Let’s Play Political Philosopher! (Part I)

Mindy—that’s a great start! In fact, the famous philosopher who originally ran this argument predicted that someone blocked from knowing anything about themselves would initially think just the way you suggest: that everyone should have equal worth, equal income, etc.

But he also predicts that they’ll immediately see what you saw—that a society where strict equality was achieved by force would lack an incentive to excel (or even contribute), which would lead to stagnation and eventual collapse. Citizens in this sort of system would reason, “Hey, if I’m going to make $45,000/yr NO MATTER WHAT I DO—cure cancer, bust my butt at the factory or surf all day—why not just surf all day?”

So that’s one option off the table. We can see that it wouldn’t work, even from our position of ignorance.

Option 1: Forced Equality

How about the principle that society “maximize overall welfare”? That is, one that would have us write a constitution and enact laws that would maximize overall happiness and minimize overall pain. Would a person from this special position endorse that? Why? Why not? (Don’t mean to put you on the spot, Mindy. Everyone’s free to jump in.)

—Matt—

Though you’re taking the thought experiment in an unanticipated direction, your initial points are as predicted.

The thought experiment only lasts as long as it takes to formulate the basic “meta” rules (general rules that govern the constitution and subsequent laws). Once you’ve decided what rules you’d want, BAM, your identity is restored, you’re back in the real world, living in the sort of society you designed when you didn’t know you were actually Bill Gates or Fred the homeless guy or Mindy the artist or Dann the gay actor or Steve the quadriplegic. Biases would indeed cloud their judgment once back in the real world, but what else could they conclude while still reasoning from this position of identity ignorance?

“This ‘special’ person has no prejudices as far as gender and race ect. but there would still be a basic survival instinct,” which would make them concerned about shelter, food—basic necessities.

Exactly! So, assuming that this special person cares whether they live or die, apart from the specifics of their identity, they’re not going to accept any general rules that would allow them to starve or freeze to death. Even though they don’t know who the heck they are, they know they’ll need food, shelter, and even healthcare, so any society they’re willing to accept must guarantee those things at a bare minimum.

On those grounds, hard-core free market “let the lazy poor bastards starve to death—it’ll purify the gene pool!” libertarianism would be unacceptable.

Option 2: Libertarianism

Interesting how self-interest—the core assumption of libertarians—leads to the theory’s downfall within this bias-blocking thought experiment

So we’ve ruled out two extremes—strictly enforced equality (because it lacks an incentive for citizens to meaningfully participate in the economy) and libertarianism (because it lacks the social safety net our special reasoner would demand out of self-interest).

There’s another system the original argument considers (and eventually rejects)—one I hinted at before. (In fact, the thought experiment is best used as a decision procedure. Competing meta-rules are examined, rejected and revised, with each step along the way hopefully leading us closer to an option that will pass. I should have made that clear up front.)

Option 3: Society ought to be organized such that overall happiness is maximized.

Is this a satisfactory option, or would a special reasoner with the survival instinct reject it as well? Why?

—Matt—

ok matt, i’m at work, so you can give me a lecture on business ethics later… and cypress is very busy inspecting a sun-warmed boxelder beetle and i’m on google talk with mindy and i sort of put my finger on what i’m having trouble with in this exercise. i get that i need to objective; more omnipotent than ignorant. removed, not devolved. but my perceptions are still based on my experiences and that will no doubt color any answer i come up with. also, in being objective, i am not as sure how to relate to the theoretical people in my theoretical country – i still have empathy, of course. i think that i know what is fair and what is not fair. i am secular, which does not mean amoral, just that the morals i uphold have moral value rather than religious merit. i need a fair tax rather than one that benefits rich or poor – if i am responsible for providing infrastructure and sanitation and healthcare and transportation and communication (which i should be), then it makes sense to have only use or consumption taxes rather than income taxes to pay for the things i’d provide. i should encourage private businesses to provide these things and keep competition alive by making them bid for contracts. i should encourage doctors to move to areas where available medical care is lacking. doctors should be free to treat their patients without government interference and treatments should be between the patient and professional only – medical privacy. people should be able to refuse treatment if things are grim and doctors should be able to provide them with a comfortable and dignified alternative to inhumane suffering. i should encourage farmers to grow healthy food to feed my populace, so i should pay them subsidies, but i should make sure not to tax basic food goods so that even the poor can eat (perhaps processed foods should be taxed as high as tobacco and alcohol). i would be responsible for regulating the quality of all of these things. i would need to ensure housing, but allow them property rights maybe by regulating the market so that housing remains affordable everywhere. i need to provide for the whole populace in case they can’t provide for themselves, to make sure that everyone receives the same advantages in life, to make sure that they have decent enough lives that they can pursue individual happiness – public education including higher education or vocation with standardized regulations and cooperation with corporations to provide employment for my smart little citizens. i should provide for their safety while encouraging them to protect themselves. maybe i want to let them tote guns, but can i trust them not to endanger the rest of my people? i need to evaluate them, mentally and physically for situational safety before they get that privilege (not right). i want them to earn their own livings so i should ensure minimum wages rather than giving them welfare when the companies they work for fail to give them living wages. i want them to start businesses and build things. i want them to create art (tax credits for starving artists!). if they are unable to work, i should make sure that they can stay alive. the trouble is that i don’t know how far out to zoom the lens. i am outside the flock and in charge of herding. i am kicked back in a blue sky, plotting the courses of streams and rivers leading to oceans and i am not taking into consideration that each drop of water is an individual and may want to go uphill… how can i choose otherwise for it?! just because they were born in my stream or fell from the sky, that doesn’t mean that they’ll agree with my rules. they should be free to leave at any time and in the same free flowing thought, i should allow anyone in as long as they agree to obey my rules and not cause a ruckus. if they break my rules i should punish them in the name of a peaceful society, but truly attempt rehabilitation for those other than real sociopaths. i couldn’t support state sanctioned murder either. it’s clear that every nation should defend itself, but i’d try very hard to be protective while diplomatic and never aggressive or domineering while still attempting to better the world for all of her citizens by discouraging human rights violations. it’s just a very hard thing differentiating between a world full of individual humans and all of humanity as a whole entity and making rules which would not restrict their freedoms while still giving them civil rights… ok, time to go home, i’ll be looking forward to future installments of this discussion.

“Option 3: Society ought to be organized such that overall happiness is maximized.

Is this a satisfactory option, or would a special reasoner with the survival instinct reject it as well? Why?”

ok, maybe my model is more like option #3, but i think in the end it’s going to become too restrictive in an attempt to be fair and instead of making everyone happy, they will end up with a mediocre, monotone existence with no special reasons to be inventive or adventurous. but would a special reasoner with only survival instincts support maximized happiness? i think so. it serves the end well enough that if the populace is happy they have fewer motives to kill one another or steal from one another, resulting in easier survival.
the implications are that life is not fair and that happiness cannot be guaranteed, but we should attempt to reason and decide what is truly just and we should strive for that?
i dunno, i’m still me.

I’m not sure that I’m even allowed to comment on this thread since Matt outlawed all of us who would recognize the philosopher, but his comments on Libertarianism brought me right out of the woodwork. I’m sure he knew that would happen, too. Sneaky bastard.

Matt wrote: “Interesting how self-interest—the core assumption of libertarians—leads to the theory’s downfall within this bias-blocking thought experiment. ”

While it might be true that Libertarians assume self-interested agents, so does the philosopher that you are talking about. That’s the very reason that we “should” want to have a governmental structure that provides some things for us. Libertarians just think that they shouldn’t provide everything for us, and generally that the government shouldn’t take my hard-earned cash to provide for those who are unwilling to provide for themselves.

So, how does Liberty fit in to this thought experiment? Well, I don’t think it’s as simple or as vicious as you make it out to be, Matt. It’s not true that L’s want people to starve the poor or “cleanse the gene pool.” That’s kinda offensive. Libertarianism does not have self-interest at the heart of the theory. It has liberty as the fundamental value. That’s why it’s Libertarianism and not (Ayn Rand’s) Objectivism.

What is generally true is that L’s want everyone’s right to Liberty to be respected. Bias here is in favor of Liberty and not in terms of sex/orientation/color/what-have-you. The rules that are made up by me would respect each person’s Liberty. That is, as long as what you do does not restrict/harm others in ways that they have not agreed to* you may do as you like. Some governmental structure should exist to care for those who are unable to care for themselves, but not for those who are unwilling to care for themselves. Public services (fire/police/medical) should exist and so should courts. Aside from that, it’s up to individuals to make their way through life. If you want to be powerful then you should work for it. If you are happy with less then work less hard. I would be the free-riding surfer if I could, but as it is I have to do some work to have a good life. That seems right to me.

*There’s some philosophical stuff to be done here with regard to what a person may agree to and what hand coercion has in the mix, but the common sense version of this statement means “agreed to” = “freely agreed to” in some loose way.

well,i am bummed that i suck so bad playing amateur philosopher but I am damn proud that I just threw myself out there and tried. That was a big wall for me to climb believe it or not. In the end, i was over thinking way too much but had fun. Can’t wait for the next round.

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Well, I don’t think that I’m really that far off from a Nozick. The sort of radical libertarian that you’re talking about is more like a Narveson, and he’s really an anarchist.

Surely there are some things that we are not responsible for, and that’s part of the moral luck problem for desert. It’s a tough one, but I don’t think that it requires that everyone in a society be cared for regardless of their effort. Effort should translate into rewards. It’s true that luck is a fundamental part of life, but that’s the way it is.

As I said before, those who cannot help themselves shouldn’t be shoved to the wayside. There should be some form of assistance for them. I don’t know if this must necessarily be government assistance. It could be private assistance. I suspect that most of the Market-Libertarians that you’re thinking of would demand that it be provided through private programs who do it for profit of some sort, but I’m not that concerned with it. The government shouldn’t do it with my money if there is some other means available.

Grats on 100 posts! If only I were as popular as you!

I got a gravatar. I can never find the “sign in” button on this blog though, so I don’t know that it’ll work. It’s quite the mystery.

Nozick can actually justify a good bit more than he really wants to, I think. His Super State structure at the end of AS&U leaves room for all sorts of crazy things.

I do have a bit of a strange conception of Libertarianism, but perhaps that’s where I’ll strike my philosophical gold. I surely do prefer a minimal State that keeps it’s nose out of my business as much as possible and leaves my stack of cash the heck alone. The moral luck concerns that you pointed to worry me enough to say that there are some things that should be done in one way or another. Police and fire and military and such are too big and too complicated to be privatized, so government will probably have to do that for us. Education could be privatized (and perhaps loosely regulated by the State) as long as it meets some standard. In general it looks like private schools are tons better than public ones so the only real problem here is cash and convincing parents to pay for their kid’s future. Other public services might follow this model too, but details need to be worked out.

Basically, I think that the government should cover those services that the private sector can’t cover or hasn’t yet covered. As the private sector gets more powerful and capable the State should reduce its size until we’re left with a minimal State. I realize that this can’t be done over night and I really doubt that deregulation would be a smart thing to do at the present time or in the near future. In a nutshell my view is that liberty should be primary, but things are too screwed up right now for people to fend for themselves in an ideal marketplace and so a lot of structure is needed.

I don’t think that the current financial situation indicates that we can’t trust people to behave when things are deregulated. I think that it shows that for deregulation to be a good thing we need to have a nation of educated people who don’t take loans that they can’t handle because they don’t understand what they’re signing up for. Education is super-important before the masses are ready to fend for themselves in the ideal deregulated market.

Ahhh… Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance. I have often found this a useful intellectual tool when contemplating difficult issues.

If I may, I would like to apply this notion to a specific application: California’s Prop 8 (and more generally, equal rights for sexual minorities). For the sake of this argument, let us accept two premises. First, the very notion of the veil of ignorance itself. Second, that homosexuality is biologically determined. As citizens covered by the veil – in this case, not knowing what their sexuality would be once they exit – how would they determine marriage rights? With the understanding that one could be naturally attracted to the same sex as easily as one might be attracted to the opposite sex, can one justify differentiating laws based on sexual orientation?

A response might be found in Nozick, who is often contrasted (not compared) with Rawls. A libertarian position would justify non-preference by the state on this topic. The state may not support same-sex marriage, but would not take action against it in order to value the individual right of choice. This indifference might support the decisions made under the veil.

Excellent points, as always, Matteson. Nozick does indeed get weird towards the end of Anarchy State and Utopia, but if I remember correctly, all that’s contingent on democratic endorsement (he argues that the minimalist state is naturally just, but it could devolve into bizarro land if everyone willed it so). I hear what you’re saying about leaving people the heck alone, but again, I press Rawls’s point that our natural talents are undeserved. A minimalist state (ultra-low taxes, but ultra-slim services) would leave people too much at the mercy of the genetic lottery. Everyone getting a fair shot a life probably requires loads of state-guaranteed services, which means lots of those dreaded taxes. Such is the price we pay for justice!

Welcome, Stever! (Everyone—if you care anything about real world productivity (and you should), check out this guy’s podcast: The Get it Done Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Work Less and Do More. This subscriber highly recommends it!) In your reply to Matteson, you’ve hit on a classic complaint against libertarianism—the problem of externalities. You and I may freely agree to some contract without intending to harm Liam, but our actions may injure Liam nonetheless (I sell you a lot next to Liam, and you put a trailer on it, devaluing his property and ruining his view). Even if the chain of events leading to that harm are several, and the impact looks less direct, Liam’s still harmed. Thus, what was thought to be an agreement amongst consenting adults didn’t account for everyone effected after all. Such is one problem with libertarian arguments that purport to base state legitimacy purely on free assent. Your market example is right on point, but the critique runs deeper.

Good to hear from you again, Liam. Yes, the Veil is a wonderful reasoning tool. Rawls apparently thought it should only be used to settle on basic principles of justice, but I’m unconvinced it can’t be used elsewhere just as well. So I don’t think we need to appeal to Nozick to figure out what Original Position Agents (disembodied reasoners behind the Veil) would say about gay marriage. Just using the OP exercise would deliver a nondiscriminatory stance, I would think—one in which state-sanctioned unions are treated equally under the law, and probably named equally as well (either all marriages or all civil unions). That seems consistent with reasoners who are blocked from knowing their sexual orientation. For their purposes, would it matter why gays are gay? Read on…

And last, I too, Stever, can’t think of any reason someone would consciously choose to be gay, if that’s even possible. Naturally attracted to women and naturally repulsed by men, I had no choice in either disposition, and don’t think I could make a 180 even if I had good reason to try. Since there’s little advantage to being gay, and a whole host of disadvantages, while there may be a few willing homosexuals out there somewhere, I’d say they’re the exception by far, not the rule. But even if it were a matter of choice, why the heck would it matter? Excellent question! As far as I can tell, it only matters if we already think homosexuality is wrong. (I argued in a previous article that no secular argument can show that it is.) But even if it were wrong, and on secular grounds that we could all accept, this would have little bearing on whether it should be legal. Nobody thinks we should allow kleptomaniacs to steal or pyromaniacs to commit arson just because they have no voluntary control over their impulses. The same would go for homosexuality, or gay marriage, if it truly were wrong on publicly recognizable grounds. So that conversation seems pretty pointless all around, especially in the public legal forum (though it does have some interest in theological contexts for sure!).

What a great conversation this has turned out to be! Some of these issues have pushed over into democratic legitimacy, so tune in for part II!

—Matt—