laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Paul Torek) (09/27/83)
The header is still too baroque for my taste. people who are still confused
as to how Paul Torek can be in Maryland and Toronto at once -- it works
by magic. (and has the side-effect of confusing the newsstats, gotta
keep working on those side effects!) Laura Creighton
************ begin forwarded article *****************
The following is from Paul Torek. Send any replies to ..umcp-cs!prometh!paul
Laura says {Message-I.D. 1022@utcsstat}:
You said that the problem of public goods would be solved. I claim
that it would not.
You are right; I shouldn't have said it that way. I tend to think of "the
problem of public goods" as being one of attitudes, and in a way that is
correct. But what I should have said was, given a fairly high degree of
intelligence, a society of people would provide a more nearly Pareto-optimal
amount of public goods if they cared equally about everyone in that society,
than they would if they were selfish. (Pareto-optimal means that nobody can
be made better off without making someone worse off. That's not a precise
definition; check an economics or game-theory book for a precise one.)
But what if the person involved is not interested in your
cost-benefit analysis? What if for some reason they want to do
something that is likely to cost them more than they will get in
return? Unless their reason for doing this is their intent to do
things for the betterment of other people in that society, then are
they not still selfish by the definition you were using before this
article?
IF they want to do something which they know to be more costly than
beneficial to their overall well-being, THEN (and here, as always, I am
assuming normal or better intelligence on the part of the selfish person)
they are not selfish. You are right to point out that, if they don't do it
for the sake of others, they are not altruists (or middle-grounders, either)
either. In that case, they must care about something for reasons having
NOTHING TO DO with ANYONE's well-being. That is a strange position, in my
opinion; and an indefensible one. The most plausible version of that
position might be that beauty, for example, can be considered good apart
from its contribution to anyone's well-being. (You seem to suggest this.)
I think that view is mistaken. At any rate, that view is not selfishness
(it doesn't seem to belong anywhere on the selfishness-altruism spectrum).
--Paul Torek, ..umcp-cs!prometh!paul