"We recognize that moral standards are difficult to maintain. But we want people to buy into difficult moral standards. It is when someone claims to be an enforcer of moral standards for others but violates them himself that we get really angry."
If you believe what Charles Murray has written then we should get just as angry at people who refuse to help enforce the social norms they follow themselves.
* the definition of "misanthropic" is not "wanting to be mean". To be misanthropic is to recognise (and perhaps over-estimate) the amount of meanness in the human condition.
* taking people's opinions about political/moral abstractions "at face value" is about as foolish (and unobservant) as it gets. Much wiser is to try to develop a broad understanding of the psychology of opinion formation.
"Still, the safest assumption is that people on your side are just as motivated by status-seeking as people on the other side."
Charity may have made sense in the not too distant past. However, in the current situation, if one isn't very cynical about what everybody on every side says all the time, one is being incredibly naïve.
The answer to the question of how trusting and charitable one ought to be should be at least somewhat related to the recent track record of trustworthiness. "Among recent claims this person made, how many were feasibly falsifiable and how many of those were falsified?" People with good reputations based in good track records might deserve the benefit of the doubt. People with terrible reputations and "lies-literally-all-the-time" track records, on the other hand, deserve the doubt.
Likewise, a track record of being incredibly naive and getting repeatedly hoodwinked by liars ought to give such a person a bad reputation in terms of their wisdom and judgment and also as regards the quality of their advice as regards whether and when one ought to assume good faith.
In some cultures there is little cheating and in other cultures a lot of cheating. This is noticeable even at very small scales. I've seen some sports leagues in which a player on a losing team will almost always - and accurately - conclude that they lost fair and square, and I've seen others that will almost always say they only lost because the other side cheated and got away with it, and they are usually right about that.
The current situation is more like the "everyone cheats all the time" league. In the cheating league, the statement, "They won because they cheated!" is still true even when the reply, "But you cheated too!" is also true.
Interesting - I think tribalism adds a layer to these dynamics. When an in-group member violates norms against the out-group, the in-group tends to close ranks. Like with police officers, political factions, nationalists, etc.
In defense of hypocrisy, I would prefer to live in a society where hypocrisy occurs at some nonzero rate than in a society where there are no moral norms or values and thus no hypocrisy.
I don't doubt that all of this is mostly true. But is it true of you? Me? Many of your readers? A large proportion of economists? It seems a little odd to make this argument in a forum where NOT going along is the norm.
“I would be careful here. I think that you get points for espousing good conduct for yourself. But if you espouse good conduct for others and then misbehave, you get in major trouble.” This is an important point. But it’s complicated by the fact that it’s very hard to express one’s adherence to a norm. Our first attempt to express a norm is something like this: “One shouldn’t lie/break a promise/kill/deceive a friend.” But of course we can easily think of exceptions (excuses, justifications) to these formulations. One of the many functions of gossip is to elicit people’s take on the exceptions. One may learn, for instance, that a neighbor is more tolerant of financial indiscretions than one is, leaving one clearer about your acquaintance’s norm and perhaps that of people in his or her line of work. (Allan Gibbard’s discussion of implicit bargaining over norms is insightful — the early of part of Apt Feelings, Wise Choices.)
"Jeffrey Friedman used to argue that we should try to take people’s opinions at face value, and try not to attribute base motives to them."
This is a good rule with the following proviso: if a person offering the opinion violates the terms more than once, you should always attribute base motives as a first step. It doesn't mean you stop there, but your bulls*** radar should be turned on at all times with such people.
Yes, but I am generous- you can fool me twice before I treat you with suspicion all the time. I give an allowance for one mistake- you make two you can't be trusted at all because you are either dishonest or just incompetent. My cynicism does have a fairly high threshold still.
"We recognize that moral standards are difficult to maintain. But we want people to buy into difficult moral standards. It is when someone claims to be an enforcer of moral standards for others but violates them himself that we get really angry."
If you believe what Charles Murray has written then we should get just as angry at people who refuse to help enforce the social norms they follow themselves.
Two things:
* the definition of "misanthropic" is not "wanting to be mean". To be misanthropic is to recognise (and perhaps over-estimate) the amount of meanness in the human condition.
* taking people's opinions about political/moral abstractions "at face value" is about as foolish (and unobservant) as it gets. Much wiser is to try to develop a broad understanding of the psychology of opinion formation.
"Still, the safest assumption is that people on your side are just as motivated by status-seeking as people on the other side."
Charity may have made sense in the not too distant past. However, in the current situation, if one isn't very cynical about what everybody on every side says all the time, one is being incredibly naïve.
The answer to the question of how trusting and charitable one ought to be should be at least somewhat related to the recent track record of trustworthiness. "Among recent claims this person made, how many were feasibly falsifiable and how many of those were falsified?" People with good reputations based in good track records might deserve the benefit of the doubt. People with terrible reputations and "lies-literally-all-the-time" track records, on the other hand, deserve the doubt.
Likewise, a track record of being incredibly naive and getting repeatedly hoodwinked by liars ought to give such a person a bad reputation in terms of their wisdom and judgment and also as regards the quality of their advice as regards whether and when one ought to assume good faith.
In some cultures there is little cheating and in other cultures a lot of cheating. This is noticeable even at very small scales. I've seen some sports leagues in which a player on a losing team will almost always - and accurately - conclude that they lost fair and square, and I've seen others that will almost always say they only lost because the other side cheated and got away with it, and they are usually right about that.
The current situation is more like the "everyone cheats all the time" league. In the cheating league, the statement, "They won because they cheated!" is still true even when the reply, "But you cheated too!" is also true.
Interesting - I think tribalism adds a layer to these dynamics. When an in-group member violates norms against the out-group, the in-group tends to close ranks. Like with police officers, political factions, nationalists, etc.
In defense of hypocrisy, I would prefer to live in a society where hypocrisy occurs at some nonzero rate than in a society where there are no moral norms or values and thus no hypocrisy.
I don't doubt that all of this is mostly true. But is it true of you? Me? Many of your readers? A large proportion of economists? It seems a little odd to make this argument in a forum where NOT going along is the norm.
“I would be careful here. I think that you get points for espousing good conduct for yourself. But if you espouse good conduct for others and then misbehave, you get in major trouble.” This is an important point. But it’s complicated by the fact that it’s very hard to express one’s adherence to a norm. Our first attempt to express a norm is something like this: “One shouldn’t lie/break a promise/kill/deceive a friend.” But of course we can easily think of exceptions (excuses, justifications) to these formulations. One of the many functions of gossip is to elicit people’s take on the exceptions. One may learn, for instance, that a neighbor is more tolerant of financial indiscretions than one is, leaving one clearer about your acquaintance’s norm and perhaps that of people in his or her line of work. (Allan Gibbard’s discussion of implicit bargaining over norms is insightful — the early of part of Apt Feelings, Wise Choices.)
"Jeffrey Friedman used to argue that we should try to take people’s opinions at face value, and try not to attribute base motives to them."
This is a good rule with the following proviso: if a person offering the opinion violates the terms more than once, you should always attribute base motives as a first step. It doesn't mean you stop there, but your bulls*** radar should be turned on at all times with such people.
Sort of the epistemological equivalent of tit-for-tat.
I think of it as "Fool me twice, shame on you."
Isn't the usual statement, "Food me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"? Because I should have learned not to let you fool me again.
Yes, but I am generous- you can fool me twice before I treat you with suspicion all the time. I give an allowance for one mistake- you make two you can't be trusted at all because you are either dishonest or just incompetent. My cynicism does have a fairly high threshold still.
Fool me thrice, shame on me.