[net.politics.theory] want implies best

mwm@ucbvax.ARPA (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) (06/16/85)

In article <319@spar.UUCP> baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) writes:
>I'm not sure that it makes sense to talk about things that people want
>without being aware of it.  I *am* sure that what I want is not always in
>my best interest.  Consider cigarettes.  When I smoked, I was spending
>large sums of money to poison myself because I *wanted* to.  I wanted to
>because it was like scratching an itch.  The joke was that I had the itch
>because I smoked in the first place.  This is *not* to say that I don't
>think I should have been given the opportunity to smoke.  That's a separate,
>if related, topic.  But it does offer an instantiation of my goals being
>contrary to my self-interest in a way that was obvious to any reasoning
>and informed being.

Let's see, you were trading "immediate pleasure" for "later pain". For this
to have been "obvious", it has to be obvious that you value the pleasure
less than you value lack of later pain, or that the pain of quitting is less
than the pain you will reap later.  Since these are subjective - and
personal - data, the only "informed" being is you. Likewise, you can't
conclude that it is "best" for someone else to quit smoking without having
their judgements of those values. [The statists should be quick to point out
that smoking abuses a "common resource", and hence is (like everything else)
rightly controlled by the government.]

The obvious extension of this argument demonstrates that what you want is by
definition what is, in light of the information you have, best for you.

	<mike
-- 
After 5 years, a quote worthy of Netnews (and it works as disclaimer!):
"Truth is variable."