trc (03/09/83)
Mr Sher: I dont think that the two quotes you gave were contradictory. The first says merely that the starting point of an argument must be valid, and that I think that valid starting points must be based, at the bottom level of argument, upon an appeal to reality. Reality is everything that really exists, can be sensed, and remains consistant with itself. This is simplistic, but I think you know what I mean. The second quote says that there are valid starting points for examining a life to determine its quality or self-worth. One of these IS morality, though I do not agree that altruistism is the correct moral system. I believe self-interest is. You make a good point about kings and such. It was not my intention to convince anyone that no one ever gains *anything* from crime - merely that the self-harm out-weighs the benefit. And even if this is not true for a few, for humans in general it is - there can only be so many kings! The likelihood of succeding by criminal actions is so small that crime is not a rational course of action. (Again, I wish to emphasize that I am not just speaking of material gain, but of the net effect on one's life.) I made a poor word choice in the third quote, though I think that it was clear from the context that I should have used "self-consistent" rather than self-supporting. That is, no paradox or contradiction arises in the elements of the argument when it is extended to cover the cases of theft and so on. You state that altruism is self-interest in the long run. While it is true that there are cases where self-interest and altruism dont result in conflicts, I do not see any basis for saying that they are the same, or even that altruism might be based upon self-interest. Altruism means always choosing that which is best for others, at the expense of one's self if necessary. This cannot be the same as self-interest. In the final quote, I said that you stated that one has to give up something if the other needs it more. On re-reading what you said, I would agree that you meant that the other has to need it a lot more. But where do you draw the line? At what point does need cross over into right? As I mentioned before, altruism and self-interest do not always conflict. In some cases, such as the one you describe, the benefits gained from living in a society are often sufficient to make one wish to support that society by abiding by certain conventions of benevolence, kindness, or politeness. And under self-interest, the cross-over point is exactly that point that the individual chooses as being in his rational self-interest. Tom Craver houti!trc
ka (03/10/83)
Although acting in self interest may sometimes benefit society, I don't see that rational self interest can form an adequate basis for building a society. In an introductory economics course you may hear a story called "The Tragedy of the Commons." Once upon a time there was a vil- lage with a fixed grazing area which all the villagers used. Each villager attempted to maximize his profit by grazing as many animals as possible. The result was that the commons was over- grazed, the most of the animals starved, and the villagers were left with tax write offs. The end. But, you may argue, since grazing so many animals hurt the com- munity, the villagers were not acting in their own self interest by grazing so many animals. The problem with this argument is that the animals of each villager were only a very small percen- tage of the whole. Therefore, if an individual reduced the number of animals he/she grazed, the effect on the total number of animals would be negligible, but that individual would face significant personal loss of income from grazing fewer animals. The crucial element of this situation is that an action which benefits the group has it's benefits spread out over the entire group, so that the individual who performs the action receives a negligible benefit. Another argument is that if the villagers were acting in rational self interest, they would have found a political solution to al- locating use of the commons. However, there is a political analogue to the "Tragedy of the Commons." Consider the most basic form of political participation in the United States--voting on election day. The chance of an individual vote affecting the outcome of an election is astronomically small (in Walden II Skinner dramatises this by pointing out that you have a greater chance of being killed driving to the polls), so that I don't think you can get people to vote out of rational self interest. The same sort of argument applies to most other forms of politi- cal activity. Finally, self interest is not a good description of actual human behavior (thank goodness). Tom seems to claim that an ethical system based on self interest is "grounded in reality." Before I can fully respond to this I would have to know what he means by "self interest," but at the moment don't see any reason for rais- ing self interest above other motivations. Kenneth Almquist