My newly published parable, saying we should be clearer on what justifies our paternalism, or be less paternalistic: Imagine finding yourself near someone about to walk off a cliff. If he seems distracted enough to not notice a crucial bend in the cliff edge, you might feel quite justified in grabbing his arm, to stop him from falling. You might even expect his gratitude.
Imo a more extensive study might well delve into not only public arguments but also ulterior motives of "advisors" and study cases of bad "advising", such as (I presume) the recent debacle with the polugamous sect in Texas. Although sometimes paternalism is well motivated in principle (say, anti-trust legislation intended to prevent domination by a monopoly, and regulation of medical practice is intended to protect the vulnerable patients) yet the devil lies in the details.
I wonder what is the summum bonum of society as a whole (if, unlike former PM Thatcher, you allow yourself to postulate such collective entities), and who is to bear the cost for the reckless choices of individuals aside from the individual in question? Doesn't moral hazard enter into the analysis? Or is the characterization of another's behavior as "reckless" an arrogant, insupportable assertion on its own?
Richard, yes, but I think part of Robin's point is that it's easy for an agent to exaggerate his objectivity and access to better evidence, perhaps without even meaning to do so.
Thomas and Ben, by his words and deeds he isn't obviously trying to commit suicide - he is just taking more of a risk than perhaps you think appropriate.
Appropriate? How is it appropriate to apply one's own preferences to random people and situations about which little is known?
There have been societies in which it was asserted that the State owned its citizens and possessed a right to their labor, such that attempting to kill yourself was considered a crime , a treason against the State. The most common penalty for that crime was death.
That says a great deal about the sorts of thinking you're implicitly advocating.
Ping, my conclusion is mainly that his is a a subtle topic, and deserves careful consideration.
Thomas and Ben, by his words and deeds he isn't obviously trying to commit suicide - he is just taking more of a risk than perhaps you think appropriate.
Personally, I'd want to make sure this kind of suicidal thought process doesn't become a precedent. So I'd grab the guy and beat him to death before throwing him over the cliff. Wouldn't want him to survive, have a change of heart, and start pumping those silly ideas into the gene pool.
Instinct isn't paternalism, so I'm not fond of the analogy. But in all honesty, I'd grab the guy and try to talk him round. I'm not issuing a decree outlawing suicide here, I'm having a natural human reaction and trying to save a life. I have prior experience of having had irrational intentions, and been grateful to someone for talking some sense into me. With that in mind, the pros of asking the guy if he'd like to chat about what's on his mind outweigh the cons - both at first glance and on reflection.
I don't get it. Your paper doesn't seem to actually say much of anything. It just asks many questions and proposes very few answers. By the time you reach your "conclusion", I don't see substantial points that you've presented to support it -- you just seem to pose a lot of questions and then decide that you're right. If you're so sure your position is correct, why don't you establish the argument directly?
Jeffrey Friedman has some interesting critiques of majority rule you can find from here. Where he differs from Bryan Caplan is that he believes the better-informed elites are dogmatic ideologues and we can not confidently say it would be best to leave policy up to them.
Hal, part of my point was that interesting things happen when we both have different info and different preferences. The effects of small amounts of differing preferences can be magnified by differing info.
Part of why I am confused here is that the story doesn't seem to clearly distinguish between factual information and preferences. In decision theory I have a probability distribution over possible facts about the world (or we might say, possible worlds), and a utility function which ranks these possible worlds. Then I choose the action whose probability-weighted utility of the possible outcomes is best. But in the story, it's not clear whether the advice and/or grabbing/banning is due to disagreements about factual information, or to dislike of the cliff-walker's utility function. Do we regulate because we think people are misjudging factual situations? Or because we accept that they may have the facts straight, but we don't agree with their tastes and preferences in terms of what they like and dislike? These seem like quite distinct kinds of reasons, but in this story they tend to intertwine.
Sister Y - it's important to distinguish subjective, objective, and evidence-based versions of utilitarianism. Only the subjective version says we have a duty to do whatever we believe (however unreasonably) would be best.
Robin Hanson is asking interesting questions about our rights to be protected from the utility calculations of the majority (or even from the selfishness of the majority). I especially like that the analysis is posed as a check on our moral intuitions (as John Leslie's Doomsday argument is intended as a check on our feelings of permanence).
Nagel (Private Rights and Public Space) posits that certain rights should be guaranteed without any inquiry into utility. The right not to be tortured, for instance, should be absolute: even if torturing *this one* person would result in saving *all these other* people from torture, we don't have the right to do it.
I'm not sure if "the right to walk off a cliff" is one of those - it rather appears not. But, as others point out, even if utility is our basis for action, there are problems estimating the happiness my intervention in another person's life will bring him or others. If we follow LemmusLemmus' line of thinking, Christian sects that believe all non-believers are going to Hell have an ethical duty to convert the rest of us - by force, deception, or other harmful tactics, if necessary. It's just a utility calculation, after all, and they're sure they're right.
The expected harm of grabbing the walker when he's aware of what he's doing is small, provided you let go when he asks you to. The expected harm of not grabbing him when you should have is pretty big. That makes a difference. It's not exactly burglary or battery.
What if the cliff walker is kin? Do I have a greater right to intervene if the person is my child or a sibling? If so, how much less do I have to know about the state of the individual before action is permissible or obligatory?
Imo a more extensive study might well delve into not only public arguments but also ulterior motives of "advisors" and study cases of bad "advising", such as (I presume) the recent debacle with the polugamous sect in Texas. Although sometimes paternalism is well motivated in principle (say, anti-trust legislation intended to prevent domination by a monopoly, and regulation of medical practice is intended to protect the vulnerable patients) yet the devil lies in the details.
I wonder what is the summum bonum of society as a whole (if, unlike former PM Thatcher, you allow yourself to postulate such collective entities), and who is to bear the cost for the reckless choices of individuals aside from the individual in question? Doesn't moral hazard enter into the analysis? Or is the characterization of another's behavior as "reckless" an arrogant, insupportable assertion on its own?
Richard, yes, but I think part of Robin's point is that it's easy for an agent to exaggerate his objectivity and access to better evidence, perhaps without even meaning to do so.
Thomas and Ben, by his words and deeds he isn't obviously trying to commit suicide - he is just taking more of a risk than perhaps you think appropriate.
Appropriate? How is it appropriate to apply one's own preferences to random people and situations about which little is known?
There have been societies in which it was asserted that the State owned its citizens and possessed a right to their labor, such that attempting to kill yourself was considered a crime , a treason against the State. The most common penalty for that crime was death.
That says a great deal about the sorts of thinking you're implicitly advocating.
But what if, aside from the whole cliff thing, he seems no crazier or immoral than most? What if his action mainly affected only him?
Apologies Robin, I misinterpreted this bit as a 'rational-looking suicide attempt'.
Ping, my conclusion is mainly that his is a a subtle topic, and deserves careful consideration.
Thomas and Ben, by his words and deeds he isn't obviously trying to commit suicide - he is just taking more of a risk than perhaps you think appropriate.
Personally, I'd want to make sure this kind of suicidal thought process doesn't become a precedent. So I'd grab the guy and beat him to death before throwing him over the cliff. Wouldn't want him to survive, have a change of heart, and start pumping those silly ideas into the gene pool.
Instinct isn't paternalism, so I'm not fond of the analogy. But in all honesty, I'd grab the guy and try to talk him round. I'm not issuing a decree outlawing suicide here, I'm having a natural human reaction and trying to save a life. I have prior experience of having had irrational intentions, and been grateful to someone for talking some sense into me. With that in mind, the pros of asking the guy if he'd like to chat about what's on his mind outweigh the cons - both at first glance and on reflection.
The very fact that you're able to grab him justifies your doing so, because a sober and harm-free suicide attempt would have no surprise witnesses.
I don't get it. Your paper doesn't seem to actually say much of anything. It just asks many questions and proposes very few answers. By the time you reach your "conclusion", I don't see substantial points that you've presented to support it -- you just seem to pose a lot of questions and then decide that you're right. If you're so sure your position is correct, why don't you establish the argument directly?
Jeffrey Friedman has some interesting critiques of majority rule you can find from here. Where he differs from Bryan Caplan is that he believes the better-informed elites are dogmatic ideologues and we can not confidently say it would be best to leave policy up to them.
Hal, part of my point was that interesting things happen when we both have different info and different preferences. The effects of small amounts of differing preferences can be magnified by differing info.
Part of why I am confused here is that the story doesn't seem to clearly distinguish between factual information and preferences. In decision theory I have a probability distribution over possible facts about the world (or we might say, possible worlds), and a utility function which ranks these possible worlds. Then I choose the action whose probability-weighted utility of the possible outcomes is best. But in the story, it's not clear whether the advice and/or grabbing/banning is due to disagreements about factual information, or to dislike of the cliff-walker's utility function. Do we regulate because we think people are misjudging factual situations? Or because we accept that they may have the facts straight, but we don't agree with their tastes and preferences in terms of what they like and dislike? These seem like quite distinct kinds of reasons, but in this story they tend to intertwine.
Sister Y - it's important to distinguish subjective, objective, and evidence-based versions of utilitarianism. Only the subjective version says we have a duty to do whatever we believe (however unreasonably) would be best.
Robin Hanson is asking interesting questions about our rights to be protected from the utility calculations of the majority (or even from the selfishness of the majority). I especially like that the analysis is posed as a check on our moral intuitions (as John Leslie's Doomsday argument is intended as a check on our feelings of permanence).
Nagel (Private Rights and Public Space) posits that certain rights should be guaranteed without any inquiry into utility. The right not to be tortured, for instance, should be absolute: even if torturing *this one* person would result in saving *all these other* people from torture, we don't have the right to do it.
I'm not sure if "the right to walk off a cliff" is one of those - it rather appears not. But, as others point out, even if utility is our basis for action, there are problems estimating the happiness my intervention in another person's life will bring him or others. If we follow LemmusLemmus' line of thinking, Christian sects that believe all non-believers are going to Hell have an ethical duty to convert the rest of us - by force, deception, or other harmful tactics, if necessary. It's just a utility calculation, after all, and they're sure they're right.
The expected harm of grabbing the walker when he's aware of what he's doing is small, provided you let go when he asks you to. The expected harm of not grabbing him when you should have is pretty big. That makes a difference. It's not exactly burglary or battery.
What if the cliff walker is kin? Do I have a greater right to intervene if the person is my child or a sibling? If so, how much less do I have to know about the state of the individual before action is permissible or obligatory?