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Mistakes in moral arithmetic
1. For reasons of practicality and cost, nations should in many cases devote more resources to their own citizens than to foreigners.
2. Once the costs mentioned in #1 are taken into account, foreigners are still "worth less" than citizens.
#2 does not follow from #1, that is a mistake in moral arithmetic. #2 is false.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 26, 2006 at 02:46 AM in Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
Tyler:
I think you need to give some examples to make clear what you are talking about. But if this another defense of "cosmopolitanism" versus "citizenism," then how about this?
1. For reasons of practicality and cost, individuals should in many cases devote more resources to their own family members than to strangers.
2. Once the costs mentioned in #1 are taken into account, strangers are still "worth less" than family members.
#2 does not follow from #1, that is a mistake in moral arithmetic. #2 is false.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jul 26, 2006 2:59:46 AM
Wrong.
The nation represents its citizens. To claim that a nation has a moral obligation to treat its citizens as well as non-citizens, implies the claim that everyone has the moral obligation to treat everyone else in the world the same way that they treat themselves (taking into account transaction costs of course).
The only way you could make that moral claim without hypocracy would be if you use all the personal wealth you have beyond what you need for survival in ways that you believe do the most good for the most people. If you can make that claim I'd like to hear it, but I don't know how you'll justify many trips for pleasure purposes.
Honestly, you treat yourself better than every person in the world with the possible exception of family or VERY close friends, so under what logic can you hold your nation to a higher standard?
Posted by: BillWallace at Jul 26, 2006 3:07:54 AM
Following up, if you wanted to make the claim while accepting the hypocracy, i.e. it's moral to do so, and I'm just not completely moral, then you're into philosophy, and a rather pointless exercise.
Posted by: BillWallace at Jul 26, 2006 3:10:19 AM
The valuable skepticism of economists about human motivations suddenly evaporates when economists start explaining their own motivations. No libertarian economist could listen with a straight face to an official in a socialist government explaining "Trust me, I'm making policy for the good of the people of my country." Yet the very same economists will solemnly swear that they only advocate policies for the good of all the people of the world (which is even more improbable) and that their own tastes and self-interests has zero to do with it. Nowhere is this more obvious than when economists who know very little about immigration start preaching on the subject.
What makes Tyler more interesting than most economists is that, with his intense aesthetic preoccupations, he often seems like a character out of an Oscar Wilde novel as interpreted by Camille Paglia.
Thus, when Tyler calls for the creation of Hispanic shantytowns in the U.S. because of all the good music they will produce (as he did in Slate, see http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/04/i-could-see-this-one-coming.html ), well, that's pretty cool. Granted, it's demented and sociologically nonsensical (good music comes out of black shantytowns, not Mexican ones), but, still, it's cool in a cruel, decadent aesthete sort of way.
What's not cool, unfortunately, is when Tyler then starts lecturing us on "moral arithmetic" as if that has much at all to do with what's motivating his views on immigration.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jul 26, 2006 3:25:28 AM
There is such a thing as an impersonal moral point of view. It is fine to argue that the world would collapse if we each tried to take care of each other's families; that is #1. One (not my view) also might argue that at "some levels of morality" our moral obligation is stronger to friends and family. But our behavior would still be wrong from the impersonal point of view and we should admit as such, especially when we are actively imposing harms on distant others. Keep also in mind that our ties to family and friends are quite real. I consider myself a patriot, but for pragmatic reasons. Most of the people in Washington do not please me. Governments are convenient fictions, not ultimate sources of moral delineation.
p.s. also beware when the argument against cosmopolitanism is simply a reductio, rather than a positive argument for national borders as ultimate sources of moral delineation. The latter is very very hard to make in palatable fashion. The difficulties of reconciling common sense morality with utilitarianism, while real, do not help much on the national borders question.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Jul 26, 2006 3:28:41 AM
Tyler says "But our behavior would still be wrong from the impersonal point of view and we should admit as such"
Which is exactly what I said " i.e. it's moral to do so, and I'm just not completely moral".
And like I said, now it's just a philophical argument. Your argument is based on Pure Utilitarianism. In fact it uses it as an assumption. Since pure utilitarianism is not the dominant philosophy of the world (there is none, obviously), it should not be used as a given, or an unstated assumption. Your argument needs to start with 'Given that I believe in utilitarianism.... '
Under any philosophy that doesn't include utilitarianism, your argument falls apart trivially.
Posted by: BillWallace at Jul 26, 2006 3:39:07 AM
Why the mealy caveat "in many cases"? Should governments for reasons of practicality and cost devote more of their resources to their citizens or not?
What is the special meaning of "worth less" that emerges when it is lodged in between quotation marks?
Worth less to whom?
Posted by: MTC at Jul 26, 2006 3:41:28 AM
Tyler's normally lucid prose style has collapsed into Hegel-like vagueness. This may not be an accident. Whenever the subject turns to immigration, Tyler's usually sharp insight turns dull and clouded by arational emotions.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jul 26, 2006 5:25:25 AM
"they only advocate policies for the good of all the people of the world (which is even more improbable) and that their own tastes and self-interests has zero to do with it."
Are you claiming that a much looser immigration policy would not be a net
benefit to all those affected?
Posted by: stuart at Jul 26, 2006 7:24:46 AM
I take it that the 'reasons of practicality and cost' are solutions to co-ordination problems: each state, knowing that all other states are doing the same, is better off devoting more resources to its own citizens than those of others. These may be credible reasons -- but are they likely to justify the degree to which rich states favour their own members over poorer ones today?
If the reasoning behind 1 is "(a) states should act in paradigms that makes everyone better off, and (b) everyone would generally be better off if there is a paradigm according to which each state favours its own", then on its own terms 1 seems to warrant rich states paying rather a lot of attention to the citizens of poor states, since (b) holds more the less inequality there is, and presently there is a lot of inequality.
Posted by: chris at Jul 26, 2006 8:29:15 AM
Talk of the "nation" as if it had an existence independent of the people and their government leads to foggy thought.
Let's just step back to Locke, Madison, et. al. and remember that the people elect their representatives to act in their behalf.
The people who vote are the ones to whom the representatives are responsible. They are not responsible to foreigners.
Tyler may argue that the average voter wants massive immigration of high-school dropouts. There is no doubt that Tyler does, but I doubt that the average voter does and their view should prevail.
Posted by: Robert Hume at Jul 26, 2006 8:35:10 AM
Does this mean Tyler Cowen is going to adopt 12 year old Romanian children instead of having his own?
Posted by: bjk at Jul 26, 2006 9:23:52 AM
If you swallow the whopper that the only reason nations strive for the welfare of their *own* citizens is 'practicality and cost', why then yes of course it makes perfect sense.
As for the 'impersonal moral point of view', I think you might find that not everyone acknowledges that there is such a thing; but even those who do might point out that, being individual people, they don't have an obligation to act in accordance with the beliefs of this hypothetical moralist.
As for government being a convenient fiction - I agree that the US government has no special moral status; however, as the federal government does not permit other government or private entities within the US to control the entry of people to areas they own or control, it is the actor we end up focusing on.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 26, 2006 9:31:25 AM
Tyler, if you are arguing from an Utilitarian perspective (as you seem to be), why isn't this just obvious?
Also, I don't think it is a good argument to say that Tyler or any other utilitarian cannot perfectly live up to that standard. We are all hypocrits in real life. Out personal motivations will inevitably get in the way. That same argument could be used to rule out any ethical theory (unless you define what is right as "whatever I do").
Posted by: Popp at Jul 26, 2006 9:55:41 AM
How on earth can there be such a thing as "moral arithmetic"? What next? Moral physics?
Posted by: Ahrimahn at Jul 26, 2006 10:00:56 AM
Does this mean Tyler Cowen is going to adopt 12 year old Romanian children instead of having his own?
Anything that stops Tyler from reproducing would indeed be preferable.
Posted by: Ahrimahn at Jul 26, 2006 10:03:32 AM
Several people seem to be saying: since democracy is right, the views of the state towards foreigners should be the view of the citizens towards foreigners, and in fact citizens do prefer their fellow members to others, therefore the state should prefer its own members to others.
Fine. But the question is, are people right? *Should* citizens individually favour members of their own state to those of others? It's no good to say that we live in democracies and in fact people do prefer X not Y. The issue just is whether Y is in fact superior.
I saw Ann Coulter on tv a few weeks ago. Each time the interviewer asked her an awkward question, she responded along the lines 'my book is no. 1 on the bestseller list'. Supposing all Coulter-book-buyers agree with her views (there are indeed a lot of them), there is still the question, Is she right?
Posted by: chris at Jul 26, 2006 10:18:19 AM
I'm hopelessly confused on this one. Tyler, do you mean that #1 is true but #2 is false? What do you mean by saying foreigners are "'worth less'"? Are you saying that yes, in practice, nations should take care of their own, but that we shouldn't confuse that practical contstraint with a moral statement judgement of ultimate worth? My conclusion is that philosophy is tough to do in a 2-sentence blog post.
For what it's worth, I think I agree with you that all people are of equal intrinsic worth regardless of nationality. But I do think nations have moral weight, for the same reason that I think contracts have moral weight. I do things all the time to help my company's shareholders, and I do so because I made a promise to do so, not simply out of self-interest. Likewise, I am bound to the United States by both implicit and explicit promises, and by a debt to everyone who has died for my freedom (all of whom were either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants).
Posted by: DK at Jul 26, 2006 10:20:22 AM
Rather than get emotive about it, consider Tyler's observation. Regardless of why, if governments spend more of their resources on citizens rather than foreigners, ceterus paribus a foreigner is actually going to be more valuable than a native.
Let's suppose that we have a native and a foreigner, Bob and Rajib, respectively. Further, let's suppose that they have some gross utility value for the community and that this value is equal for both of them, call it A. In an extreme case the government of Bob's country will have spent some amount on Bob and nothing on Rajib, so let's call what was spent on Bob x.
It follows that the net utilty for Bob would be A-x where the net utility for Rajib would be A. Granted, this is an extreme case, so let's suppose that the government of Bobistan also spent some amount y on Rajib once he immigrated. Now we have Rajib's net utility as A-y and Bob's as A-x. So long as y
Tyler's point was, I believe, that most people tend to think Rajib for some inherent reason presents less utility than Bob even where x>y and even where Rajib presents the same objective abilities as Bob. That is, natives tend to overvalue the skills and abilities of other natives relative to the skills and abilities of foreigners; or to assume that there is some other factor that reduces the utility of a foreigner such that x is irrelevant. This isn't true, was the point.
Posted by: Timothy at Jul 26, 2006 10:21:29 AM
I have no interest in the "impersonal moral point of view," because I am not an imperson. Things may be different where you come from, but on this planet my brother is worth more -- to me! -- than you are. That is just the way things work here, and any theory of morality that doesn't acknowledge this is alien to human nature.
Posted by: JB at Jul 26, 2006 10:22:32 AM
"like a character out of an Oscar Wilde novel as interpreted by Camille Paglia."
Knowing Tyler, that is one of the funniest things I've ever read.
Posted by: Will Wilkinson at Jul 26, 2006 10:24:10 AM
The end of my second paragraph should be "So long as y is less than x, Rajib presents a higher net utility. Where x and y are equal, there's no difference between Rajib and Bob."
HTML mussed things up.
Posted by: Timothy at Jul 26, 2006 10:24:21 AM
Steve Sailer: "No libertarian economist could listen with a straight face to an official in a socialist government explaining "Trust me, I'm making policy for the good of the people of my country." "
The key word in that sentence is 'socialist'. It is not their motives that Libertarians necessarily oppose, but their means. Benevolence in itself does not lead to policy failure.
For a moral argument for immigration, see Bryan Caplan's post here: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/07/what_we_owe_imm.html
And anything that stops Ahrimahn from making childish comments would indeed be preferable.
Posted by: Jake at Jul 26, 2006 10:27:17 AM
Also, Tyler is making perfect sense. If Sailer thinks he's not being as lucid as usual, then that's just because Sailer doesn't understand moral theory as well.
Both points of Tyler's post are straightforward consequences of a very common form of utilitarianism. If you have a problem with utilitarianism, fine. But then address your argument there.
As a matter of fact, I do have a problem with utilitarianism, in part because it's not really as egalitarian as proponents make it out to be. It can't really account for the equal moral worth of individuals.
Tyler is right with a vengeance about national borders as a source of moral delineation. Perhaps you see the state as something grander than a tax and public goods jurisdiction. If so, explain.
Posted by: Will Wilkinson at Jul 26, 2006 10:54:13 AM
The nation represents its citizens.
More properly, isn't that, "The nation is its citizens?" I mean, I suppose one can reject the importance of larger community identity. And certainly the United States has a much more haphazard and attenuated sense of national identification and identity than, say, Japan or Korea. But the notion that a "nation" is separable from its actual citizens strikes me as potty. Now, the state certainly is (witness, e.g. most modern dictatorships) but the state is not really a moral actor in and of itself.
When you say:
1. For reasons of practicality and cost, nations should in many cases devote more resources to their own citizens than to foreigners.
I think you have got it largely wrong. Certainly my nation (the United States) doesn't allocate resources on the basis solely of practicality and cost. If I get in trouble in a foreign country, my expectation (hopefully not to be betrayed) is that when I ask for the American Consulate or the Embassy, they will expend resources, at a great distance beyond the mere territorial boundaries of the United States, to help me out, on account of my being an American citizen. It's certainly not practical, and it's probably not cost effective either. The practical and cost effective solution is simply to throw me to the foreign government. But that's one of the core benefits of citizenship. It's the thing stateless persons lack, no?
And similarly when Will Wilkinson says:
Tyler is right with a vengeance about national borders as a source of moral delineation. Perhaps you see the state as something grander than a tax and public goods jurisdiction. If so, explain.
My response is that even the attenuated idea of nationhood that the United States adheres to has that kind of relationship with its citizens. Some states go further -- Israel has gone much further on multiple occasions, e.g. actually sending in commandos to assist Israeli citizens who have got into trouble abroad, as at Entebbe. Empirically, nations clearly aren't just "tax and public good jurisdiction(s)"
Now, I suppose you all may be arguing that morally nation-states should not go to these kinds of efforts on behalf of their citizens, when those citizens are out of country. That is, that when you're inside these territorial borders, whether you're a citizen or not doesn't matter, and when you're outside those territorial borders, you're all the same, whether you're a citzen or not.
On the contrary, I think the territorial borders, as they delineate a territory, are of secondary importance -- the sovereign nation-state is a matter of its citizens first and foremost. It has the possession of certain territory, for the moment, and controls that territory to the benefit of its citizens (hopefully with a decent provision for non-citizens who happen to be in that territory). But it may not be -- we have historical examples like the Knights of Malta -- and certainly nations change their location and their borders from time to time, so that no particular point on the surface of the earth is innately associable with one particular nation or another (the present Levantine business notwithstanding).
Essentially, I suppose the question I'm seeing here is: "Do the nation's primary obligations flow to the territory it controls or the people who constitute it?" If you view a nation as a "tax and public goods jurisdiction," then it's obviously the territory. But why is that the (morally) correct view of the nation-state? That much I do not see.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Jul 26, 2006 11:48:55 AM
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom."
That's why nobody seems to agree that the US (or any other country) is not just a tax and spend jurisdiction. In any case, any "moral theory" that forgets these basic political facts is cocktail chatter.
Posted by: bjk at Jul 26, 2006 11:57:13 AM
Bill Wallace:
a) Utilitarianism IS the politico-philosophical ethical assumption underlying economics.
b) Tyler doesn't reserve the use of force as proper in his acquisition of the resources used to fund those trips. States do reserve the use of force to serve various ends.
c) Philosophy is NOT useless. If you cannot discuss how things would ideally be, you get into the issue (which Tyler has written a paper on) of how Utopian one is allowed to be.
I think that a common and reasonable default position is that a policy that is disfavored by Libertarian AND Utilitarian considerations is unacceptable. If someone departs from this position through the path of complex philosophy that builds upon and refines Utilitarianism (possibly with the inclusion of alternative ultimate values, virtues, and deontological considerations), discussion with such a person is possible, but discussion isn't really possible with someone who rejects Utilitarianism AND Libertarianism. They are reserving the right to use force, directly or through a proxy, to benefit themselves at a greater cost to others. Basically this just makes them, by any very high standard, ethically bad people.
In principle this shouldn't matter much so long as they are also rational, but the standard of rationality required of an ethically bad person for communication or exchange with that person to remain mutually beneficial is much much greater than if they were more ethical.
Posted by: michael vassar at Jul 26, 2006 12:05:02 PM
Will Wilkinson: I am pretty sure that most thoughtful Utilitarians know that Utilitarianism doesn't lead to the conclusion that all individuals are of equal moral worth, but that it doesn't need to reach that conclusion. Really, anyone thoughtful should agree that all individuals are NOT of equal moral worth, and that they don't need to be in order for the heuristic that all individuals ought to have the same legal rights to remain sound.
At any rate, Tyler's conclusions don't just follow from Utilitarianism, but in fact from essentially any modern formal ethical philosophy.
Posted by: michael vassar at Jul 26, 2006 12:14:52 PM
Bill Wallace wrote:
"The only way you could make that moral claim without hypocracy would be if you use all the personal wealth you have beyond what you need for survival in ways that you believe do the most good for the most people."
Good point, but don't pull your punches!
For Mr. Cowen to be consistent, he would have to devote ALL his personal wealth to altruism, without reserving even enough for subsistence. Remember, our governments have not placed -- and have done nothing to suggest that they ever will place -- a limit on immigration that will allow Western nations to survive.
Posted by: Ben Tillman at Jul 26, 2006 12:37:29 PM
There is such a thing as an impersonal moral point of view
Not quite sure I see where this view is coming from, Tyler. Why do you privilege this "moral frame of reference" above all others? The myriad others at least have the advantage of referencing the personal utility of the observer sitting in them. i.e. "if it hurts me, it's bad" This hypothetical privileged frame ultimately references nothing but itself. A castle in the air, if you will. Or maybe a kingdom? :^)
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Jul 26, 2006 12:43:34 PM
"1. For reasons of practicality and cost, nations should in many cases devote more resources to their own citizens than to foreigners."
These are not the reasons. The reason is that nations are alive, and if they wish to stay alive they need to direct resources to their own survival and expansion.
What would the proponents of "homo economicus" think of a modified statement:
"For reasons of practicality and cost, firms should in many cases devote more resources to their own operations than to those of competitors."
Again, the reason is to stay in business and produce profits -- to stay alive (figuratively).
Posted by: Ben Tillman at Jul 26, 2006 12:47:05 PM
M. Vassar,
Really, anyone thoughtful should agree that all individuals are NOT of equal moral worth, and that they don't need to be in order for the heuristic that all individuals ought to have the same legal rights to remain sound.
I think you're talking about a practical rather than an ethical judgement. As a U.S. citizen, I might calculate that my own utility is maximized if I minimize the chance of another citizen being able to lord legal rights over me that I don't possess, not to mention the efficiency gains in being able to predict pretty easily just what I (and my fellow citizens) can and can't get away with in legal terms. i.e. If some can commit murder legally, then I have to keep an extra eye out for them.
This doesn't necessarily hold for situations where the costs of such a policy outweigh the gains to me. i.e. I'm a U.S. soldier overseas during a war. Normal policy of the variety described above indicates that I don't have the right to kill others, nor do they have the right to kill me, whether or not they're citizens. But in my particular circumstances, the polity has granted me the unequal right to kill certain others (namely, our opponents' troops) without granting them a similar right to kill me with impunity. It's purely a practical matter. My special right will probably be revoked at the end of hostilities, and there's a good chance that any opponent who happened to kill me will most probably be granted an amnesty for having violated my rights if he or she still happens to be alive at the end. By-gones are by-gones (except for the handful accuse of war crimes of a different nature.)
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Jul 26, 2006 12:54:04 PM
Tillman,
These are not the reasons. The reason is that nations are alive, and if they wish to stay alive they need to direct resources to their own survival and expansion.
Sounds about right. There are no privileged frames of moral reference, only the frames we happen to abide by due to historical accident, evolutionary biology, the requirements of working social systems that benefit us, etc.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Jul 26, 2006 12:56:55 PM
"2. Once the costs mentioned in #1 are taken into account, foreigners are still 'worth less' than citizens."
Of course, non-self is worth less than self, and Mr. Cowen constantly applies this principle to facilitate his own survival. He does so as his body's immune system continuously hunts down and kills unwelcome immigrants (germs) and their descendants. He does so as he deposits his paycheck in his bank account rather than mine.
The primacy of self over non-self is the fundamental principle of staying alive.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/biology-self/
"By the late 1970s, 'the self' became the foundation of immune theorizing, and immunology dubbed itself the science of 'self/non-self discrimination'."[/i]
www.elasmo-research.org/education/white_shark/immunology.htm
"The main function of any immune system is distinguishing self from non-self."
Is there any theoretical reason to think that a society (whether an organic nation or an artificial corporation), unlike a human body, can stay alive if it fails to distinguish between self and non-self?
Posted by: Ben Tillman at Jul 26, 2006 12:58:52 PM
Tillman,
For Mr. Cowen to be consistent, he would have to devote ALL his personal wealth to altruism, without reserving even enough for subsistence.
This bit doesn't sound quite right, though. He could argue that his death reduces the addition he makes to aggregate product, and so reduces the resources that can be given to others less fortunate than himself. He would be obligated to give down to the point of subsistence, or, if he's taking into account how his marginal product changes based on the resources he consumes, down to the point where one additional unit of consumption still lets him produce more than one unit of stuff he can give away. This assumes decreasing returns to his consumption. i.e. his first unit of food lets him do more than one unit's worth of giving, his 100th makes him no more effective and (if he's like me) a little sleepier.
Either way, though, most folks would be required to give far and above even the draconian levels that Pete Singer advocates. Which is why I don't take Singer all that seriously.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Jul 26, 2006 1:12:00 PM
I think Darwin and Dawkins would simply say that the more genes two people share, the more likely they are to devote resources to one another. In small form this is family, in large form ethnostate.
As others note above, if you look at the personal decisions of Cowen, Bryan Caplan, and other libertarian economists, they don't practice what they preach for others. Or do Cowen and Caplan give 95% of their income to starving people around the world and I just don't know about it? Where does Cowen get the money to buy Haitian art, then?
This is all posturing and moral preening. Tyler doesn't even believe what he writes, it just makes him feel good to write it.
Posted by: Orgon at Jul 26, 2006 1:19:51 PM
Orgon,
As per my answer to the "Nerdy Questions" post: 2) My utility is not defined as purely personal, but rather a summation of many beings' utilities, the weighting of said functions basically varying inversely with the square of said other beings' psychological distance from myself. Something funny goes on at very close psychological ranges, of course, with conditional weightings greater than that which I apply to my personal well-being and happiness. Other beings' psychological distances from myself appear to be normally distributed around some large number, with close family at one end, the handful of beings I could be truly said to "hate" at the other, and the mass of humanity at +-3 SDs from the mean. On an individual level, the utility attached to those farthest away is so low that the increase to my own utility to be obtained by their ceasing to exist outweighs it, and I'd be happy to see them disappear (i.e. somebody let me know when we incinerate OBL.)
However, I think you're being a touch unfair. As per my reply to Tillman, above, it appears to me that consistency requires a great deal of giving, but perhaps somewhat less than 95%.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Jul 26, 2006 1:29:13 PM
"This bit doesn't sound quite right, though. He could argue that his death reduces the addition he makes to aggregate product, and so reduces the resources that can be given to others less fortunate than himself."
You are pretty sharp, Mr. Guerrero. Yes, Mr. Cowen could argue this, but he doesn't because such personal behavior -- keeping himself alive to benefit others -- would not be analogous to the behavior of the government in pursuing its mass immigration policy for the nation it purports to be a part of. That government behavior is one in which no provision for the survival of the nation is made -- thus, there is no need for a rationale for survival.
At bottom, your point redounds to the fundamental value of the division of labor. Even within the context of membership in a group, it simply maximizes efficiency for each member to be responsible for maintaining himself and his concomitant capacity to contribute to the good of the group.
Posted by: Ben Tillman at Jul 26, 2006 1:31:00 PM
Utilitarianism IS the politico-philosophical ethical assumption underlying economics.
Hardly. Primitive economics (Aquinas) existed before utilitarian philosophy came into being, and Austrian economics at its most austere has little use for 'utility' in any quantifiable sense. And even someone who accepts 'utility' as an extremely useful model construct in economics can still take the position that maximizing it is not a meaningful goal.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 26, 2006 1:33:07 PM
I thought Tyler's comment was easy to understand and obviously correct. It basically boils down to the fact that even on the basis of utilitarian ethics, it makes sense for the US government to spend more resources on its citizens than on noncitizens, for reasons of efficiency. But that, by itself, doesn't mean that citizens really are worth more, just that in many cases, it will be sensible for government decisions to act as though they were.
Posted by: albatross at Jul 26, 2006 1:51:36 PM
As other commenters have already pointed out, you need to accept particular ideas about utilitarian ethics, the proper role of government, and what is meant by 'worth less' in order for the argument to work. Far from 'obviously correct'. And even then, since it's quite clear that actual governments don't behave in the desired manner (treating all people far and wide as its legitimate beneficiaries, that is), we're left with an impractical prescription.
Maybe I should qualify that and note that the Vatican, which is a government, probably does embrace something like this universalism. But it's a special case.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 26, 2006 2:56:29 PM
"Regardless of why, if governments spend more of their resources on citizens rather than foreigners, ceterus paribus a foreigner is actually going to be more valuable than a native."
Your argument is that externalizing the cost of producing a worker (by shunting that cost onto the nation of emigration) saves money for the nation of immigration. That argument is fine as far as it goes. That is a benefit of immigration. But you need to balance that benefit against the costs borne by the nation of immigration.
For Mr. Cowen, who purports to concern himself with altrusitic morality, your point requires a different sort of response. How can Mr. Cowen square this externalization of cost with his moral system? How is it moral for his nation to expropriate the fruits of the investments of poor nations in their own people?
Posted by: Ben Tillman at Jul 26, 2006 3:18:45 PM
re: Michael Vassar
>> a) Utilitarianism IS the politico-philosophical ethical assumption underlying economics.
I completely disagree. There are several ways to counter this statement, but the easiest way is that economics should be the study of how ACTUAL people interact. MOST actual people don't even profess true utilitarianism, and even fewer practice it. If economics is assuming every actor is practicing utilitarianism then it is quite useless. Utilitarian philosophy isn't just maximizing a utility function in general, it's maximing a SPECIFIC utility function, which is the combined welfare of everybody. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
>> c) Philosophy is NOT useless. If you cannot discuss how things would ideally be, you get into the issue (which Tyler has written a paper on) of how Utopian one is allowed to be.
I did not mean to infer that I thought all Philosophy is useless. I think simply stating a philosophy as the correct moral one, with no discussion or argument, which is essentially what this post boils down so, is pretty pointless.
>> they don't need to be in order for the heuristic that all individuals ought to have the same legal rights to remain sound.
All individuals having equal legal rights is a far cry from Utilitarianism.
>> At any rate, Tyler's conclusions don't just follow from Utilitarianism, but in fact from essentially any modern formal ethical philosophy.
Do I need to detail how his conclusions do not follow from Ethical Egoism? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism. Your arguments (and Tyler's) amount to "I believe Utilitarianism is the correct moral philosophy, and anyone who doesn't believe so is clearly wrong". Well that's nice for you, and I won't argue against you, but a smart guy should be able to figure out that given that some quantity of people don't believe in Utilitarianism, that argument isn't going to accomplish a whole lot.
re: Ben Tillman
>> For Mr. Cowen to be consistent, he would have to devote ALL his personal wealth to altruism, without reserving even enough for subsistence.
There's a reason I didn't take it that far, I was allowing for the line of thinking that one could justify spending on oneself in many different ways and still claim to that it helps others the most. For example he'd want to be able to keep his job, so that he would have continued income with which to help others. And he could invest in kids and their education, so that they can grow up, get good jobs, and use that wealth to help others. But the justification only goes so far.
Posted by: BillWallace at Jul 26, 2006 3:47:58 PM
I agree with Will Wilkinson, michael vassar and albatross. It is curious that Tyler's statement would be so controversial. "I don't really get it, but I suspect he's saying something I don't like about immigration, and it's very upsetting!"
Posted by: Brian G at Jul 26, 2006 4:00:02 PM
I believe that Mr Tillman got it exactly right:
"What would the proponents of 'homo economicus' think of a modified statement: 'For reasons of practicality and cost, firms should in many cases devote more resources to their own operations than to those of competitors.'"
Posted by: Robert Ayers at Jul 26, 2006 4:12:39 PM
I agree with Will Wilkinson, michael vassar and albatross. It is curious that Tyler's statement would be so controversial. "I don't really get it, but I suspect he's saying something I don't like about immigration, and it's very upsetting!"
I don't see why it wouldn't be controversial. Look at his first proposition:
1. For reasons of practicality and cost, nations should in many cases devote more resources to their own citizens than to foreigners.
For reasons of practicality and cost? Hmm. If I join a club (or inherit club membership from my grandfather or something), do I expect the club to spend more on me for "reasons of practicality and cost?" Or possibly, because I'm a member of the club, and the average man on the street is not? If I buy into a company (or inherit stock from my parents, say), do I expect the company to pay dividends to me for "reasons of practicality and cost?" Or because I'm entitled by law (to the extent they pay dividends at all, that is)? Do I expect my family to look out for me for "reasons of practicality and cost?" Or because they're my family? Essentially, I think the average citizen feels as though his citizenship, his nationality, is demeaned a bit, by reducing it all to a cold question of "practicality and cost."
And as I said before, perhaps reflecting that the citizens themselves don't overwhelmingly have this view of their collective association (viz. their nation), the nation doesn't behave as though those were the sole grounds for its activity either. Nations do all kinds of impractical and costly things to stick up for their citizens, from sending in commandos to slaughter hostage takers, to bribing foreign governments to give a local industry a bit of a boost, to purchasing huge quantities of foreign debt to push up the value of a foreign currency and stimulate their own domestic economy.
Now, morally, you can argue that this is wrong, that the only legitimate (moral) grounds for state activity are practicality and cost -- that fellow-feeling, loyalty, and the international system of national allegiances carry no moral weight. That's what I understand the rejection of (2) to be -- that the "worth less," there, rather than indicating some innate inferiority of noncitizens (which would be silly), simply indicates that the citizens in their collective national body have less obligation to see to the needs of foreigns than to themselves as a whole.
But you can't expect to say a thing like that, that runs contrary to peoples' emotional sense of what their nation is and ought to be, and get no pushback at all.
We've all grown up in a Westphalian international order, modulated through 19th century ideas about great national communities, reinforced by community-emphasising political rhetoric about "my fellow Americans," and linguistic analysts deconstructing the state according to models of the nurturing or the disciplinarian parent. A mechanism for taxes and public goods has not figured prominently among the images of the nation we have grown up with.
Posted by: Taeyoung at Jul 26, 2006 4:38:07 PM
Utilitarian philosophy isn't just maximizing a utility function in general, it's maximing a SPECIFIC utility function, which is the combined welfare of everybody.
You're correct, of course. What we need in order to more accurately model reality is a theory of bounded-utilitarianism.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Jul 26, 2006 5:38:29 PM
Like some others, I'm perplexed by the emotional reaction provoked by this blog post. It seems straightforward and obvious to me.
Maybe Brian G is correct. Perhaps they are angry because Mr. Cowen has exposed the moral repugnance of their policy stances. That is, they are hurt and ashamed to see their actions imply a preference for Americans to foreigners, when it’s painfully obvious the two are objectively equivalent in terms of their humanity.
Posted by: Whit Stevens at Jul 26, 2006 5:51:19 PM
The problem is that the argument is stacked for cosmopolitanism in such a way that the alternative is ruled out of bounds from the beginning:
"a positive argument for national borders as ultimate sources of moral delineation . . . is very very hard to make in palatable fashion."
This is a typical libertarian argument. Invent an impossible hypothesis (no national borders), rule that the alternative is "unpalatable," and then declare that the libertarian/cosmopolitan/utilitarian position is victorious, and so much the worse for and "common sense morality." Any questions?
Posted by: bjk at Jul 26, 2006 5:54:00 PM
Sorry... the second sentence of the the second paragraph should begin with the word "Or".
Posted by: Whit Stevens at Jul 26, 2006 5:55:02 PM
I think many people read Tyler's argument as saying "citizenism is wrong," when I think what he was really saying was "you can't derive citizenism from the fact that governments are usually more efficient at helping their own citizens than other countries' citizens."
Citizenism is Steve Sailer's term--I take it to mean roughly that we *should* weight citizens' well being more heavily than noncitizens'. Though he posts here, so maybe he'll correct me....
Posted by: albatross at Jul 26, 2006 6:50:42 PM
>>> That is, they are hurt and ashamed to see their actions imply a preference for Americans to foreigners, when it’s painfully obvious the two are objectively equivalent in terms of their humanity.
I'm ignoring the immigration aspect of this, because it just clouds the issue with other factors, I'm reducing it to 'myself' and 'other people'.
I don't need someone to point out to me that I have a preference for myself over other people, and it certainly doesn't make me ashamed. I care extremely little (although not 0) about the welfare of you or anyone else that I don't know and I'm proud of my moral philosophy.
I argue that the vast majority of people practice a moral philosophy very similar to mine. And I see it as a mark of integrity, in fact probably the best measure of it that there is, that someone can admit that they support the moral philosophy that they in fact practice.
Posted by: BillWallace at Jul 26, 2006 7:27:20 PM
>>> "their actions imply a preference for Americans to foreigners, when it’s painfully obvious the two are objectively equivalent in terms of their humanity"
Getting more in detail about this point, I actually don't have a preference for Americans that I don't know over foreigners. To me they are all just some of the 6 billion people that I don't know, and hardly care about.
But I expect my government to care more about me than about foreigners because the government represents me, or as someone else put it, is me. Therefore by default, I expect my government to care more about all Americans than it cares about Foreigners because all those other Americans are part of this country and this government, even though I personally couldn't care less about them.
Posted by: BillWallace at Jul 26, 2006 7:37:31 PM
Seems like Professor Cowen made two different arguments in his post. First is that "2 doesn't follow from 1," which I think is pretty clearly true. There's no reason why practical constraints on the government should impact the worth of foreigners. Professor Cowen's second claim is that "2 is false." He gives no argument in his post, but as Will and others have pointed out, it is a fairly obvious implication of some other beliefs that Profeessor Cowen holds (and I don't). I think that 2 is, as the scientists say, "not even false"; I hold that 2 is actually totally devoid of content because there's no impersonal perspective and thus no such thing as inherent worth, just worth to someone in particular. Thus is worth less to me than Professor Cowen is, since I benefit a great deal from this site. But he is probably worth more to his wife and kids.
Posted by: jadagul at Jul 26, 2006 8:09:40 PM
I've got a reply to all this over on my blog.
If you haven't read it you might be put off by the form. I don't write ordinary political arguments. But stick around and you'll get the point.
Anyway, here's why Tyler is wrong.
Posted by: ManhattanTransfer at Jul 26, 2006 8:11:31 PM
they are hurt and ashamed to see their actions imply a preference for Americans to foreigners
Ha! Get real. As far as I can tell, everyone arguing against Tyler here is happy and/or proud to hold the position that the US government should have a preference for Americans over foreigners. *You* might be ashamed to hold such a position, but try a little harder to understand what's being written here.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 26, 2006 8:43:52 PM
Here's my article on the advantages of citizenism over the alternatives:
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_02_13/article.html
And here's an excerpt:
It’s important to note that citizenism applies to present citizens, “to ourselves and our Posterity” as the Preamble to the Constitution says. In this, the demands of citizenism are analogous to the fiduciary duty of corporate managers.
When I was getting an MBA many years ago, I was the favorite of an acerbic old finance professor because he could count on me to blurt out all the stupid misconceptions to which overconfident students are prone. One day he asked the class: “If you were running a publicly traded company, would it be acceptable for you to create new stock and sell it for less than it was worth?”
“Sure,” I smugly announced. “Our legal duty is to maximize our stockholders’ wealth. While selling the stock for less than it’s worth would harm our present shareholders, it would benefit our new shareholders who buy the underpriced stock, so it all comes out in the wash. Right?”
“Wrong!” He thundered. “Your obligation is to your current shareholders, not to somebody who might buy the stock in the future.”
That same logic applies to the valuable right to live in America. Just as the managers of a public company have a responsibility to the existing stockholders not to diminish the value of their shares by selling new ones too cheaply to outsiders, our politicians have a moral obligation to the current citizens and their descendents to preserve the scarcity value of their right to live in America.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jul 26, 2006 9:12:33 PM
If one's children were trapped in a burning building, would you, as the parent, consciously bypass saving say, four children not belonging to you, knowing that those children would certainly die in the smoke and fire if you did not save them first - in order to save your own two children from certain death if you did not bypass those four children? Would the parents of those four children you ignored understand your decision knowing full well that you made that conscious decision? Would those parents have taken the same action given the same situation? Do four innocent children have more value than two? What if your two children were mentally handicapped, and the other four were Mensa members? What if the parents and so-called intellectuals argued over these pressing questions as the building burned to the ground? What if the rest of the neighborhood thought your were a selfish ass-hole for saving your own children, and it drummed that notion into the head's of the parents whose children died in the fire? Would those parents begin to believe that you are, in fact, a selfish ass-hole? What if the local fish wrap of a paper said you were an ass-hole, the local Democrat councilman, and even the state Democrat senator agreed that you were a selfish ass-hole, would you, in fact, be a selfish asshole and would the other parents believe it even more? Not that's a topic for a good paper...
Posted by: Mike at Jul 26, 2006 11:25:25 PM
The government is not "you" nor is it the moral equivalent of a public company with "you" as a stock-holder. The government is an entity claiming a peculiar right, the right to use force. The fact that some limited (e.g. Randina) form of "ethical egotism" or libertarianism are adequate ethical standards for individuals is irrelevant, as these are standards that Explicitly renounce the right to use force except possibly in very narrowly defined self-defense. (unlimited ethical egotism is simply not an "ethical" theory at all, but I suppose that it says that legislators should do whatever their campaign donors pay them to do)
Once you assert your right to use force, you have gone outside of libertarianism and need a substitute. Standard substitutes include the philosophical families of Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue ethics. While members of any of these families can in principle justify treating foreigners as posessing lesser worth, only Virtue ethics can do so within its plausible range of parameter values.
For extra credit, what ethical systems, if any, can justify spending time posting on a blog?
In response to
"But I expect my government to care more about me than about foreigners because the government represents me, or as someone else put it, is me. "
"Just as the managers of a public company have a responsibility to the existing stockholders not to diminish the value of their shares by selling new ones too cheaply to outsiders, our politicians have a moral obligation to the current citizens and their descendents to preserve the scarcity value of their right to live in America."
Posted by: michael vassar at Jul 27, 2006 11:12:31 AM
This is all strictly equivalent to the following.
You have a family business.
That business benefits from the patronage of certain customers.
Another business moves in and starts taking your customers.
Is it ethical for you to respond
a) any means available
b) any means within the letter of the law (and note that it is within the letter of the law to get the law changed in arbitrary and oppressive ways)
c) only by competing more effectively and/or accepting lower profit.
The above case is actually *less* clear-cut than the case of immigration because in this case at least your competitors have the ability to confront you on your preferred playing ground if you answer b) and because family units are much more compellingly worthy of special consideration than national units.
Posted by: michael vassar at Jul 27, 2006 11:24:21 AM
But other countries, to which all potential immigrants belong (in theory), do have the ability to confront Americans with the same playing ground, they can value their own citizens more than Americans. Or are you saying that it is simply unethical for any nation in the world to prevent immigration? I don't know much about moral theory, but that seems simply crazy to me.
Posted by: tc at Jul 27, 2006 1:21:20 PM
If China and Africa exchanged populations so that each was only 50% of its original ethnicity, think of the benefits.
Both places would be far more diverse; both places are boringly mono-ethnic as any glance at any news picture will show.
The cuisines of both would become much more varied.
Africa would become much more entrepreneurial and the average black's income would no doubt substantially increase.
Blacks in China would no doubt find that their income would increase.
Diversity is strength so the societies would become much more peaceful.
Posted by: Robert Hume at Jul 27, 2006 1:40:54 PM
No, I am saying that *all else being equal* it is unethical for any person, and countries are simply groups of people with no special moral status, to forcibly limit immigration, or, of course, any other activity. Furthermore, *all else being equal* implies a Utilitarian calculus for any sort of ethical symmetry or respectibility.
One way of thinking about the problem is this.
If a country denies you rights and declares you to be an illegal person, what moral status does that country have to you? Why should people who a country declares illegal due to the circumstances of their birth consider that country to be in any sense legitimate or its laws binding?
Posted by: michael vassar at Jul 27, 2006 1:59:12 PM
"Why should people who a country declares illegal due to the circumstances of their birth consider that country to be in any sense legitimate or its laws binding?"
You mean 'nation', not 'country'.
And the answer to your question is that that is what the concept of property entails.
You have no right to the fruits of others' labors, whether it's a country (meaning the territory defended by a nation, as well as the physical and social infrastructure built and maintained by the nation), a house, or a piddling stapler.
Posted by: Ben Tillman at Jul 27, 2006 3:14:30 PM
A thought experiment:
Some neighbors of Prof. Tyler desire to have sex with his wife (we don't assume sex of his wife).
Prof. Tyler should encorage his wife to have sex with his neighbors, by doing so he improves lives of his neighbors without any negative material impact on himself.
Prof Tyler probably is not pimping his wife. Why not?
Posted by: kuffar at Jul 28, 2006 3:11:25 AM
Kuffar,
The argument is not that you should HAVE to help others, its that you shouldn't forcably stop others from helping themselves (e.g., seeking a job in the US or the opposite, stopping people from migrating).
Tieing a competitor for a job to a tree (i.e., not allowing him to legally enter the country) is not morally defensible.
Posted by: Jake at Jul 28, 2006 9:23:02 AM
"The argument is not that you should HAVE to help others, its that you shouldn't forcably stop others from helping themselves (e.g., seeking a job in the US or the opposite, stopping people from migrating)."
In other words, you're arguing that there's no such thing as property. Your principle dictates that one shouldn't forcibly stop another from helping himself by taking one's car or one's cash or one's castle. Would you care to try another argument?
Posted by: ben tillman at Jul 28, 2006 9:57:36 AM
"There is such a thing as an impersonal moral point of view."As I read through the thread, I kept hanging on this claim. It seems to me that the only way an individual could assume and maintain this point of view would be via the acquisition of some yet to be named pathology. The proposal seems to be either the antithesis of sociopathy or some equally-sick first cousin.
Posted by: Katie's Dad at Jul 28, 2006 11:56:51 AM
Katie's Dad:
"The proposal seems to be either the antithesis of sociopathy or some equally-sick first cousin."
Mr. Tyler is a member in good standing of American overclass. Total job security, well paid, respected, had never been unemployed, never lived in low income neigborhood with lots of "hard working immigrants".
American Overclass lost all shreds of Noblesse Oblige toward their countrymen, with threadbare theories of libertarionism, free markets in goods and humans and globalism to cover their naked greed and arrogance.
Posted by: kuffar at Jul 28, 2006 12:52:54 PM
Jake:
"you shouldn't forcably stop others from helping themselves (e.g., seeking a job in the US".
So if you want to help yourself by moving into Mr. Tyler's spacious house, he shouldn't "forcably" stop you?
The idea appeals to me, as it will teach Mr. Tyler a valuable lesson (probably the first time in his life), but for moral and many other reasons I will be against it and will call Police should you try to execute your idea.
Spell checker is a must tool for an aspiring grad student.
Posted by: kuffar at Jul 28, 2006 1:07:50 PM
The "tying someone to a tree" analogy seems inapt to me. The potential immigrant begins in his own country. Within it he has freedom of movement. Doing something like building a wall wouldn't necessarily be agressing against anyone, as you could wall off uninhabited territory.
Posted by: TGGP at Jul 28, 2006 2:01:06 PM
The analogy is inapt for the further reason that the other job candidate (the U.S. native) is also tied to a tree, as he is not permitted to take jobs in Mexico, China, or India.
Posted by: Ben Tillman at Jul 28, 2006 3:16:49 PM
Kuffar,
"American Overclass lost all shreds of Noblesse Oblige toward their countrymen, with threadbare theories of libertarionism, free markets in goods and humans and globalism to cover their naked greed and arrogance."
Thank you
I wish I could write/think so well.
Robert Hume,
"Diversity is strength"
Please add
"War is peace", "Freedom is slavery", and "Ignorance is strength"
Has 1984 become the new libertarian bible?
Peter Schaeffer
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Posted by: levan at Sep 11, 2006 3:56:08 AM
