Meditations on Collective Action and Moral Norms
All this collective action problem debate is delightful. Here are some not-very-structured musings….
The topic of my unwritten dissertation was how solutions to “the contractarian compliance problem” (the fact that an individual can often do better for herself by ignoring moral constraints on self-interest that, if generally heeded, more than compensate for the short-term sacrifices moral constraints require), and the boundary between ideal and non-ideal political theory, turn on assumptions about human motivation that are open to empirical investigation. My position was (and is) that both pure rational choice (as represented by James Buchanan) and modified rational choice (as represented by David Gauthier) are less satisfactory as a matter of empirical psychology than a more deeply-moralized conception of motivation (as represented by John Rawls), but that rationalist accounts of the “moral capacity” or “sense of justice,” like Rawls’s, are also inadequate (in part because of the failure of the Universal Grammar analogy and in part because of naivete about the power of the moral sense to regulate self-interest in many contexts, especially politics).
Anyway, the point is that I don’t accept strict rational choice reasoning about collective action problems. Indeed, I think the fact that we do successfully solve so many of them basically refutes strict rational choice assumptions. (Even if coercion needs to come in to solve a coordination problem, you’ve got to ask why the guys with the guns are doing what they are supposed to, and not just using their powers to plunder, etc.) But if we’re talking about whether or not a certain constraint on self-interest ought to be normatively binding, I think you have to ask: Why? Because I’m a soulless, reductive, naturalist, I think there’s a good answer to that: because heeding the constraint will tend to make the person who heeds it better off, conditional on others heeding it, too. This is where a lot of people will part ways from me. They feel uncomfortable seating normativity in individual flourishing. However, I find all the relevant alternatives to be basically religious.
I am entertained by the examples at hand — gifts to the U.S. Treasury, meat avoidance, and carbon minimization — largely because I see people fighting over whether or not to try to establish or reinforce a moral norm, and that is really interesting. I found Henry’s rational choice-style answer to the question of gifts to the government amusing, because it suggests that he is not interested in reinforcing a moral norm that would motivate us to give money voluntarily to the Treasury. But if he wants the government to have more money, why not? Perhaps such a norm of voluntary giving might undermine a sense of the necessity and/or moral legitimacy of coercive taxation, which he believes it is important to maintain. Perhaps he thinks that this is an area where we cannot realistically expect the moral sense to sufficiently regulate self-interest, and so appealing to morality to do a job only coercion can do will be self-defeating. A new set of moral norms might crowd out a more effective coercive solution.
Well, I can buy that as a real possibility. But then I become very interested in how to apply this kind of reasoning to other similar cases. A lot of people seem to want to pursue a joint moral-coercive strategy to carbon emissions. Might that be self-defeating? Or is it supposed that an optimal carbon tax is politically infeasible without some moral ground-softening? Ethical vegetarians can be very evangelical but don’t seem to be very interested in banning or taxing meat at all. Why not? Maybe all these subjects are more dissimilar than I’m assuming. Then how so?
My philosophy leaves me very skeptical that norms about any of these things (much less coercively-enforced rules) would have any justified normative force — would be rationally binding. I don’t think higher taxes in the U.S. will leave the average person better off over time, much less the person who pays them. I have no idea how to tote up the net externality of carbon emissions (I don’t even know if the sign is positive or negative) and neither does anybody else. And since I think morality is for enabling human flourishing, I care about animals only insofar as our attitudes toward them affect patterns of interaction that bear on human well-being.
“Culture wars” are largely ongoing fights about what the governing norms are going to be. Certain kinds of arguments are useful in discouraging people from adopting or internalizing a new norm. I think a lot of rational choice arguments are like that. Because I think a lot of fledgling moral norms are likely to be harmful if they go viral, I like to encourage people to think like an economist, both to help them understand why the norm may not do any good as a matter of fact, but also to promote a generally inhospitable psychological climate for faddish moral memes.
Did you really read this far?
February 26th, 2008 12:32
“Why? Because I’m a soulless, reductive, naturalist, I think there’s a good answer to that: because heeding the constraint will tend to make the person who heeds it better off, conditional on others heeding it, too. This is where a lot of people will part ways from me. They feel uncomfortable seating normativity in individual flourishing. However, I find all the relevant alternatives to be basically religious.”
Well, I think you can practice Buddhism in a way that allows you to be soulless, reductive, naturalist; believe that moral action can be seated in human flourishing; and be basically religious. Go ahead and laugh.
February 26th, 2008 12:53
because heeding the constraint will tend to make the person who heeds it better off, conditional on others heeding it, too
But why isn’t this just as “religious” as the alternatives. On the one hand, you want to retain a distinction between the prudent and the moral. So, someone should heed a constraint even when it is against her interests if she would prefer the counter-factual world in which everyone heeded it to the counter-factual world in which no one heeded it. But why, since she doesn’t live in either of those counter-factual worlds, and since you seem like the sort of person who would make fun of counter-factual worlds in the first place.
February 26th, 2008 12:58
“And since I think morality is for enabling human flourishing…”
And the reason for setting a boundary at that species is?
February 26th, 2008 13:34
Ok, so I actually read that far TWICE. Your main point/queries I largely agree with the thrust of.
On your discussion of your view of “whether or not a certain constraint on self-interest ought to be normatively binding” I think you ignore the Rawlsian moral sense. I think it has a role to play even if it is not sufficient to explain morality or its constraints in and of itself.
February 26th, 2008 14:07
“[A given constraint on self-interest is morally binding if] heeding the constraint will tend to make the person who heeds it better off, conditional on others heeding it, too..”
Should my interpretive “if” be an “only if”? An “if and only if”?
Individual flourishing may be part of what grounds moral imperatives, but it would seem quite insufficient on its own (cf., for example, the problem of sadistic pleasure). Wouldn’t you agree that you need a prior theory of good character (such that only the flourishing or persons with such-and-such character traits can ground a moral imperative)?
February 26th, 2008 14:09
I probably should have said “Wouldn’t you agree that at minimum…”
February 26th, 2008 14:14
Hey Will, the previous commenters have latched onto what I think is the key passage here as well. I would find it really helpful if you could flesh out what you mean by “individual flourishing.” I get that this is something to do with “being better off,” but what does this entail? On what indices is it measured? If you’ve already written extensively about this maybe you could just point me to where those essays are located? Thanks a lot.
February 26th, 2008 14:18
Did you really read this far?
Yes.
February 26th, 2008 14:19
[...] under: philosophy, religion | Tags: duties, morality, naturalism, Will Wilkinson Will Wilkinson meditates: … if we’re talking about whether or not a certain constraint on self-interest ought to be [...]
February 26th, 2008 14:33
On the issue of being soulless, by the way, I’ve always liked Giulio Giorello’s remark: “Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made of lots of tiny robots!”
February 26th, 2008 14:39
Q, Robots! I’m stealing that!
February 26th, 2008 20:10
I find it hard to accept that heeding a moral restraint (e.g. refraining from pilfering) is a religious position unless conditional on others heeding it. But it doesn’t worry me greatly one way or the other!
Leaving that aside, it seems to me that it might be helpful to bring into consideration how conditionality can be related to rational ignorance on moral issues. Rational ignorance comes into the equation because it takes effort for me, and people like me, to work out a moral position from scratch, particularly on complex issues like climate change. So a lot of us tend to follow the lead of preachers of one kind or another (including the secular variety). But we don’t just follow blindly - our willingness to follow is often conditional on the preacher’s actions. We expect the preacher to “put his or her money where his or her mouth is” i.e. to set an example through his or her own behaviour. And we tend to stop following when a preacher doesn’t practice what he/she preaches.
February 27th, 2008 01:15
People come first. Never self.
There is your restraint.
The debate is always if the people are actually coming first. Sometimes we put air before people. That is immoral.
February 27th, 2008 12:06
If the claim here is a descriptive one that the moral sense evolved as a way of solving collective action problems, then I find it plausible. If it is a normative one that we should do things if and only if our actions solve collective action problems, then it strikes me as bizarre.
February 27th, 2008 12:21
Pithlord, I’m definitely making the descriptive claim. But I’m not setting out any necessary and sufficient conditions for individual action. The question is whether or not some moral convention or norm tends to actually make the people who follow it better off. There are lots of conventions that do nothing much at all, and I have no problem with them. And obviously a worthwhile new convention can’t do any good if some people don’t adopt it first, and early on it won’t be solving any problem. But whether or not it makes sense to be an early adopter, or to be an evangelist for a new norm, does have to do with whether or not the norm, if broadly established, would be generally beneficial. No?
February 27th, 2008 14:18
Will, you are not the only person who thinks the “lots of tiny robots” line is cute. Daniel Dennett has quoted it in a few interviews and one of his books. It’s a great slogan for naturalism.
February 27th, 2008 15:21
Will,
Are you coming out as a rule utilitarian?
February 27th, 2008 16:54
Will,
Are you ONLY making the descriptive claim? Because what you say in the third paragraph - that “if we’re talking about whether or not a certain constraint on self-interest ought [your emphasis] to be normatively binding … I think there’s a good answer to that: because heeding the constraint will tend to make the person who heeds it better off, conditional on others heeding it, too” - sure seems to have a normative dimension as well. (Or am I missing something?)
February 27th, 2008 17:42
[...] Wilkinson muses about collective action, moral norms and culture wars, while Ophelia ponders the question of when scorn and mockery should be seen as permissible in [...]
February 27th, 2008 19:50
“Indeed, I think the fact that we do successfully solve so many of them basically refutes strict rational choice assumptions.”
Aren’t rational choice assumptions perfectly consistent with these solutions given preferences for being moral?
February 27th, 2008 19:55
Matt, Sure. But I’m talking about the conventional conception of rational choice in which the effect on the individual’s welfare determines the preferences ordering.
February 28th, 2008 18:04
Ethical vegetarians can be very evangelical but don’t seem to be very interested in banning or taxing meat at all. Why not?
Because they’re rational enough to realise they have exactly zero chance of achieving that goal, perhaps?
The way they get instantly dismissed, laughed at, or funny looks if they suggest a ban on meat would tend to discourage, if not such a goal, then at least mentioning it.
(Achieving it by admitting that’s their goal, at any rate - I suppose they could sneakily have that goal and have a “moral softening-up” agenda already.)