[T]he world would be better if we praised folks more for what they did than who they are.
The idea is this:
Because the usual focus is on inferring how smart, strong, creative, caring, charismatic, determined, etc. people are, the incentives are more to do things that suggest good things about your character. If instead we focused on describing the differences a person has actually made to the world, we would get more folks trying harder to actually make a difference. And they would focus more on acquiring the features that produce results, instead of features that are easy to see.
This is totally sensible. However, I don’t think we can understand the logic of the conventions of praise and blame in isolation from the logic of collective action.
Suppose we’re trying to coordinate to provide some kind of public good for our community. The problem is precisely that it doesn’t make a difference if you alone shirk and free ride. And so it doesn’t make a difference if you willingly bear some of the burden of cooperation, as long as enough others do. But, of course, it makes a big difference if others expect a good deal of non-cooperation. If they do, they’ll be less willing to cooperate, and we may fail to produce the public good.
One way we encourage compliance in collective endeavors is to confer higher status on those who are consistently cooperative, who have a proven record of adherence to cooperative norms, and who publicly participate in community rituals of costly signaling. Good character makes a big difference not because a lot hangs on any isolated individual’s character, but because the widespread adoption of certain norms of behavior and judgment — of certain virtues of character — allow us to accomplish things together that we could not accomplish alone.
A more natural, less economistic way of saying this is that people deserve credit for honoring their obligations and doing right by others whether or not we can detect the difference that has made for society. I don’t know the difference it would make to the world if my (made-up) friend Larry were not a good father to his children. But if Larry is a good father, he deserves to be praised for that. He owes it to his family, whether or not it makes a difference to the rest of us, which is why he should make the effort. But it is an effort. Many men aren’t good fathers because they’re unwilling to bear the burdens of the task. So Larry’s friends and family should help out by giving him encouragement and an elevated sense of status. Of course, the general practice of good fatherhood does makes a big difference to the rest of us. So praising Larry for being a good father is not only a way to help a friend meet his obligations. It is a way to reinforce an important norm. If we praise Larry publicly, it is a way to signal our own commitment to the norm and to advertise that others who embody it will likewise be rewarded with praise.
So when Robin says, “If we praised results instead of character, maybe we will get more of both,” I worry that he’s overlooking the importance of “character” in producing the happy results of social coordination. Of course, not all norms of behavior make a difference in the right way. Conventions of praise that reinforce bad norms make us worse off. And it’s surely true that individuals who produce extraordinary benefits for others often have to flout certain longstanding social norms to achieve what they do. Innovation requires a good deal of non-conformity. Robin’s proposal to praise results I think amounts to a proposal to encourage the norms and virtues of skeptical independence and non-conformity needed to produce more and better generally beneficial innovation.
This is a great idea! So let us praise those with results-facilitating traits of character! I’m in no position to estimate the results Robin has produced, but I am in a position to know that these are traits Robin doggedly promotes in public and personally has in spades. So I’m happy to join Tyler in praising him for who he is.