small segment of the population. As for the undesirability of robust intellectual property rights protection in the R&D context, one downside is that it can hinder or even cripple progress by preventing firms from building on each other’s successes and learning from each other’s failures. The early stages of innovation are often characterized by a high degree of uncertainty due to the lack of a well-defined path to progress. When there are multiple R&D avenues worth exploring, it pays to have multiple firms collaborating. Industry-wide collaboration is also vital for achieving big breakthroughs in basic science, such as those necessary to commercialize hydrogen fuel cell automobiles, which a single company is ill-equipped to deliver. This cooperation is unlikely to materialize if individual firms are given the incentive to keep their efforts under wraps while hoping to free-ride on the work of others.

In light of these concerns, many economists advocate direct government subsidization of technological innovation, especially at the level of R&D. This funding can take several forms, such as government-performed research, government contracts, grants, tax breaks, technology prizes, and incentives for students to study science and engineering. Of course, the government and private organizations can tailor these options to meet their needs in a given situation. Economists also promote government efforts to remedy the excessive myopia and uncertainty with which private decisions about long-term investment in climate change mitigation are fraught. These programs take a variety of forms, including educational workshops and training programs for professionals, advertising, product labeling, and energy audits of manufacturing plants.

Failures in the Market for Deployment and Diffusion

Although economists more strongly and consistently back government support for R&D, many also call for government responses to imperfections in the markets for technology deployment and diffusion. Successful R&D does not guarantee that the resulting innovation will immediately be deployed; market forces also govern firms’ decisions about technological implementation.

Economists have identified that firms in an industry may face a collective action problem when deciding whether to adopt new technologies that exhibit “dynamic increasing returns.” This phenomenon exists when the value of a technology to one user depends on how many other users have adopted the technology; in other words, the more users there are, the better off they will be. There are three types of positive externalities that generate dynamic increasing returns: “learning-by-using,” “learning-by-doing,” and “network externalities.” As in the R&D context, these externalities may give rise to a collective action problem because each firm can partake of the public fruits produced by the first adopters of a new technology; in turn, each firm is disinclined to be at the vanguard of technological adoption, and the deployment of worthwhile technology is unproductively delayed. Learning-by-using refers to the fact that the initial users of an innovation generate valuable public information about it, such as its existence, characteristics, and performance. Learning-by-doing, the “supply-side counterpart,” refers to the fact that production costs fall as firms gain experience, which they cannot fully keep to themselves. For one, a product itself usually provides insight into its production. Lastly, network externalities exist when the value of an innovation increases as others adopt a compatible product. Telephone and computer networks are obvious examples.

In addition to these externalities, certain characteristics of the power generation sector further deter and postpone the deployment of technologies that are expensive and commercially unproven. The sector is subject to a high degree of regulation and tends to be quite risk averse. Second, technologies that do not easily fit into existing infrastructures such as power grids and gas stations are unlikely to enter the market until demand rises and/or costs fall enough for the industry to act en masse. For example, national grids are usually designed with central, as opposed to distributed, power plants in mind, and CCS will require the construction of new pipelines. Third, there are market distortions such as the aforementioned fossil fuel subsidies, which make it even harder for new technologies to compete. Finally, energy markets tend not to be particularly competitive. The oil-market is a well-known oligopoly, dominated by a multinational cartel, and electricity generation is a natural monopoly, in that a single firm can provide power at the lowest social cost due to economies of scale.

These problems can be mitigated or eliminated if there exists a niche market that is willing to pay a high price for early access to an innovation, as was the case with the first mobile phones. Niche markets can enable the initial producer of an advanced technology to profit despite subsequently facing competition from other firms that have the benefit of following in its footsteps and taking advantage of the externalities described above. Otherwise, originators must hope that they can eventually turn a profit – for instance by initially selling at a loss and then maintaining a dominant market share as costs fall and the market expands, perhaps by virtue of customer goodwill. Neither of these scenarios is likely in the energy market due to the homogenous nature of the end product (e.g., electricity), which makes it difficult for innovators to distinguish themselves. Although niche markets for carbon-free electricity exist, they are too small to make the costly implementation of advanced technology worthwhile. Consequently, established technologies can become locked-in, progressing only incrementally. At worst, the Stern Review notes that “energy generation technologies can fall into a ‘valley of death’, where despite a concept being shown to work and have long-term profit potential they fail to find a market.”

There are several desirable public policy responses that can be tailored to different problems in different markets. As in the R&D context, various types of subsidies and information programs can counteract market failures. The government can also use energy efficiency standards, such as emissions quotas, to force firms in an industry to implement environmentally friendly technologies.

When Is It Reasonable to Be Angry With, or to Dislike, Someone?

2010-07-23T11:43:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, out of the blue, Grobstein asked me whether I'd consider it reasonable to be angry with, or to dislike, someone just because he's causing me pain, however justified. Specifically, Grob asked whether I'd necessarily feel anger or hatred towards my torturer if I were being tortured, pursuant to a legitimate warrant, because I was suspected of knowing the location of a ticking time bomb.

I responded that I wouldn't, essentially because I consider it reasonable to dislike people based on their characteristics, not on their actions alone. For example, if someone got into a car accident with me, and it wasn't my fault, I wouldn't necessarily be angry with her; I would reserve judgment pending information regarding her state of mind -- was she, say, reckless, or was she doing her best but handicapped by inexperience? Similarly, for all I know my torturer is a cool guy who's just doing his job.

Upon further reflection, I think there's a noteworthy distinction between the reasonable grounds for disliking someone and the reasonable grounds for being angry with someone. When I'm legitimately angry with someone, I think it's necessarily because I believe she acted badly. I can't think of a situation in which I'd be legitimately angry with someone (as opposed to upset at my circumstances) but not think she should have behaved differently -- in a way that wouldn't have reasonably roused my wrath. Thus, I believe that being legitimately angry with someone implies that I consider her blameworthy.

On the other hand, I think the reasonable grounds for disliking someone are much broader, albeit circumscribed by proscriptions against prejudice, bigotry, and the like. Blameworthiness entails culpability, whereas one can reasonably be considered unlikable for all sorts of non-blameworthy reasons, such as having a bad sense of humor or being prejudiced against nerdy forms of entertainment. In other words, it's okay to dislike someone for having "bad" tastes, even if the existence of these tastes isn't his fault or, indeed, isn't a fault at all. However, we shouldn't be too quick to judge. We owe it to ourselves and others not to -- or at least to try not to -- feel distaste towards someone unless we have some idea of the content of her character.

I'm not sure how to defend my position in the abstract other than by noting that I regard attitudes such as anger and dislike as inescapably directed at dispositions, not actions. Although I typically say I feel angry at someone because of something he did, I think my anger stems from my view of the other person's motivations. Hurting me is not sufficient grounds for me to be angry with you; after all, you may have a good excuse, or even a justification. I may nevertheless be upset, but I wouldn't be upset with you -- at least, I don't think it would be reasonable for me to be, because you haven't exhibited an upsetting disposition. Analogously, I may be angry at losing a competition, but I shouldn't be angry with the winner if she was a good sport.

Ultimately, my position comes down to my view of anger and dislike as necessarily entailing judgments of character. When I say I'm angry with someone, I basically mean I think he's being an asshole. When I say I dislike someone, I basically mean that I find her unpleasant to deal with on the whole.

I'll add that I feel that reserving anger and dislike in these ways is a worthwhile form of self-mastery and facilitates good judgment. Consider the fundamental attribution error, which counsels against, for example, assuming that someone else who runs a red light must be a jerk (a dispositional explanation), while claiming that it was an emergency when we engaged in the same behavior (a situational explanation). We ought to scrutinize the bases of our anger and dislike lest we fall into such psychological traps -- lest we become jerks ourselves.

Grob disagrees with me -- he'd be angry with his torturer. Here's his view, as expressed to me in correspondence:

"It blows my mind that (you claim) you do not hate the torturer. You are not friends with your friends because they are the kind of people who are your friends. You are friends with them because of history and contingent circumstance. Given a different history and (especially) more social mastery, you would be friends with different people – indeed, different kinds of people. You give your kindness and loyalty to your friends (so I hope) even though they are not at bottom the most deserving. How could they be, given the happenstance that has led to your connections? Similarly, I hate the person who is my enemy, who is hurting or trying to destroy me, even if they have a good excuse, and even if in a counterfactual world we could have been friends. It’s bizarre to me that you (claim to) weigh the procedural safeguards before you decide how you feel about your tormentor – well, if there are torture warrants, and Posner signed off on mine, then shit. Perhaps those things are relevant. I do not think they are determinative. It seems crazy that you (claim to) believe that how someone is treating you is actually irrelevant to your relationship with that person.

"There may be some ideal sense in which hate is never an appropriate emotion, and we should all strive to be more Christ-like. Or perhaps we should learn to somehow accept but not condone hate in ourselves, so we do not dwell on it, or whatever. I try not to dwell on it. But I have not been searching for or describing ideal attitudes – just personal ones that I think are “reasonable.” It makes sense to point out here the scarier implications of Christ-like social ethics. According to Luke, J.C. says, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” In other words, these are ultimately contingent attachments or granfalloons – you just happen to be your parents’ children; why should you have any special feeling towards them? But attachments are probably psychologically impossible without loyalty, and loyalty means ignoring the merits and privileging contingent history. To be this way – as I think we must – means accepting to some extent that our feelings must be ruled by immediate circumstance, however arbitrary. To overcome this is a “self-mastery” that destroys something valuable."

What do you think?

Shameless Plug - Towards a Theory of Hybrid Speech

2010-06-25T02:27:00.001-04:00

Towards a Theory of Hybrid Speech: What We Can Learn from the Intersection of First Amendment Principles and the Government-Speech Doctrine by Alan Lawn

Shameless Plug - Taking the Fifth Too Far

2009-11-11T14:24:00.002-05:00

Taking the Fifth Too Far: An Analysis of Some Historical and Normative Justifications for the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination by Alan Lawn

Exchange of the Day

2008-10-16T22:09:00.003-04:00

Me: For whose sake have you forsaken me, for fuck's sake?

Grizzled Man: I'd forsake you for any man's sake. I like sake.

Luigi!

2008-10-11T15:18:00.000-04:00

"Plan B" (to fix the economy)

Here's Hoping

2008-10-11T14:02:00.000-04:00

"My Vacation with John McCain"

Casey Needs to Take a Mulligan

2008-10-10T22:22:00.002-04:00

In the black corner, wearing nothing but a smile, "An Economy You Can Bank On." In the red corner, wearing an 800-pound-gorilla suit, "Rescuing Our Jobs And Savings: What G7/8 Leaders Can Do To Solve The Global Credit Crisis."

It's Over 9,000!

2008-10-09T16:47:00.002-04:00

"What?! Nine thousand!" Either standards have gone the way of the economy, or Paul Krugman's blog editor is one refined and culturally literate individual.

What Do You Think? -- Crispin on the Global Economy

2008-10-08T12:20:00.001-04:00

"SE Asian memo to Wall St"

A Defense of a Paulson-esque Plan that I Hadn't Come Across

2008-10-08T09:57:00.008-04:00

A Wall Street friend of mine made the following point: one advantage of a government purchase of toxic mortgage-backed securities over an equity infusion (which apparently most economists support) is that the government can hold these assets to maturity without having to worry about being margin called. This matters because banks aren't the only entities holding lots of crumbling paper; hedge funds and other non-bailed-out institutions are likely to make forced sales of MBS, further driving down their value. Consequently, banks would require more and more capital from the government in order to stay afloat -- probably more than the government would initially overpay if it bought MBS and then received an equity "true-up." My friend argues that the absence of this idea from mainstream discourse stems from economists' underappreciation of the interconnectedness of the many players and games that caused the financial crisis. Contagion is a serious concern; perhaps an equity infusion is a mere treatment, whereas a Paulson-esque plan constitutes a quarantine.

UPDATE: this is not to suggest that my friend or I believe that a Paulson-esque plan is overall better than an equity infusion, just that the above reasoning may be part of the method to the madness.

What Do You Think? -- Feshbach on Russia

2008-10-07T20:59:00.000-04:00

"Behind the Bluster, Russia Is Collapsing"

Thinking in Tongues

2008-10-07T17:28:00.004-04:00

"Barracuda" (on Sarah Palin's lifelong if-you-can't-be-them-beat-them response to intellectual elites)

Looking Down on the Earth

2008-10-06T22:07:00.000-04:00

"Earth From Above comes to NYC"

The Long History of Presidential Campaign Mudslinging

2008-10-06T13:41:00.000-04:00

"5 Presidential Elections Even Dumber Than This One (Somehow)"

You Can Imagine Where It Goes From Here

2008-10-05T21:16:00.001-04:00

"Modern Financial Systemic Risk: A Primer"

What Do You Think? -- Diamond on Agriculture

2008-10-03T23:51:00.004-04:00

"The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race"

Department of the Prescient

2008-10-03T23:51:00.001-04:00

"The Ends of the World as We Know Them"

Metaspeaking

2008-10-03T23:19:00.000-04:00

"American Accent Undergoing Great Vowel Shift"

Our Elephantine Cruelty

2008-10-02T10:17:00.000-04:00

"An Elephant Crackup?"

What Do You Think? -- Mulligan on the Financial Crisis

2008-09-30T21:38:00.001-04:00

"Wall Street Will Drown Alone"

How I Want to Be Remembered

2008-09-30T21:23:00.001-04:00

"He had a clear, honest face. I found my fondness for him difficult to reconcile with what I knew of his enthusiasm for killing people and making small children cry." -- Rory Stewart, on Abdul Haq

Gorilla War

2008-09-28T20:15:00.002-04:00

"Nervous Old Male"

Post title and link courtesy of James and Sixpoint Craft Ales.

His Name Is Henry Paulson

2008-09-26T16:44:00.002-04:00

His name is Henry Paulson.

Rich Cat, Poor Cat

2008-09-25T20:02:00.001-04:00

"[T]he drafting effort continued through the night on both sides of Capitol Hill — with pizza on the House side, and Thai food in the Senate."

The Second-Smartest Guys in the Room

2008-09-10T18:09:00.002-04:00

"Wide-Ranging Ethics Scandal Emerges at Interior Dept." ("Modeled on a private-sector energy company," indeed. "[S]exual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length.” On you, maybe.)

Crosscut Sententia

2008-09-08T15:23:00.000-04:00

"About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla"

Still Better than the Mainstream Media

2008-09-05T12:45:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show on the Sarah Palin gender card

An Insightful Take on China and Zhang Yimou

2008-09-03T14:46:00.001-04:00

A comment on a post on Roger Ebert's Journal

LOL

2008-09-03T12:30:00.000-04:00

The Times reports: Ms. Palin, who served for years as the mayor of Wasilla, received words of support from her successor, Dianne Keller on Tuesday. The Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel reports that Mayor Keller suggested to reporters who have descended on the small town “that Palin’s six years at the helm of Wasilla, population 7,000, combined with her 20 months as governor of Alaska leave her better equipped to handle the executive branch than her GOP running mate, John McCain, or his Democratic competitors Barack Obama and Joe Biden, all of whom are U.S. senators.”

The Disgusting Disenfranchisement of (Ex-)Felons

2008-09-01T11:52:00.002-04:00

"Obama: The Price of Being Black"

An Unexplored Facet of Stalin's Evil Edifice

2008-09-01T02:58:00.002-04:00

"Banished: 'The Forsaken' by Tim Tzouliadis"

An Old Story Worth Flagging

2008-08-31T13:18:00.000-04:00

"Two McCain Moments, Rarely Mentioned"

Extensive Profile of McCain

2008-08-31T11:23:00.000-04:00

"Chapter 1: Who is John McCain?"

A Desperate Measure?

2008-08-31T02:18:00.001-04:00

"John McCain's Hail Sarah Pass"

McNasty

2008-08-30T23:52:00.000-04:00

"A joke too bad to print?"

Babbling Brooks

2008-08-30T19:06:00.005-04:00

I realize that hating on David Brooks is a prerequisite for membership in the intellectual elite -- and accordingly a hackneyed subject for my readership -- but his most recent column prompts me to reaffirm my status. What a vile and juvenile excretion! I mean, what's the point? Criticizing a party convention for being self-congratulatory and pontificating? That's some ballsy, biting satire. Reasserting his token Republicanism? I thought he liked Obama. I can't say this is a step up from social pseudoscience. Am I missing something? Or does David Brooks simply need to close his mouth unless he's overlooking a toilet?

Interview with the Werewolf

2008-08-30T13:44:00.007-04:00

Preface
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

The white Tanzanian son of a brown Indian father and a brown Indian mother, Sarang Gopalakrishnan spent most of his college years boning up on hard science, immersing himself in the literature and poetry of the British Isles, and completing his transformation into an quasi-aristocratic anti-Victorian (think Bertrand W. H. Orwell; he developed the accent – optimized for his kind of poetry – in high school). He won a prestigious Watson Fellowship for his audacious proposal to study Remoteness in Russia, but alas, the wings of hope were not enough to carry him through this perilous undertaking (Russia being dangerous and racist). After purposefully flubbing his interview to become a quant at a major hedge fund (in part because he could not bear such an ugly job title), he began stripping to pay for his career as a full-time reader of political commentary and part-time pundit. He moonlights as a grad student in theoretical physics. In his words: “Though I was born in India and went to school in Tanzania, my first language is English and I think of my ‘home literature’ as that of the British Isles, with all its connections to Norse, German and Romance literature.... I grew up in cities with large suburbs and hinterlands, and the small towns of western Massachusetts are almost contiguous; I would like to know how it feels to live in towns around which the countryside is blank for hours, and where winters are preternaturally harsh.” I am confident that I speak for all of us when I say that I hope Sarang gets his wish.

Fittingly, Sarang inspired me to try my hand at poetry (the latter is a clerihew):

Deep within the bowels of Merrill*
An ossified lemur sits
He found Auden while still feral
Now he talks like the Brits

*Amherst College science building

Sarang
Is never wrong
Only joking
Or provoking

Reactions to Sarang’s punditry have been decidedly mixed, ranging from “Sarang doesn’t know shit” to “Sarang is a frighteningly good political commentator.” Today’s interview will help you decide. Without further ado, it is my great honor to present prolific polymath, cynical communist, gibbering gibbon – our next presidential debate moderator, Sarang Gopalakrishnan!

Interview
Me: Do you think the presidential election will stay close?

SG: No. I don't know which way it'll swing.

Me: Why do you foresee a swing?

SG: If Palin comes across as remotely competent, I suspect that McCain will win fairly comfortably.

Me: Really? Because of her, I take it?

SG: Yes. I don't really see what there is stopping them. The undecideds don't care for Obama.

Me: You don't think debates, policy, and other substance will make a difference?

SG: Not a huge difference, no. Palin is a good idea from the point of view of the veep debate, since Biden can't shred her without condescending.

Me: Man, I hate democracy.

SG: Yes.

Me: I'm moving to China.

SG: On the other hand I'm looking forward to her fucking up.

Me: Yeah, that would be awesome.

SG: In which case, like, you have an old guy and Reese Witherspoon on the ticket, in which case Obama coasts to victory.

Me: Yeah, I mean, just looking at competence – judgment, intelligence, temperament, policy – it's a laughable matchup.

SG: Well, there's one guy I like on both tickets together and that's Biden. Obama strikes me as not that interesting or appealing. McCain is personally better, but his policies are terrible and his war-hero shtick is grating.

Me: What do you have against Obama?

SG: Obama is not very funny, not very sharp, not very good at anything. I liked his race speech in March, but that was really the last moment that I found him at all appealing.

Me: Do you think Hillary would've run away with the election?

SG: No, Hillary would've struggled in different places.

Me: I haven’t heard that many of Obama’s speeches. I also liked his race speech a lot. I take it you weren’t a fan of his DNC speech? I thought it was quite good; it did what it had to do and had some very good lines.

SG: The DNC speech was OK. But he ain’t no Lincoln.

Me: Then again, who is?

SG: And he isn’t funny.

Me: Right.

SG: Like, that's my biggest problem with Obama: he lacks sharpness.

Me: He's a bit stiff, but what do you mean by “sharpness?”

SG: At some level the guy is fundamentally stiff and unappealing. “Sharpness” not as in intelligence, just as in edge; he lacks edge. Hillary had plenty of edge, at least towards the end, and I liked that. McCain has edge too.

Me: I think I know what you mean. Obama needs to get edgier. He should hire Werner Herzog as a debate coach.

SG: Ha. Yes, I guess crispness is another word for it. Old Grizz is going to eat him up in the debates, I think.

Me: Really?

SG: I don't look forward to this. Obama’s a lousy debater.

Me: It's weird, because he seems to get it (how to frame arguments, how to connect with people), and he was apparently a good professor (which is of course different from being a good presidential debater, but still relevant).

SG: His innate flaccidity comes through. I mean, McCain might not be great either.

Me: Yeah, I saw that flaccidity, especially in the early debates.

SG: Maybe McCain won't do that well. But against Hillary, Obama was terrible.

Me: McCain is kind of an idiot, right? That’s not game over, of course, but it’s got to hurt.

SG: No. I mean, McCain is less of a walking cliché than Obama, at least if you give him space. I don't agree with him on anything but the guy is basically cool. He has solid literary and cultural tastes.

Me: Aside from ABBA?

SG: Yeah. He's a Roddy Doyle fan and knows Bashevis Singer well. McCain's well-read and well-informed except about policy, which he doesn't know much about. But, like, nor does Obama, really. It's telling that he's not very good at being passionate about policy as Krugman pointed out.

Me: Hmm.

SG: And I think that's his fundamental narcissism showing through: Obama's primarily interested in Obama. Like anyone else whose first book is an autobiography.

Me: So you think a lot of the flaccidity is because he doesn't fully get the policy? What about the cases where he's clearly right and it's pretty straightforward (e.g., the war, as opposed to healthcare plan nuances)?

SG: Oh, I think he sort of gets it; the guy's smart. He just isn't that passionate about it. Kind of like McCain, whom also I take to be basically smart.

Me: Incidentally, how bad of a candidate was Kerry? I basically didn't follow that election. But I saw his DNC speech, which I thought was surprisingly great (I had low expectations).

SG: I was following it near the end. He also lacked crispness. Yes, apparently it was the best thing he ever gave. I missed it. I remember the ‘04 debates. Kerry sounded waffly. He wasn't actually waffling. But, like, the reason the flipflop thing stuck was that he sounded indecisive. “I am, uh, firmly in, uh, support of the president's decision to go to, uh, war.”

Me: Man, why can't the Dems manage to pull through?

SG: Dunno. It's partly that the liberal elites are such a large part of the primary base. And they're not very good at connecting with anybody else. I mean, I'm policy-wise completely in line with the liberal elite. But, like, I don't get their political preferences either.

Me: The mind wants what it wants.

SG: The Obama thing for instance. Guy's flaccid. Always has been. Delivers speeches that are elaborate tissues of clichés.

Me: Who doesn't?

SG: Oh, lots of people. Many of them just deliver the clichés upfront. I mean, I think Obama's a crap writer as well, and this is part of the problem.

Me: I haven't read his books, but his speeches are well-written.

SG: I mean Dreams from My Grandfather's Son.

Me: Hmm, my friend thought the writing was surprisingly good, though the book needs better editing (everyone apparently acknowledges this, including Obama implicitly in the preface).

SG: Yes, it's a cluttered and weakkneed prose style. Hard to do that stuff well, but Obama doesn't have what I'd consider a compelling style. And this, I guess, goes back to his lacking edge.

Me: You think it's just a fundamental personality trait?

SG: Yes. He's subtle, you see, and subtlety is a great thing. But you need to balance it with a good feeling for outlines.

Me: Yeah, I always tried to do that in debate and moot court. You don't want to sound superficial, but you have to hit the big ideas early and hard.

SG: Yes, and I don't think he does that very well. It's too bad.

Me: Did you see the Rick Warren interviews? I didn't.

SG: I saw bits of them. People's reaction there tracked my feeling all along.

Me: How was Obama?

SG: He waffled. McCain was corny but to the point. At some level this was inevitable, I should say. I mean, the audience was 80% Republican, so Obama couldn't state talking points and McCain could.

Me: Why do you think Obama built up a lead and then lost it?

SG: I have no idea. It wasn't that big a lead.

Me: I'm afraid our time is up. Thank you very much for your insight, Sarang.

SG: My pleasure [mumbles].

Beating a Dead Ass

2008-08-30T12:48:00.001-04:00

The Jesse Helms quizzes (three parts)

McPain

2008-08-29T20:14:00.001-04:00

"McCain's Prickly TIME Interview"

Plug - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

2008-08-29T11:39:00.002-04:00

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today by David Byrne and Brian Eno

Song

2008-08-29T03:07:00.008-04:00

Sarang (aka the Glass-Bottom Feeder) plugged Priscilla Sneff's poem "Song," and I remarked that I kind of wanted to set it to music. Well, I did. It was a little tricky because it's in free-verse, but the musical verses have to be more structured (8-bar phrases and the like).

UPDATE: Sarang informs me that the poem is hardly in free-verse. I did notice the rhyme scheme, but the irregularity of syllables per line threw me. Being a poetic novice, I didn't think in terms of meter (and I'm not even confident that I can determine where all of the stresses are...so much for my natural speaking style). Sarang writes: "The scheme is 3/3/4/3 beats per line, generally iambic, and the rhyme scheme is ABAB. Irritatingly I can't remember what this form is called but it's one of the three regular ballad meters."

You Human Paraquat

2008-08-27T12:30:00.001-04:00

"The Paradox of a Paragon of Virtue" (not the deftest satire, but still)

Feminists for McCain?!

2008-08-21T00:59:00.002-04:00

"The Feminist Threat"

Over My Dead Baby

2008-08-20T20:20:00.003-04:00

"Gorilla refuses to let go of her dead baby" (literally and figuratively)

Sometimes You Eat the Permabear...

2008-08-17T15:15:00.000-04:00

"Dr. Doom"

Up, Up, and Away

2008-08-16T20:22:00.001-04:00

"Amazing auditory illusion"

Some Apes Are More Equal than Others

2008-08-16T00:41:00.002-04:00

"The Forgotten Ape"

Platform

2008-08-14T22:06:00.002-04:00

Most people mostly suck, and it's mostly not their fault, but it's still okay to disdain them.

Ghost in the Shell

2008-08-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

"Rat-brain robot aids memory study"

We Should Want to Have Control

2008-08-13T17:13:00.005-04:00

Articles like this make me long for a future of widespread genetic testing, embryonic genetic modification, selective abortion (regulated to check externalities), and legal infanticide. The universe has no moral arc. Children are usually not bundles of joy. At least we should spare them and their families from the worst of nature's vicissitudes. We should rig the lottery of birth as much as we can; there is nothing sacred about randomness.

The benefits of confronting reality and adapting to (or changing) it are usually greater than those of willful blindness or self-deception. Would that we were wired to recognize this!

Heroes

2008-08-13T16:48:00.001-04:00

"Who Was More Important: Lincoln or Darwin?"

How Come He Ends Up Where He Started?

2008-08-13T15:31:00.001-04:00

"Take the Bananas and Run" (Woody Allen profile)

"It's unreasonable for people to think I'm too young."

2008-08-13T14:18:00.002-04:00

I love how this article about underage girls on the Chinese gymnastics team initially makes it sound as if proof of their youth is lacking. But after reporting thinly-substantiated accusations, the author drops these bombshells:

"Half of the team — He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan — would be under age, according to online sports registration lists in China."

...

"The Chinese gymnasts lack curves, have an average height of 4 feet 9 inches and weigh an average of 77 pounds."

One small step for a girl, one Great Leap Forward for Chinamankind.

Motherfucking Russia

2008-08-07T18:53:00.001-04:00

"If there's no sexual harassment, we wouldn't breed!"

This Is Not a Rhetorical Question

2008-08-07T18:00:00.002-04:00

"What is the Monkeysphere?"

The Other Chinese Gold Farm

2008-08-07T13:45:00.000-04:00

"China's Gold Rush"

Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Indeed

2008-08-06T16:08:00.000-04:00

"The Robot's Rebellion"

Though the Langurs Languish, All Is Not Yet Lost

2008-08-05T19:40:00.002-04:00

"Trove of Endangered Gorillas Found in Africa"

I can't help but bring the following excerpt to your attention: "forest destruction and, increasingly, hunting for meat, pets and Chinese medicinal products are imperiling monkeys and other primates, from Congo Republic to Cambodia" (emphasis added).

"A free lunch without the calories"

2008-07-31T18:13:00.001-04:00

"Drugs Offer Promise of Fitness Without Effort"

Behind the Music

2008-07-31T17:41:00.002-04:00

Mike Garson is responsible for the fantastic piano playing on albums by David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, and The Smashing Pumpkins, among others. Studio musicians matter.

More than I'll Ever Accomplish

2008-07-30T21:51:00.001-04:00

Armless man plays "Let It Be" on the guitar

How Badass Was Bruce Lee?

2008-07-28T15:52:00.000-04:00

A list of his physical feats

Made up My Mind to Make a New Start

2008-07-25T13:45:00.001-04:00

"Dr. Kush: How medical marijuana is transforming the pot industry"

Plug - Technology Prizes for Climate Change Mitigation

2008-07-23T18:03:00.003-04:00

"Technology Prizes for Climate Change Mitigation" by Richard G. Newell and Nathan E. Wilson

Excellent Webcomic

2008-07-23T17:07:00.001-04:00

The Perry Bible Fellowship

There Be Mutants Here

2008-07-23T00:06:00.000-04:00

"Monstrous Myostatin Misfortunes - A Collection of Myostatin Deficiency Pictures"

A Dialogue on Public Responses to Inequality

2008-07-22T16:42:00.007-04:00

Me
How conservative are you?

Dave
I think income redistribution is (largely but not completely) wrong. I think the problems of sexism against women and racism against people who aren't white and Jewish are generally very overstated, or at least overstated by vocal political minorities who can overcome indifferent majorities, and government and institutional policies reflect this (family law, much affirmative action, contracting quotas, "wage gap" advocacy, etc.). I think legal color-blindness generally minimizes errors relative to color-consciousness. I think we have too much rather than too little economic protectionism and favoritism.

I do believe in principle that details matter (duh!), but many of my disagreements with median liberal opinion are stark enough that small differences in the specifics either of the policies or the world wouldn't make a difference.

Me
I have similar instincts, but I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of even the big picture (e.g., how bad these -isms are) to take a general stand.

What do you think we should we do about kids who are born poor and culturally disadvantaged?

Dave
I think I find "equality of opportunity" appealing. I think the battle for good public education is worth fighting. I especially like the class of arguments for good public schooling that emphasize the divergent interests of parent and child; I think these form a strong libertarian case for public schooling (I don't know if anyone has bothered to put it that way).

That's only a partial answer, though, because (arguably) it's possible for kids to be irredeemably fucked by their home lives (etc.), or for public schooling to fail them by being really shitty. I think I'm for state support for the very worst off, but the more provocative question is whether (and if not why not?) this same logic operates over the whole spectrum of different starting positions. As between myself and Dave^1, an otherwise-identical version of myself whose parents owned only 10% as many books, are differences in outcomes unfair? Should they be remedied by the state? It does seem unfair. But I think it's hard to systematically disentangle differences that are unfair from those that are fair.

The question of which differences in starting position are unequal opportunities is at least somewhat tricky. What about Dave^2, an otherwise-identical version of myself who's (even) lazier(!) than I am? I don't think Dave^2 deserves the same outcomes as I do, though this conclusion doesn't feel like it has a utilitarian logic (one could be devised; I'm not sure how I feel about this). And Dave^3, an otherwise-identical version of myself who's significantly dumber than I am -- are differences between his outcomes and mine unjust, at least insofar as he'd prefer to be closer to my outcomes? Some would say yes, some would say no, I think. I would summarize differences like those between Dave^2 and myself as differences in character (that does sound conservative!). I guess my anti-redistribution position grows largely out of the feeling that differences in outcome that correspond to differences in character are fair, and that those differences account for a large share of observed differences in outcome.

PS notwithstanding all the grappling above, I think it's easy to reach the conclusion that even the massively underprivileged should not be admitted to Amherst College, unless they demonstrate levels of proficiency similar to those required for the median student. The median student ain't even that bright.

PPS (Why the median student? I sorta figured the bottom of the class is crowded with special cases right now, and so not exemplary of good admissions standards.)

Me
I'm also committed to equality of opportunity; I suspect (hope) that the vast majority of people are and that disagreements are really about what meat to put on the concept's bones. The issue isn't ensuring equality but rather how much inequality is optimal (it's okay if only some kids get violin lessons).

I wish there were a good way of publicly addressing bad home lives/bad socialization. It seems that good public education and maybe a national propaganda campaign (to put it cynically) are the best we could do.

My off-the-cuff answer to your "more provocative question" is that we simply have to make a value judgment about where to make the trade-off between equity and efficiency -- hence common arguments in favor of a "right" to (a certain amount of, but no more) education, food, etc. It's also important to keep in mind that redistribution does not necessarily entail pie shrinkage; it provides social benefits such as crime control and the productivity of disadvantaged achievers who would otherwise have failed (especially if public funds are skewed towards promoting particularly productive achievement such as engineering degrees). Of course, there are borderline cases, but Dave^1 clearly has enough opportunity such that publicly providing for him would not be in the optimal basket of public expenditure; we'd be eating the harms of socialism at that point. It's also true that some people who don't have enough opportunity have character defects that render publicly lifting them up unproductive ex post, but that's a price that we've got to pay.

Given inadequate public assistance for the disadvantaged, institutions face the problem of identifying who would succeed if given the opportunity, and whether providing the opportunity would be worth it. This is of course difficult and depends on a given institution's values/purpose. This would be easier and largely obviated if there were effective public assistance from day one.

What about the simple fact that Dave^2 hasn't demonstrated as much proficiency as you but could have (so what if it would have been really hard -- see my discussion with Tarun on moral culpability)? His worse outcome encourages people to work hard and follows from allowing institutions to select for proficiency -- seems like good utilitarian logic. I don't get the point of Dave^3. Okay, he lost the genetic lottery. But his outcome is fair if he had enough of a chance to be all that he could be.

As for Amherst, I think underprivileged students should be given a bit of a leg up, especially if there are factors that suggest that they would readily thrive in a land of opportunity (obvious example: someone who did worse in high school just because she had to work two jobs, assuming this cause can be isolated). (Perhaps your [academically] median student point sufficiently accounts for this, since the median is lowered by athletic admitees and the like.) But I agree that Amherst is not the place for significantly unprepared applicants, no matter how unfair their unpreparedness. It's bad for the range of academic ability among students at an elite educational institution to be too big.

Dave

I'm in a bit of a hurry and don't have time to reply fully. Here are some disjointed thoughts:

I don't think you're engaging the Dumb Dave^3 hypo. Your "okay, he lost the genetic lottery" assumes the conclusion at "okay." Why is it fair for someone to suffer worse outcomes for losing the genetic lottery? (Especially if it's not fair for someone to suffer worse outcomes for losing the social lottery?) Is this true for any case of losing the genetic lottery? You offer a utilitarian rationalization for this in the Dave^2 hypo (even if laziness is not necessarily genetic), but it's a justification that's specific to laziness / work ethic and doesn't cover the gamut of genetic lottery outcomes.

I think your response to the Lazy Dave^2 hypo suffers from a similar infirmity.

If I may free-associate in the guise of summarizing, I think you're relying heavily on unexamined notions of "could have": It's fair for society to treat Lazy Dave^2 worse because he "could have" worked harder; what does that mean? This can probably be boiled down to a pure utilitarian point, but is that what you meant? I think if you look closely at these "could have" intuitions, you'll find yourself at the notion of "character" I outline above, and the rough conclusion that it's okay to allow differences in outcome when they are explained by differences in character.

Of course, I broadly agree with your actual social-policy suggestions.

Anyway, gotta run, more later.

PS Of course, as Kaplow & Shavell show in their tautological book, giving any concern to "fairness" that's not completely anchored in utilitarianism fails to maximize utility. That compels one of just a few ways of resolving the interplay between fairness and utility here; I'm not sure which I choose.

PPS another class of redistribution I think I disapprove: Devoted Dave^4 graduates law school and decides to do "public interest" working, earning total pre-tax income of well under what Dave will make (inshallah); Devoted Dave^4 is subsidized by the government at the expense of Dave.

Me
I think you're needlessly complicating things. I agree with your "rough conclusion;" it seems to follow from the concepts of personal responsibility and equality of opportunity. Let me try to clear up my position.

Genetics are a built-in constraint (as of now) on opportunity; social environment is not. Dave^3 shouldn't starve if he's too dumb to earn a living, but it's okay if his stupidity keeps his standard of living below yours. True, this is no more "fair" than socially-induced inequality, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that the latter kind of inequality can be remedied to some extent; we can give Dave^3 books, but we can't up his INT.

To put it differently, everyone should be guaranteed a basic quality of life, regardless of opportunity concerns. (We have to assume that people who seem capable of providing themselves with a basic quality of life but refuse to either can't, are irrational, or both, not to mention the externalities they create.) This ensures that the losers of life's lotteries don't lose too badly (fairness rationale, though not necessarily pie-shrinking). Then we should consider public assistance to create equality of opportunity (equity rationale, no conceptual conflict with efficiency). Social lottery losers (such as the poor) are obviously a better target than genetic lottery losers (such as the dumb) because we can help them reach their potential; we can actually redress their inequality and possibly get a good return on our investment.

Regarding Dave^4, I presume you're okay with the "subsidization" resulting from progressive taxation. That said, I share your anti-subsidy inclination, but I worry about market failures. By the way, do you think donations to non-profit organizations should be tax deductible? (What if we could perfectly and costlessly identify which organizations serve the "public interest?") Might this policy promote efficiency by avoiding the transactions costs of government redistribution? (Or did I stop making sense?)

To be continued in the comments...

The Spectacular Failure of the Bush Administration's War on Terror

2008-07-22T15:52:00.001-04:00

"The Democrats and National Security"

Loljustice

2008-07-22T14:45:00.002-04:00

Fair and Balanced Nintendo Coverage

2008-07-21T23:52:00.002-04:00

I love what this 1988 Inside Edition report on the burgeoning phenomenon of Nintendo says about the 80s. I also love the fact that Bill O'Reilly is the host.

Uno Mas

2008-07-20T15:28:00.001-04:00

"The Ecstatic Truth"

2008-07-20T15:16:00.001-04:00

"The Enigma of Werner H"

Biting the Snake

2008-07-20T14:31:00.000-04:00

"Werner Herzog: chaos theory"

Playing with Food

2008-07-20T13:54:00.000-04:00

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra

Doctored Blight

2008-07-18T17:03:00.001-04:00

"New York City Declares Neighborhood "Blighted" so that Property Coveted by Columbia University Can be Condemned"

A Backward and Abusive Cult

2008-07-16T21:14:00.001-04:00

"Escaping the Amish"

Wikipedia on the Amish abuse controversy

To Be Clear

2008-07-16T00:13:00.003-04:00

The New York Times reports: "About 40 percent of blacks said that Mr. McCain, if elected president, would favor whites over blacks should he win the election" (emphasis added, italics supplied).

I'm throwing rocks tonight.

Happenstance Reveals a Hero

2008-07-15T21:39:00.002-04:00

"Dissident’s Tale of Epic Escape From Iran’s Vise"

Batman Insane

2008-07-15T21:19:00.002-04:00

I haven't seen The Dark Knight, and I doubt I will. (I hardly go to the movies, and I'm more inclined to watch WALL-E.) But I decided to check out The New Yorker 's review, which is one of the few negative ones according to Rotten Tomatoes. The following excerpt captures a lot of what I didn't like about Batman Begins, especially the way the fight scenes were cut:

"In the new Batman film, “The Dark Knight,” many things go boom. Cars explode, jails and hospitals are blown up, bombs are put in people’s mouths and sewn into their stomachs. There’s a chase scene in which cars pile up and climb over other cars, and a truck gets lassoed by Batman (his one neat trick) and tumbles through the air like a diver doing a back flip. Men crash through windows of glass-walled office buildings, and there are many fights that employ the devastating martial-arts system known as the Keysi Fighting Method. Christian Bale, who plays Bruce Wayne (and Batman), spent months training under the masters of the ferocious and delicate K.F.M. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you a thing about it, because the combat is photographed close up, in semidarkness, and cut at the speed of a fifteen-second commercial. Instead of enjoying the formalized beauty of a fighting discipline, we see a lot of flailing movement and bodies hitting the floor like grain sacks. All this ruckus is accompanied by pounding thuds on the soundtrack, with two veteran Hollywood composers (Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard) providing additional bass-heavy stomps in every scene, even when nothing is going on. At times, the movie sounds like two excited mattresses making love in an echo chamber. In brief, Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for “Batman” (1989), completing the job of coarsening the material into hyperviolent summer action spectacle."

A Quasi-Independent Judiciary

2008-07-15T21:13:00.000-04:00

"Why China Allows its Citizens to Sue the Government"

Bring on the Bad Luck!

2008-07-14T17:05:00.001-04:00

"Unbreakable Fighting Umbrella Splits Watermelons, Defends Presidents"

Lolbustards

2008-07-13T13:41:00.005-04:00

I startz a meem?

Review - Encounters at the End of the World

2008-07-12T11:51:00.006-04:00

I am compelled to say a few words about Werner Herzog’s latest effort, Encounters at the End of the World, a documentary about Antarctica that I watched from behind the back row in various positions of discomfort and incomplete view. (I entered the packed theater just in time and wisely opted to strain my knees instead of my neck.) I can only assure you that these facts do not taint my judgment.

I am a big fan of Herr Zog. But while Encounters provided me with an overall positive experience, it is a flawed film. First, the good news. Hearing the inorganically musical underwater vocalizations of Weddell seals through the theater’s multichannel speaker system was alone worth the price of admission. One of the scientists studying the pinnipeds aptly describes their varied and otherworldly sounds as Pink Floydian. I am also pleased to have beheld extended footage of the magnificent world beneath the sea ice. It is a teeming environment whose surface we are only beginning to scratch, and I cannot blame Herzog for choosing choral background music that perhaps screams “awe” a bit too loudly; there is no danger of it cheapening the majesty of the frozen stalactites or the splendor of the sunlight dispersing through the ice-ceiling. Lastly, I’ll note the humor, usually intentional, that Herzog uncharacteristically displays. His Teutonic deadpan is not his only comedic asset; he has a keen sense of the ridiculous, and ample targets among the many dubious denizens of the Antarctic.

My complaints are essentially twofold. First, the movie is disjointed. It is a hodgepodge of Herzog’s encounters with various Antarctic researchers and residents; there is no apparent order or theme. This is a minor criticism, as most of the segments make for fine viewing on their own, but it would have been more satisfying if Herzog had presented a unifying thesis or two about the Light Continent (aside from the oft-repeated observation that it is populated by a fair number of "professional dreamers"). He should have at least arranged the segments in a clearly meaningful sequence. At its best, the film made no more of an impression on me than “that was beautiful,” “that was cool,” or “I didn’t know that.” Second, and more significantly, Herzog’s narration is at times irritating. As someone who has studied climate change, I share his frustration and pessimism. But there is no call for saddling the film’s final moments with apocalyptic platitudes (e.g., “the end of human life is assured”) and a casual reference to global warming. These sentiments are incongruous with the rest of the film, which does not substantially address environmentalism and whose most haunting scene is of a mad penguin that abandons its flock and runs inland towards distant mountains, to certain death, with a singular determination. Herzog’s doomsayings, in any event, are better communicated by the satellite images of rapidly melting polar ice that we observe on a climatologist’s computer screen. I know that Herzog is capable of more measured reflections on the impersonal and uncontrollable power of nature; for example, from Grizzly Man: “[W]hat haunts me is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior.” In Encounters, Herzog superficially and self-indulgently overstates his case. I’m looking forward to his next film.

Rating: 7/10

UPDATE: upon reflection, increased my rating by 1.

"Just who are the Japanese? Where did they come from and when?"

2008-07-11T14:44:00.003-04:00

"Japanese Roots"

Part of Discover's excellent Human Origins series.

The Future of Solar Power?

2008-07-11T14:41:00.000-04:00

"Solar dyes give a guiding light"

Would that the Elephants and Walruses Inherit the Earth

2008-07-09T17:24:00.001-04:00

"An Auschwitz in Korea"

The Intarweb as an Engine of Group Polarization

2008-07-08T17:29:00.001-04:00

"The rise of the Daily Me threatens democracy"

A Dialogue on Moral Psychology

2008-07-08T14:04:00.011-04:00

Preface
This hopefully ongoing conversation stems from my previous post about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Of course, I welcome other participants.

Tarun
There's a fairly interesting documentary on the experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o0Nx31yicY

There are people who think situationist psychology should lead us to revise our notion of moral responsibility. I'd like to think the soldiers in Abu Ghraib did what they did because they were more racist and/or more callous than me, but attributing the difference in action (or in my case, imagined action, I guess) to a difference in character rather than a difference in context is a mistake. The best predictor of moral behavior is situation rather than character. We assume the Abu Ghraib behavior is aberrant without understanding that the context in which they are placed fundamentally distorts practical reasoning. We assume that soldiers in a war-zone or in the Stanford Prison Experiment are more or less moral agents like us (their moral cognitive faculties operate more or less like ours) and on that basis judge their behavior pathological and therefore blameworthy. But the presumption is wrong - our cognitive faculties are significantly impacted by situational factors. We have reason to think that in a prison-like setting the behavior of the SPE subjects or the Abu Ghraib jailers is, from a psychological perspective, normal moral functioning.

I have a feeling that if we accept situationist claims, these kinds of exculpations are not going be restricted to extreme situations like war-zones. After all, finding a dime in a phone booth is apparently sufficient to produce a significant difference in moral behavior. If such apparently insignificant contextual factors have a quantifiable effect on our moral cognition, then the argument from the last paragraph should lead us to a radical skepticism about our folk theories of moral motivation and consequently moral responsibility. But then we already knew folk psychology is bullshit, right? Especially folk moral psychology.

Me
It's left-coast relativism like this that's destroying America! Seriously, though, not everyone goes apeshit in evilgenic situations. The issue of course is what we can reasonably expect of people. I'll focus on Abu Ghraib because the prison experiment was distorted by roleplaying (for those of you who haven't seen the documentary, one of the guards styled himself after a particularly sadistic guard in Cool Hand Luke in order to see, according to him, how much verbal abuse people would put up with; I wouldn't rule out shits and giggles). The issue of reasonable expectations is complicated by personal differences. If it's systemically viable, perhaps we should account for factors such as education, temperament, and life experiences, as we do age, when setting moral baselines. Shouldn't someone familiar with Milgram, Zimbardo, and moral psychology ideally be held to a higher standard than someone without a college education (leaving aside any perverse incentives that may result)? "Normal moral functioning" depends significantly on non-situational factors. Given my (perception of my) psychology, I can't imagine that I should be excused for committing atrocities akin to those in Abu Ghraib. Most of the soldiers apparently didn't cross the line, and I doubt most of them exhibited superhuman willpower; they probably just weren't as racist and/or callous as the abusers. Naturally this raises the question of how responsible people are for being callous or racist, but we have to put our foot down somewhere; we can't limit moral blame to the Jeffrey Skillings of the world and regard other wrongdoers as, to some extent, sociopathic. Essentially the problem seems to come down to what fictional account of moral responsibility the law should embrace, given that we can't excuse everyone to the extent that his psychology makes it hard for him to follow the law. I recall that Gideon Rosen had some persuasive things to say about the limitations of real moral culpability. Maybe I'll read this more recent paper of his.

Perhaps this is the same kind of arrogance that any of the participants in these experiments would have exhibited. But I stand by it. Just don't testify at my war crimes trial.

BTW, what's the story with the phone booth example?

Tarun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_character#Experiments

"In one experiment that was done, the moral character of a person was based on whether or not a person had found a dime in a public phone booth. The findings were that 87% of subjects who found a dime in a phone booth helped somebody in need, while only 4% of those who did not find a dime helped."

The Persistent Provocativeness of the Banality of Evil

2008-07-07T19:31:00.006-04:00

I was only vaguely familiar with the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment until I came across some details in this article. Philip G. Zimbaro, the psychologist who conducted the experiment, recalls:

"By the end of the first day, nothing much was happening. But on the second day, there was a prisoner rebellion. The guards came to me: 'What do we do?'

"'It’s your prison,' I said, warning them against physical violence. The guards then quickly moved to psychological punishment, though there was physical abuse, too.

"In the ensuing days, the guards became ever more sadistic, denying the prisoners food, water and sleep, shooting them with fire-extinguisher spray, throwing their blankets into dirt, stripping them naked and dragging rebels across the yard.

"How bad did it get? The guards ordered the prisoners to simulate sodomy. Why? Because the guards were bored. Boredom is a powerful motive for evil. I have no idea how much worse things might have gotten."

Shit. Zimbardo goes on to parallel the experiment's situational drivers of abuse to those behind the torture in Abu Ghraib. Undoubtedly there are basic (banal) parallels. But what strikes me is how rapidly and intensely the experimental abuse escalated, given the situation (an experiment) and the players (of 70 male respondents, the 24 deemed most psychologically stable). It's one thing for low-ranking soldiers to get carried away over the course of overseeing suspected enemy combatants in a foreign prison. The grunts were in an unpleasant environment doing an unpleasant job for who knows how long, and they were not exactly the most reasonable bunch; racism, religion, revenge, and the like were among their motivations. This is not to excuse the atrocities they committed, just to put them in perspective. The experimental participants were presumably very different people in a very different setting, and it's harder for me to wrap my mind around what they did. I guess that's what's so unsettling about these experiments: everyone thinks "but I'd never do that," and then they do (they would; I wouldn't). Or is there more to Zimbardo's story? I'm curious what the participants were like. I was initially under the impression that they were students, which naturally blew my mind even more.

UPDATE: the participants were indeed mostly college (or college-bound) students according to this short documentary.

Some Insight into the Brokenness (i.e., Beyond Crackedness) of Judge Posner

2008-07-07T16:10:00.002-04:00

A workweeklong (in the traditional sense, not the Judge's) diary he kept on Slate in 2002