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