man's misuse of morality

We’ve established that there are two interdependent cognitive processes, automatic (elephant) and controlled (rider), that are active when we make a decision. For some decisions, such as jumping out of the way of a speeding card, the elephant takes the lead. For other decisions, such as voting for President, we’d like to believe that the rider takes the reins, but, in reality, the elephant plays a large, often dominant, role. Surely, this isn’t a pretty thought to tend on, but it’s going to get even uglier before we break out the scalpel and explore how to fix this mess.

(If you want to take a step back, check out 1) book to own: happiness hypothesis, 2) the evolution of the elephant and the rider, 3) the mind and morality.)

Jonathan Haidt quotes from Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal (…on my to-read list), "Human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their constitutional ignorance of the misuse."

Most are likely willing to accept that, at times, we’ll employ tenuous reasoning to justify not doing what we would consider the 'right thing' (at a time when it would not be inconvenient to do so…). Haidt argues that these cases are exceptional ONLY in that they mark the few times we are actually aware of how immoral our moral decisions are.

He cites one study where Person A was told that two tasks, one pleasant and one not pleasant, were to be assigned to Person A and Person B. Furthermore, Person A was allowed to delegate the tasks. Person A was left alone in a room with a coin.

The experimenters found that “people who think they are particularly moral are in fact more likely to "do the right thing" and flip the coin.” No surprise there, "but when the coin flip comes out against them, they find a way to ignore it and follow their own self-interest."

But how does this happen? Why doesn’t the rider step in and take control of the cognitive process?

For one, the rider isn’t giving orders, he’s taking the role of lawyer:

"Although many lawyers won't tell a direct lie, most will do what they can to hide inconvenient facts while weaving a plausible alternative story for the judge and jury ... For example, whether the minimum wage should be raised - they generally lean one way or the other right away, and then put a call in to reasoning to see whether support for that position is forthcoming." If the person asked about the minimum wage has an aunt who works on minimum wage and can't support her family, the person will support it.

Haidt cites Deanna Kuhn as one researcher that has found that decisions are mostly made based on such pseudoevidence, precluding the search for any contradictory evidence that might be more robust.

Haidt continues: "Studies show that people set out on a cognitive mission to bring back reasons to support their preferred belief or action. And because we are usually successful in this mission, we end up with the illusion of objectivity. We really believe that our position is rationally and objectively justified."

Even the people who WANT to be fair, and make a dedicated effort TO BE fair, still end up being unfair.

At this point, I expect that most readers agree that this flawed decision-making exists, but if questioned directly, would still refuse to believe that their partisan alliances, policy preferences, and everyday moral judgments are so baseless and hypocritical.

Haidt channels this position: “Everyone is influenced by ideology and self-interest. Except for me. I see things as they are."

As I read this book I tried to constantly bear in mind man’s poor ability to assess his limitations. Here are three quotes that helped me to focus on getting passed my own biases, rather than simply dismiss others as biased:

• "We think we have special information about ourselves - we know what we are "really like" inside, so we can easily find ways to explain away our selfish acts and cling to the illusion that we are better than others."
• "Subjects used base rate information [average/mean] properly to revise their predictions of others, but they refused to apply it to their rosy self-assessments."
• "When comparing ourselves to others, the general process is this: Frame the question (unconsciously, automatically) so that the trait in question is related to a self-perceived strength, then go out and look for evidence that you have the strength." At that point, you can stop thinking.

Haidt terms mankind’s distorted worldview “naïve realism,” and proceeds to assail it as “the biggest obstacle to world peace and social harmony.” Why? Because naïve realists form naïve realist groups. No one cares if Joe always think he’s getting the short-end of the stick because of the people he doesn’t like at work, but it becomes all our problem when there’s a group of 1,000 Joe’s with the same distorted perception.

Naïve realism creates a narrative of pure virture (our side) versus pure vice (those who disagree with us). We’re fair and they are not. We’re just trying to do the right thing, they are selfish and immoral.

Haidt argues that the root causes of evil within naïve realism are high self-esteem and moral idealism. But why?

“Threatened self-esteem accounts for a large portion of violence at the individual level, but to really get a mass atrocity going you need idealism - the belief that your violence is a means to a moral end. ... [For instance,] when people have strong moral feelings about a controversial issue - when they have a "moral mandate" - they care much less about procedural fairness in court cases."

As we wrap this installment, let me return to Robert Wright’s excellent quote:

"Human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their constitutional ignorance of the misuse."

First it was necessary to convince ourselves that we indeed do misuse our moral equipment, and that we have only begun to understand the depths of this misuse. The next post will look at how we improve our use of our wide array of moral equipment.

Links:

• the mind and morality
  
• the evolution of the elephant and the rider
  
• book to own: happiness hypothesis
  
• to blink or think is not the question
• the self's compromising of moral aims
• don't be bob bias
• passenger or policy-maker?
• one point for social cripples
• living with cognitive bias
• health care as a moral issue

Read more!

the mind and morality

For those that missed the preceding posts on this topic (book to own: happiness hypothesis, the evolution of the elephant and the rider) or haven’t yet committed their content to memory, allow me to reintroduce some of the key terms and concepts. Our brain understands the world by processing the information received by our senses. These processes can be grouped by whether they are automatic/subconscious or controlled/deliberate. This post will focus on my primary interest: how cognitive processes affect moral judgments.

The automatic system has a long history and has evolved to serve elemental needs linked to survival (e.g., fight/flight, don’t eat the green berries, etc.). The controlled system is a relatively new adaptation, which separates us from (most, if not all) animals, and has evolved to allow humans to make better long-term decisions and expanding their ability to cooperate in large-scale communities. Jonathan Haidt equates the dynamic between the controlled and automatic systems as akin to a rider atop an elephant:

"The automatic system [the elephant] was shaped by natural selection to trigger quick and reliable action, and it includes part of the brain that make us feel pleasure and pain (such as the orbitofrontal cortex) and trigger survival-related motivations (such as the hypothalamus) ... The controlled system, in contrast, is better seen as an advisor. It's a rider placed on the elephant's back to help the elephant make better choices. The rider can see farther into the future, and the rider can learn valuable information by talking to other riders or by reading maps, but the rider cannot order the elephant around against its will."

It would be pleasant to believe that the human brain is a modicum of efficiency – seamlessly switching to and from the elephant (automatic system) and the rider (controlled) based on what is most appropriate. A car runs a red light and starts careening toward you as you walk down the sidewalk? The elephant throws you to the ground before the rider even puts together what’s happened. Deciding your position on a political or social issue? The elephant steps aside to let the rider judge the merits on each side.

This last step, the peaceful transfer of power from the elephant to the rider, is the destructive delusion that will be the subject of this post. The elephant will not go quietly into the night. Or rather – to be less poetic and more precise – the elephant is unable to see when his services are productive (decision to respond to runaway car) and unproductive (decision on complex policy issue). The elephant takes the lead no matter what the issue. So what does the rider do?

When confronted with a moral issue or really any issue that elicits a strong feeling, the rider is relegated to the role of the lawyer for the elephant: "It is the elephant holding the reins, guiding the rider. It is the elephant who decides what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Gut feelings, intuitions, and snap judgments happen constantly, and automatically."

Haidt compares moral judgment to aesthetic judgment: “When you see a painting, you usually know instantly and automatically whether you like it. If someone asks you to explain your judgment, you confabulate. You don't really know why you think something is beautiful."

I think some would disagree that they don’t know why something is beautiful, but I don’t think they would deny the chronology of events:

1. See a Painting
2. Instantly like/dislike the painting
3. Begin to think about why you like/dislike the painting
4. Decide on a reason why you like/dislike the painting

This understanding of moral and aesthetic decision-making is humbling. No one wants to think they are simply confabulating post-hoc explanations for a gut reaction to complex issues like trade agreements or environmental issues. No one really wants to believe that their rider is reduced to "[stringing] sentences together and [creating] arguments to give to other people … fighting in the court of public opinion to persuade others of the elephant's point of view."

Haidt brings up a situation we’re all accustomed to: “When you refute a person's argument, does she generally change her mind and agree with you? Of course not, because the argument you defeated was not the cause of her position; it was made up after the judgment was already made."

It’s quite common to hear people decry “strawmen” arguments. Haidt argues that all of our arguments are (to some degree) strawmen. They are all post-hoc justifications. When "two people feel strongly about an issue, their feelings come first, and their reasons are invented on the fly, to throw at each other.”

To set aside the elephant/rider metaphor, different parts of the brain correspond to different mental activities – the frontal insula is active during “unpleasant emotional states, particularly anger and disgust,” while the “dorsolateral prefrontal cortext, just behind the sides of the forehead, [is] known to be active during reasoning and calculation.” Haidt’s argument merries with my perception that judgments are made in the parts of brain associated with emotion and the subconscious, while the arguments defending the judgments are constructed after the fact in the parts of the brain associated with reasoning and calculation.

The more emotionally detached you are, the more likely the rider can take the reins from the elephant and steer it on a rational, calculated path.

Oomph. I don’t want to dilute this crucial point about how our brains take moral positions and make moral arguments with any additional content. In the next post, I’ll look at how the elephant further muddles our moral judgments by filtering the information that gets to the rider. For now, are there doubts about this theory of making and supporting judgments? If so, I could dig back and supply some of the studies that have looked at brain activity and behavior, which support this understanding, but I don’t want to lose the theory amidst the details if it’s not necessary.

The final post in the series has arrived: man's misuse of morality.

Links:

• the evolution of the elephant and the rider
  
• book to own: happiness hypothesis
  
• to blink or think is not the question
• the self's compromising of moral aims
• don't be bob bias
• passenger or policy-maker?
• one point for social cripples
• living with cognitive bias
• health care as a moral issue

Read more!

the evolution of the elephant and rider

This post is the second in a series responding to Jonathan Haidt's excellent book, "Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom." You can my initial brief review of the book here. This post will set the stage for a more substantive discussion about how and why our brains will sometimes lead us down paths we wouldn't deliberately choose for ourselves, and what can be done to guard against this tendency. First, we need to understand our mind's evolution.

Mankind is one of the few species able to live in large, relatively peaceful societies. So what do we have in common with ants, termites, and naked mole rats? We've all been able to overcome "the laws of evolution (such as competition and survival of the fittest)" through kin altruism.

Kin altruism is short-hand for the expansion of an organism's genetic self-interest to family members beyond his own young. Bees, for instance, are all siblings, and its in their genetic self-interest to sacrifice themselves for the hive - "selfishness becomes genetic suicide." This kin altruism, however, only takes a species so far; it breaks down quickly, especially for species that aren't all brothers and sisters. For humans, "gratitude and vengeance are big steps on the road that led to human ultrasociality."

Robin Dunbar has demonstrated that animal brain size correlates with social group size. Evolutionary success depends on playing the social game well. Brain power allows the animal to do just that, improving the animal's odds of surviving and reproducing. Mix in some natural selection, and you explain the evolution of larger, increasingly sophisticated brains in humans.

The evolutionary backstory is essential to understanding why the brain functions as it does. Haidt identifies three cognitive developments that allowed humans to live in large, cooperative societies: language, reciprocity and vengeance.

Reciprocity and vengeance are two sides of the same coin to Haidt. He notes, "Reciprocity is a deep instinct; it is the basic currency of social life." Social cohesion and cooperation depends on the promise of reciprocity and fear of vengeance. Haidt restates Jane Jacobs’ observation that a neighborhood has a lot of problems when a parent doesn’t feel comfortable castigating someone else’s unruly child.

While language has evolved to serve a variety of purposes, Haidt infers that one of its principle uses to early man was gossip, which serves as a “policeman and a teacher.” What hit home for me was Haidt’s insight that “many species reciprocate, but only humans gossip, and much of what we gossip about is the value of other people as partners for reciprocal relationships."

Language, reciprocity, and vengeance all work together to a socially productive end; “Gossip paired with reciprocity allows karma to work here on earth, not in the next life. As long as everyone plays tit-for-tat augmented by gratitude, vengeance, and gossip, the whole system should work beautifully."

Yet Haidt notes that the system doesn’t work perfectly. Evolutionary quirks leave us biased and hypocritical, sabotaging our collective efforts for social cooperation. My primary interest is identifying these destructive quirks, figuring out why they exist, and developing a plan of action to minimize their destructive impact.

The reason for our cognitive hiccups is simple – “evolution never looks ahead” (terrific insight). For instance, “linguistic ability spread to the extent that it helped the elephant do something important in a better way.” Vocalization didn’t evolve so that we could reproduce every sound perfectly. Language itself didn’t evolve so that we could communicate with perfect efficiency and clarity. Natural selection finds better ways to do things, not the best ways.

Haidt compares the human mind to a rider on top of an elephant. The elephant is our ancestral, subconscious system of automatically processing that drives our most elemental impulses. Buddha offers further insight: "In days gone by this mind of mine used to stray wherever selfish desire or lust or pleasure would lead it. Today this mind does not stray and is under the harmony of control, even as a wild elephant is controlled by the trainer." Buddha’s elephant trainer, the rider, is a relatively new addition to the cognitive space, as "language, reasoning, and conscious planning arrived in the most recent eye-blink of evolution.”

In sum:
"The automatic system [the elephant] was shaped by natural selection to trigger quick and reliable action, and it includes part of the brain that make us feel pleasure and pain (such as the orbitofrontal cortex) and trigger survival-related motivations (such as the hypothalamus) ... The controlled system, in contrast, is better seen as an advisor. It's a rider placed on the elephant's back to help the elephant make better choices. The rider can see farther into the future, and the rider can learn valuable information by talking to other riders or by reading maps, but the rider cannot order the elephant around against its will."

If the rider and the elephant sounds like the basis for a Disney buddy film, you’re right on track. Haidt describes the rider/elephant dynamic: “I was a rider on the back of an elephant. I'm holding the reins in my hands, and by pulling one way or the other I can tell the elephant to turn, to stop, or to go. I can direct things, but only when the elephant doesn't have desires of his own. When the elephant really wants to do something, I'm no match for him.”

The rider couldn’t do without the elephant, because “the mind performs hundreds of operations each second, all but one of them must be handled automatically," but, likewise, the elephant depends on the rider for its chance for evolutionary success. For it’s the rider that "allows people to think about long-term goals and thereby escape the tyranny of the her-and-now, the automatic triggering of temptation by the sight of tempting objects."

As Haidt notes in the block quote above, the elephant and rider (or automatic and controlled processing systems) correspond to different areas of the brain. The distinction does have basis in the way different parts of our brain are active when we are emotional and rushed versus detached and deliberate.

The next posts in this series (the mind and morality, man's misuse of morality) look at where and why these dual systems of processing information go awry.

Links:

• book to own: happiness hypothesis
  
• to blink or think is not the question
• the self's compromising of moral aims
• don't be bob bias
• passenger or policy-maker?
• one point for social cripples
• living with cognitive bias
• health care as a moral issue

Read more!

book to own: happiness hypothesis

When pitching Jonathan Haidt's "Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom" to friends, I often find myself explaining away the title -- no, it's not another self-help book and yes, it's about more than just plastering a silly smile on your face. With that said, the title is appropriate; Haidt is chiefly concerned with what's responsible for making humans happy.

The title fails, however, to convey the breadth and depth of Haidt's search, which touches on philosophy, psychology, economics, evolution, and cognitive science, and skips effortlessly across the centuries, from the Stoics' philosophical minimalism to Ben Franklin's pragmatism to Robert Cialdini's work on Influence.

Haidt documents the evolution of the human mind, producing an overarching narrative that explains everything from the use of gossip and prozac to mental tendencies that steer men away from their stated values and towards self-destruction.

Along with "Kluge," this book has profoundly shaped the way I view my brain. Before Haidt, I was aware that our brains appeared to systematically work against our best interest, and that these tendencies manifested in more general cognitive biases. Haidt, however, takes you behind the curtain, and provides a look at what exactly is going on in your brain and the evolutionary logic behind it. This book provided a more systematic take on cognition than the discrete observational work I had previously encountered.

My interest in correcting my cognitive failings largely emanates from my concern with my ability to grasp the truth. Haidt rightly adds that it's profoundly important to happiness in general. Cognitive therapy has allowed many to escape depression by directly attacking distortions in thought. These depressive distortions are direct relatives to those that scare up trouble in all of our lives, and Haidt provides an excellent primer on how to exorcise your cognitive demons through a few different means, thereby improving the way you think and possibly making you happier.

This isn't the end of my cognitive kick, I'm working on a series of posts that explore Haidt's ideas in greater detail, which will dovetail nicely with Kluge, which I'm currently finishing up.

Links:

• to blink or think is not the question
• the self's compromising of moral aims
• don't be bob bias
• passenger or policy-maker?
• one point for social cripples
• living with cognitive bias
• health care as a moral issue

Read more!

grand new party on the horizon

Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam's new book, "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream," has built itself some politico buzz thanks to opportune timing and a novel perspective on how to revive an ailing Republican party. A few people forwarded me David Brook's review of the book, which is certainly worth a read.

Brooks' review is about more than this specific book, but about the greater movement of "young and unpredictable rightward-leaning writers.
...
"These writers came of age as official conservatism slipped into decrepitude. Most of them were dismayed by what the Republican Party had become under Tom DeLay and seemed put off by the shock-jock rhetorical style of Ann Coulter. As a result, most have the conviction — which was rare in earlier generations — that something is fundamentally wrong with the right, and it needs to be fixed."

Brooks points specifically to Megan McArdle and Will Wilkinson - two of my favorite bloggers - as examples of the "new" Republican archetype.

Brooks believes that these writers will fill the conservative "intellectual vacuum" that currently hampers the Republicans:

"Liberals have a way to address these inequalities — the creation of a Denmark-style welfare state. Conservatives have offered almost nothing. The G.O.P. has lost contact with its own working-class base. This is the intellectual vacuum that “Grand New Party” seeks to fill."

What will the basis of the the Grand New Party? Douthat and Salam write, "It's hard-work conservatism, which uses government to increase the odds that self-discipline and effort will pay off."

Sounds excellent to me, and I think this would be a good thing for Democrats as well (though elections would be harder to win...) Will it happen? I doubt we'll say a Republican revolution, but perhaps we'll see a change of face and leadership more in tune with this Grand New Party. Read more!

what makes a just nation-state

This post follows the utility of the nation-state in exploring the importance of properly defining fairness, a concept that weighs heavily in most discussions while rarely being explored on its own merits.


At some point, a nation ingrains a conception of fairness in the national fabric, most often in the constitution itself. I think many would refer to this as the "social compact." Europe emphasizes distributive justice among citizens, both increasing the possibilities for the worst off among their citizens and decreasing the opportunities for those branded outsiders.

Some of those outsiders headed to the New World looking for a type of fairness very different from that found in Europe at the time, or, for that matter, in modern Europe.

The Statue of Liberty stands a testament to that uniquely American ideal: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

The American Dream was characterized not by distributive, but procedural justice. Each person would be given the same opportunity regardless of their ethnicity, religion, creed, etc. Talent and hard work would determine how far you'd go in life, not whether you were Catholic or Protestant or born from "proper stock" or any other determination of what was a "proper citizen."

What's happened since then?

Well, the frontier's been settled. The moment the Italian no longer considered himself an immigrant he spat upon on the 'Irish dogs, who, in turn, cast a wary eye and a perjorative slur at the Mexican.

Yet despite the natural human inclination to protect one's kin and consequent belief in the "defective moral quality of being a stranger," the American notion of procedural fairness has remained remarkably resilient.

Despite nativist attacks at nearly every stage in American development -- from the Know Nothing Party to Lou Dobbs -- immigrants continue to flock to the United States and power American development and innovation, from the atom bomb to Google.

The United States has ridden the creative powers and hard work of the "poor and huddled masses" to a level prosperity unmatched in the history of the world. The American social compact is to be credited.

Yet societies have remarkably short memories, and apparently a 305-foot high statue warmly welcoming the world's "wretched refuse" in the nation's richest city is not enough to remind Americans of how the US developed into an economic titan.

The trouble is that energetic, hard-working immigrants eventually have kids. Some of their kids will keep their parent's spirit, most will not. While the immigrants who venture to the US leave behind their lazier and less talented brothers and sisters, there is no self-selection mechanism for those born in the US.

While that may sound in bad taste, it's no different than the way we talk about being born into a rich family. While the original entrepreneur was likely hard-working, there's no reason to suspect the same of their children.

The American paradox is that we all want to be treated fairly as we grow up (procedural justice), and then we all want our children to receive the best treatment available even if they don't deserve it (distributive justice).

Who loses?

Well, who would have lost if the Know-Nothings successfully closed the door on Irish immigration, or if the racists in California had succesfully shut the door on Japanese immigration?

Clearly, the immigrants themselves would have lost dearly, as well as their children, and their children's children. In addition, the children and great grandchildren of the earlier Americans benefitted as well, as dynamic labor markets spurred on the creation of new industries and created new jobs and opportunities for all Americans. Yet in both cases loyal Americans tried to slam the door in the face of these immigrants in defense of what they perceived as the American interest.

The trouble is that it's only easy to see the benefit of immigration 100 years later, removed from the emotional tug that drags down most political discourse. It's hard to put much weight in the positive externalities of productive new immigrants if you think things could be better in your life at that moment ("My son lost his job + I see a lot more Mexicans around + They have jobs = they took his job.")

The changing economic dynamics of the 21st century once again raise the question, what kind of country should America be? Should it be a nation-state in the static European sense? An exclusive club that sets up barricades and pampers its few members? Is distributive justice the next step?

Clearly, I don't think so. I don't think it would be healthy for America in the long run to choke off her access to fresh ideas and hard work, and I don't think it's just.

The United States is not, and should not be static, like a France or Germany. It should be dynamic and everchanging, a whole composed of parts bound not by blood but belief in a fair shake. That's not to say we need be as superficial in our understanding of procedural justice as our ancestors. We can still admit we have a lot to learn from Scandinavia while staying loyal to procedural justice. How we can do so is a subject for another post. But our core strength lies in equal opportunity, and we'd be wise to focus discussions of justice within that paradigm, rather than the distributive justice of our country-club cousins in Europe. It's both in our interest and more helpful to the disparate. Read more!

political utility of the nation-state

This post has taken me awhile, but I think it's worthwhile. Inherent in any discussion of a nation-state's policies, from societal safety nets to immigration, is an understanding of the nation-state and its proper role. This post argues that the "value-added" by the nation-state is declining, and in turn, the values of local governance and international institutions are growing. I argue that the historical experience of the nation-state has effectively "nationalized" popular understandings of fairness and self-interest, and that these understandings are increasingly inappropriate.

To begin, it's important to understand that the United States, like most nation-states, was created to respond to an external oppressor. The colonies integrated their governance only so far as absolutely necessary for defeating the British. The nation-state is built for this zero-sum militaristic competition. This zer- competition rewarded size, and the more resources that could be brought under the leadership of a singular decision-making body, the better the nation-state would do in the competition.

Zero-sum competition not only led to societies growing in size to the point of becoming the modern nation-state, but also brought about the creation of the market economy. As Robert Reich put it, the king wanted more silver to prosecute his wars, and allowed for greater economic freedom in a mercantilist trade system, which eventually created independent pillars of wealth and power, forcing the king to eventually allow greater political freedom, which, in turn, begat the free market system.

Mercantilism fit neatly within the zero-sum militaristic competition model, as trade was perceived as a weapon to accumulate a larger slice of the fixed economic pie that made up the world. But clearly, mercantilism has fallen out of fashion. It's come to be understood that trade can, and usually does, benefit all parties (to varying degrees), and that economic prosperity is not a zero-sum game; quite the contrary, trade is a non-zero-sum game, where each nation-state benefits from the economic success of other nation-states.

The market economy erodes the value of the nation-state because the market economy thrives on cooperation both internally and externally, i.e., trading with a guy from Ontario or Detroit depending on who is giving you the better deal. Meanwhile, the value of the nation-state depends on high internal cooperation, and low external cooperation. If you don't differentiate between dealing in Ontario or Detroit, then what's the purpose of having a different nation-state for each location?

The nation-state has historically convinced its citizens of its value by taking on an external enemy, such as the British, the Nazis, Soviet Union, etc. Within the perspective of zero-sum militaristic competition, the ideas of national interests and national fairness maintain a certain logical consistency. In a game of nation-state survival, your interests extend only so far as your borders, or at the most, the borders of your allies. Furthermore, fairness applies only to the citizens of the nation-state.

While that zero-sum competition still exists to some degree, I argue that it's been diluted by the increase of non-zero-sum cooperation, wherein those national notions of self-interest and fairness are NOT logically consistent. Outside of zero-sum nation-state competition, the foreigner is not an adversary for the citizen anymore than any of his fellow citizens -- the national border no longer divides the citizen's interests and sense of fairness.

Does this all mean that I think the nation-state has outlived its use? Not entirely. While the nation-state inhibits exchange across borders, it has facilitated exchange within the nation-state. Europe is just now catching up to the United States in picking apart the economic barriers, brick-by-brick, constructed in between the tiny nation-states. The nation-state has value in lowering transaction costs and promoting exchange (and, of course, providing for the common defense of the member states). I am calling into question the role of the nation-state as the de facto level for policy action to advance one's interest or sense of fairness.

Whereas the powerful nation-state best serves the interests of the citizen in the day of zero-sum competition, a dynamic federalism best serves the citizen in our world today. In addition, I have mentioned 'fairness' along with interests in this post for a purpose. Many of our policy debates, from welfare to healthcare to immigration to free trade, end with one side claiming that it is only fair to "fix" the economic system to provide jobs or services for relatively poor Americans, even if it comes at the expense of much poorer foreigners. This mindset is a remnant of historical zero-sum competition that has no place in a discussion of trade with poor and well-meaning foreigners. Justice should know no borders.

I'll end with an analogy. Let's say you're in charge of a business. The nation-state mindset would lead you to hire your family and friends, while the market mindset would prompt you to throw open your doors to the world, and higher whoever seemed like they would be most productive. Even though you share a kinship with your family and friends, you appreciate that it is not "fair" to pass over a hard-working, smart employee for your less talented, lazy cousin. Favoring your kin is neither fair nor in your self-interest, because your interests and sense of fairness are not "kin-based," nor tribal, nor ethnic, nor national.

In a post in the (hopefully) near future, I will spell out the implications of this non-zero-sum mindset with regards to policy. Specific attention will be paid to how policies can be crafted to advance citizens' self-interest without offending their sense of justice. I should also consider the alternative view of the nation-state put forth by Robert Reich and state where I believe he gets it wrong.

For a sneak peek, I agree wholeheartedly with Will Wilkinson's theory:

"For my part, I have a fairly radical ideal theory of a cosmopolitan liberal global order of trade, migration, and peace. I think the “nation state-as-primary-moral-community” assumption at bottom of most modern liberal arguments for the welfare state (and in many libertarianism-in-one-country arguments, for that matter) is morally backward." Read more!

poor and huddled masses

Kevin Mawae is sick and tired of being confined to the lower class. He's worked for 15 years in a gritty industry and is tired of watching flashy prodigies get huge salaries that he could only dream of, despite being among the best at his job. Like most people in that situation, he wants to do something about it. He wants to limit the salaries and bonuses of that higher strata of workers. As it is, the current system of financial reward simply isn't fair in the mind of Mr. Mawae.

The catch?

Mawae is an offensive lineman for the New York Jets, and in 2002 made more than $9 million as the highest paid offensive lineman in the league. Yet the aforementioned sentiments are very real -- Mawae is upset with the contracts first-round picks are getting nowadays, specifically BC alum Matt Ryan's six-year, $72 million deal.

"I know there is sentiment around the league amongst the players like, 'Let's do something to control these salaries and control these signing bonuses' and things like that," said Mawae.

I'm reminded of a quote from P.J. O'Rourke that Greg Mankiw recently cited:

"I have a 10 year old at home, and she is always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says that, I say, “Honey, you’re cute; that’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that’s not fair. You were born in America; that’s not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.”

I think there is something telling in Mawae's reaction to the Ryan contract. He wants fairness, but his conception of fairness extends only so far as he would benefit. You don't see Mawae admitting that his salary should be controlled to better serve fairness.

The consultant who's watching the Jets in the stands feels the same way about rookie contracts as Mawae, but not simply about rookie contracts, but Mawae's contract as well.

The low-skilled worker feels the same way as the consultant, but not simply about football contracts, but about the prosperity enjoyed by college graduates as well.

Of course, like Mawae, the low-skilled worker may be treated "unfairly" relative to some, but if he were to be treated fairly along with low-skilled people all over the world, he would not like the result.

I think this story is helpful for the greater discussion of poverty. Liberals still stick to their guns with "relative poverty" indicators, so that a person in the US with a car and a microwave is labeled "poor," the same as if he had malnutrition and a life expectancy of 40 years in a developing country living on less than a dollar a day.

The Mawae story is relevant because it demonstrates that there is no magic dollar figure when an individual ceases to believe he is not being rewarded fairly; pursuing the end of relative poverty is chasing a ghost. If we could somehow snap our fingers and the world's citizens were paid like NFL players, people would still think there were significant "relative poverty" wrongs that must be righted.

In this worldview, lowering the well-being of others, the redistribution of poverty, is a victory. When Mawae goes to the bargaining table with the owners, he has stated he will look to stop these high rookie salaries. Will he benefit at all? Likely not, it will simply mean more money for the owners.

When it comes to millionaire football players, who cares if they screw the pooch. The problem is when this same attitude leads individuals to throw away large pieces of the general economic pie because of petty jealousy and envy. The socially just shouldn't be trying to turn princes into paupers in the name of relative-poverty justice. Justice isn't relative.

Update: How does this relative poverty argument play out in the real world? Consider this article, Has Ireland’s Rising Tide Benefited Its Poor? Within, Lane Kenworthy explains how poverty is "on the rise" in Ireland according to standard indicators, despite the fact that the poorest Irish are better off now than they have ever been. Kenworthy offers a worthy substitute for the current relative poverty indicators -- income at the tenth percentile of income distribution; in other words, how much better or worse off are the lowest 10% of income-earners in a given area. Given this indicator, Mawae, the low-skilled worker, and the Irish would all see that their well-being has improved greatly over the past 10-20 years, even as "relative poverty" has grown, allowing us to focus our attention on the genuinely poor and huddled masses.

Read more!

the self's compromising of moral aims

I had an earlier draft of this post where I spoke of “others” and their propensity to moralize issues, and after testing the reaction of a dairy product I decided to explore the same idea but through my own experience. The title of the post, while changed, unfortunately remains terrible.

A political philosophy professor at BC gave a talk a week ago related to foreign policy, and brought up that people are naturally hawks or doves, and that they should keep this in mind when they think about policies, always being sure to question themselves when they tend towards this instinct -- don't trust it. It is an emotional tendency that blinds your intellectual exploration.


That doesn’t mean I try to suppress my morality, it means I try to better serve the moral maxims that I think should be lived by.

One example that I’ve struggled with is how to alleviate human suffering. To this end, I want to alleviate as much suffering as I can, doing as large a part as possible to elevate the human condition. Intellectually, I understand this aim and I respect it as worthwhile. Yet there is a related emotional tie I have to this aim, which causes me to be upset when I see suffering on even the smallest scale. This emotional trigger cannot be trusted to serve the intellectually tested greater purpose.

Straightforward example, I will get unbelievably angry or upset when seeing a child mistreated, yet not bat an eye when seeing a headline about the number of murders in a year in a faraway city.

Proximity and presentation matter, and my emotional response will be biased. I cannot rely on this emotional response as a mechanism to serve the end.

When I was younger, my response to this moral imperative was indeed shockingly local. The population I targeted for assistance was American, mainly in urban areas.

The policies or ideas I supported can be best characterized as the most direct attempt to alleviate the suffering of those most close to me.

Guided by my emotional response, my beautiful purpose of alleviating the suffering of mankind was transformed into the support of doing whatever plan was most popular to directly and immediately provide assistance to those whose suffering best plays on my emotions.

Since then, I think I’ve come a ways in keeping my emotional response in check, and ensuring my practical ideas for advancing my theoretical morals are guided by measured intellectual thought. I’ve become a lot more skeptical about any plans that assume all suffering is within our control as a nation to alleviate, as well as more skeptical of direct intervention as leading to an immediate positive response.

Yet, I’ve noticed I’m still very local in my thinking.

People are eating dirt sandwiches in Haiti, and I’m concerned with fat Americans, or kids not getting the best education? American poverty does not register on my intellectual “to-do” list.

The common response is you can be concerned about both. You can, but that doesn’t deny there are tradeoffs. When you are learning about fixing US health care you are not learning about new methods of combating preventable disease that is killing hundreds of thousands (more?) a year in the developing world. When you are spending political capital on welfare reform, you are not spending it on aid packages.

Would there be less human suffering if the US scrapped the welfare system in its entirety and flung open its borders? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that it’s an uncomfortable question to ask. The idea of having more suffering in my neighborhood, but less worldwide is an uncomfortable proposition – yet with much of the debate about globalization, immigration, and the welfare state, it is a very relevant question.

My natural response to this question was, “Well, maybe we can’t actually help to alleviate suffering abroad very much, they have to do it on their own, but we can do it here, so we should.”

That’s possible, but the fact that was my response demonstrates my tendency to avoid seriously weighing these uncomfortable questions.

For an unrelated example, the idea of a market for organ donors sounds terrible. It doesn’t sound fair, and the idea of a poor person in dire need of a donor being “outbid” is gut-wrenching. But what if more people, including poor people, will receive organ donations because of a market like they have in Iran?

It’s another question that’s uncomfortable for the same reason that killing horses sounds a lot worse than killing fish.

I write this post because I think a lot of people who try to look past their own needs or desires and vote for the greater good are led into a trap which provides a great deal of self-satisfaction, but fails to best serve their moral end.

That doesn't mean I'm advocating the end of helping thy neighbor. Your actions and your support of greater policies must find where the greatest suffering and your ability to alleviate it intersect. So you might end up helping someone locally, but only after you judge your ability to help those suffering more further away -- if I have the opportunity to help kids in Sudan or kids in Baltimore, Sudan is the selfless choice that best serves my end.

So perhaps your political support should back assistance to help the people in the world's more hellish places to either leave or improve their lot where they are (taking away support from assistance programs at home), while your personal attention should be very local, where it will have the most effect. Of course, to be fully selfless, you might have to move to that hellish place to directly help them. That might not be practical for most people, but at least you'll be honest with yourself about what you are being truly selfless about and what you're making a conscious decision to not do.

This blog post has been a bit all over the place, but alas, that's the nature of the beast. I do think it is significant and worth debate, as it has major implications for domestic assistance programs, possibly implying that assistance programs should be judged solely on their personal utility to each taxpayer (which might be tricky...).

If you're passionate about human suffering, where should your limited resources be put to use? What should you be doing for work? What should you be studying/reading about? What policies should you be fighting for? All this becomes much more complex and requires much more thought if you are going by your brain rather than your emotional reaction. Read more!