ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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Completely selfish individual should accept this simple rule as well:
Cheat, steal, kill your competitors if you are sure enough you can get away with that.
Right?
@Kurbla
I think it's Hanson who bites bullets like that, not Caplan.
Cheat, steal, kill your competitors if you are sure enough you can get away with that.
Right?" -Kurbla
Would a similar rule apply to altruists as well as egoists?
Cheat, steal, kill your competitors if you are sure enough that it will help others on net.
Right?
Why is a selfish person required to have time preference one? One of your recent cross-posts with Robin Hanson sparked a long debate about personal identity. It is easy to think of "far future you" as less you than "now you". What makes benefiting "now you" at the expense of "far future you" inconsistent with selfishness?
Firstly, I'm with David Jinkins. It seems to me, that being a perfectly selfish homo-economicus has more to do with being deaf to the signaling effects of ones own actions. We use heuristics to figure out what to do, and if you're going to drop signaling as a strategy then I suggest:
1) Live in a (modern, Western) society where forming alliances isn't very important. Generally, there's a great stock of social capital built up to which you won't be contributing.
2) Get an annuity and find a nursing home for yourself with a good reputation. If we are going to have time preference of one, a few years of misery at the end of your life will outweigh all the rest.
3) Don't have children, though I suppose you'll have them by the genes regardless of how you treat them.
Watch "Children of Men".
Being rationally selfish is hard enough. I only understood one of Bryan's points about being selfish. So, should I become selfless?
Conversely, what does selflessness require of us? If we are to live a life solely in service to others, by what criteria do we determine that we are being of the most service possible? Why would feeding the homeless be more valuable than entertaining the wealthy? Why would feeding the starving be more important than feeding your own children?
This is all too complex!
"The substantive criteria try to get at something important, but seem both vague and overbroad. Got anything better?"
How about this: Always do whatever maximizes your potential, i.e. whatever allows you to do as much as you can possibly do, given your talents and circumstances. (This is Ortega y Gasset's theory about what favors individual happiness.)
As a side-effect, the above principle rules out much of immoral behavior because being anti-social brings about all sorts of negative consequences due other people's counter reactions (anti-social behavior undermines your future attempts at maximizing your potential). On the other hand, it does not favor conformity either because conformity is a waste of your potential.
Mr. Jinkins asks,
'What makes benefiting "now you" at the expense of "far future you" inconsistent with selfishness?'
It might be a stretch, but maybe the assumption of rationality explains why Mr. Caplan asserts a 1 value time preferance parameter. Basically, a rational person knows that the now you and future you discount each other. Also a rational person would likely take into consideration diminishing utility returns.
For instance seven hamburgers consumed over a one week period would likely provide me with more satisfaction than trying to eat them all at once.
Great question though; it will probably bother me for the rest of the day.
Jayson:
Would a similar rule apply to altruists as well as egoists? Cheat, steal, kill your competitors if you are sure enough that it will help others on net.
Right?
Right! But I do not advocate total utilitarian altruism based on individual decisions. I'm much more moderate. Bryan was one who advocated -- or played with -- perfect selfishness idea.
Really, criterion (4) is a bit inhuman. If I totally ignore all ethical questions and simply go about pursuing the things I recognize as my values I'm going to violate (4) quite a lot. And it's slightly ridiculous to say I need to reform my values if I am to be a proper egoist.