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martes, 23 de abril de 2019

Bo Winegard sobre la falacia Rawlsiana: un hilo de Twitter

Rawls fallacy 

1. Problem with Rawlsian thought experiment. Rawls’s famous experiment asks what kind of distribution of resources (socially valued goods) people would select if the were behind a veil of ignorance.
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2. That is, they don’t know what race, what sex, what sexuality they would be; they also don’t know how smart, how ambitious, how good looking, et cetera. What distribution of social goods would they vote for? 
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3. Rawls argued people would be risk averse because of their ignorance and would select a distribution in which the poorest members have a decent share of socially valued goods (one could be that poor person after all!). 
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4. The thought experiment is fascinating and has inspired a lot of writing. But, it is flawed in a few ways.
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5. First, it would require constant and perhaps intolerable interventions to maintain (see Nozick). Suppose that Rawls is right: people vote for a distribution in which goods are not much dispersed. (Let’s just use income for this example.) 
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6. Now, suppose that people have dramatically different talents. After the first distribution, people freely use their resources. Inevitably this would lead to a more unequal distribution because people would voluntarily pay more to talented people. 
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7. Suppose, for example, one of the people is Frank Sinatra. Well, people will freely pay him a lot of money to listen to him sing. They would voluntarily pay the bad singers nothing. After some time, the distribution of resources would become very unequal. ================================= 
8. One might argue that a simple tax would solve the problem. We take from Sinatra and give to the bad singers. But this raises a question and a concern. If the first distribution was fair, then why is the next one unfair if it resulted from the free choices of individuals? ================================= 
9. And second, does this unforeseen maintenance of the distribution via a powerful government entity change our feelings toward the distribution? 
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10. That is, when people realize that there is an enormous trade off between freedom and equality, would they still support preserving the original distribution?
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11. Second, would we accept the same notion of fairness if we were talking about “romantic goods”? And if not, then why not? 
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12. So, suppose we’re in the original position and we’re told that we’ll have no idea how attractive we’ll be. We could be a 1; we could be a 10. What dating distribution would we accept? 
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13. Well, what if there were going to be three 10s and eleven 1s. Would we accept that one 10 should be compelled to date a 1? Probably, right, since it’s more likely that we would be a 1 than a 10? 
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14. I have the intuition, though, that people do not accept that we should coerce people at all in the romantic/sexual sphere (which is good!). But if not in the sexual sphere, then why in the economic? 
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15. Why, that is, are we will willing to support coercion and sustained intervention to maintain the original distribution of economic resources, but not to create and sustain a division of sexual resources? 
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16. Some people have famously argued that Rawls’ thought experiment is great for thinking about genetics. We didn’t choose our genes. Some of us got lucky. Some of us didn’t.
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17. This is true and should, I think, inspire some compassion. But, third objection to Rawls, distributions are more about creating incentives than fairly rewarding people for their “metaphysical” accomplishments. 
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18. Pay motivates people to work. Suppose you have a gene that causes you to be pretty lazy. But you will work if your options are work or be massively destitute. And suppose there are 30,000 people like you. But there are 200 who will choose destitute. 
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19. It makes sense, I think, to keep the “pay or destitute” policy because it impels 30,000 to work, which is probably good. BUT, it means that 200 people will be destitute. That is, the original distribution will change and we will introduce poverty. 
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20. Maybe we shouldn’t do this, but it is not obvious that we shouldn’t. I’m basically a utilitarian, so I would try to maximize well-being, not minimize destitution. (Although minimizing abject poverty is usually good.) 
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21. We do not “earn” our genes. And I think that matters. Those of us who are lucky enough to be smart or beautiful singers or good looking should be grateful.
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22. But I don’t think Rawls is the solution. I think utilitarianism is, but that’s another thread 
*Also worth noting that the REAL Rawls was more sophisticated than many who use his thought experiment. I am presenting the "those who use his thought experiment" version. I'm not a scholar of Rawls, so I'm not qualified to comment on his many discussions. 

martes, 16 de abril de 2019

No ahora, no en las universidades

El salvataje de la libertad académica por David Yager y Camille Paglia

"Yager’s “eloquent statement affirming academic freedom was a landmark in contemporary education.” She said she hopes “it will be a turning point in how American colleges and universities deal with their rampant problem of compulsory ideological conformity.”

miércoles, 3 de abril de 2019

La Universidad de Cambridge por las razones equivocadas: nuevos ataques a la libertad académica

Transcribo tres párrafos de esta excelente y completa nota escrita por Nigel Biggar, sobre un nuevo (cada día mas recurrente) y lamentable episodio contra el pensamiento crítico y la libertad de expresión y pensamiento en cuanto a lección programada para Jordan Peterson.

"Of all institutions, universities should model the giving and taking of reasons, offering well considered rational explanations, exposing them to criticism, and either rebutting it or yielding to it. Cambridge’s reluctance to be rationally accountable was a betrayal of its vocation."

"Not every child born a Christian or Muslim chooses to remain an adult believer. Identities involve interpretations of facts, interpretations involve ideas, ideas are chosen, our choices are accountable to reason, and what’s accountable is fair game to criticism."

"When one puts Cambridge University’s serial inaction in the case of Dr Gopal alongside its precipitate action in the case of Professor Peterson, what is revealed is this: the University does in fact discriminate on the unjustifiable grounds of race, gender, and above all morals and politics. If you’re non-white, female, and aggressively ‘woke’, then you’ll be accorded maximal benefit of doubt, given a pass on official norms of civility, let free to spit hatred and contempt on social media, and permitted (probably) to malform and intimidate students. However, if you’re white, male, culturally conservative, and given to expressing reasoned doubt about prevailing mores, you’ll be given no benefit of doubt at all. And, should you do so much as appear to transgress ill-conceived norms of inclusiveness, you’ll be summarily and rudely excluded"

lunes, 1 de abril de 2019

Los peligros de la ideología: Tucker sobre lo acontecido en Nueva Zelanda y su adecuada respuesta

"How to combat this wickedness? The post-killing narrative will be filled with calls for gun control, controls on the Internet, controls on social media, more power for states to crack down on association and speech. This is precisely what the killer hoped to bring about in his own words: “To incite violence, retaliation, and further divide… To create an atmosphere of fear and change in which drastic, powerful and revolutionary action can occur.”

The right response is to rededicate ourselves to the worldview that he hated the most, the view that rights are embedded in individuals, that people should have equal freedom to live their lives unencumbered by states and violence, that society contains within itself to capacity to manage itself without the intervention of fanatical ideologues who imagine themselves to be masters of our fate, that every single human life is worthy of dignity and deserving of respect."