prior probability

Note: This is part three of our review of “Stubborn Attachments.”

In our previous post we rechristened the basic premise of population ethics as Cowen’s Axiom (the notion that we may owe moral duties to future generations) in honor of Tyler Cowen’s beautiful new book Stubborn Attachments. (By the way, we could just as well have called this important idea “Parfit’s Principle” in honor of Derek Parfit, who invented the field of population ethics, but in keeping with Stigler’s Law, I will stick to the formulation “Cowen’s Axiom.”) We also explained why this notion of forward-looking moral duties is, in principle, consistent with both Kantian and utilitarian moral frameworks. Here, however, I shall point out a fundamental flaw with Cowen’s Axiom and with population ethics generally: the problem of indeterminacy. In brief, regardless of your preferred moral framework (Kantian duties or Humean utilities), any such moral framework can be easily rigged or gamed.

Let’s start with “population utilitarianism” first, since consequentialist theories are so easy to dispose of. However we define “utility” or “happiness” or “welfare” or whatever else we are supposed to be maximizing, population utilitarians like Tyler Cowen claim that we should be maximizing the utility (or happiness, well-being, etc.) of future generations. But should we be maximizing “total utility” or utility on a per capita basis? Either way, the problems with both versions of utilitarianism are so well-known by now that I will not bother to rehearse them here. Indeed, Cowen himself hedges his utilitarian axiom: he openly acknowledges that any method of future utility maximization must be subject to some inalienable side constraints such as “human rights.” Alas, Cowen fails to specify what these (Nozickian?) side constraints are; nor does he tell us who is supposed to enforce them. More problematically, what is the source of these side constraints? How are we to discover them?

Despite these problems, Cowen’s strategic hedge in favor of human rights or Nozickian side constraints points us in a potentially more promising direction. Specifically, why not use a Kantian or deontological framework to figure out what duties we owe future generations? That is, why can’t we have an Intertemporal Golden Rule? We will explore this very possibility in our next few posts.

Note: This post is part two of our review of “Stubborn Attachments.”

We posed the following question in our previous post: What ethical, moral, or legal duties, if any, do we owe to future generations? We also noted that this is the central question in Tyler Cowen’s beautiful new book “Stubborn Attachments,” available here via Amazon. Of course, just because something is legal does not make it moral, and vice versa, just because something is illegal does not make it immoral. So, before we delve into this difficult question, we must ask an even more fundamental question, How can we tell when a decision is morally right or wrong? In short, what theory of morality or ethics should we apply to our decisions regardless of the temporal scope of our moral rights and moral obligations, i.e. past, present, or future.

In summary, there are at least two ways of judging the moral dimension of our decisions. One method is legalistic in spirit. It asks us to evaluate the morality of a decision in light of universal moral duties, such as do no harm, or always tell the truth, or always keep your promises. The other method emphasizes the potential consequences of our decisions. A decision is morally or ethically right if it produces the greatest amount of happiness or the greatest good for the greatest number or satisfies some other utilitarian criterion. Now, before proceeding any further, notice that both major theories of ethics (Kantian duties and Humean consequences) are broad enough to encompass the interests of future generations. After all, if Kantian duties are spatially categorical, it makes logical sense to say that Kantian duties are temporally universal as well. Similarly, taking theories of consequentialism to their logical conclusion, why shouldn’t the well-being or welfare of future generations be included in any utilitarian calculus? For his part, Professor Cowen claims that the interests of future generations should matter when we are deciding matters of public policy. (Because Cowen merely accepts this conclusion as true, I shall refer to this position as “Cowen’s Axiom.”)

Nevertheless, whether we apply a Kantian or Humean framework to questions of population ethics, I shall offer an expanded critique of Cowen’s Axiom in my next post. Although axioms are supposed to be self-evident and are thus not to be questioned, the theoretical and practical problems with Cowen’s Axiom are too large to ignore …

(Cowen, 2018, p. 19)

This fascinating question takes center stage in Tyler Cowen’s beautiful new book Stubborn Attachments (pictured below). Professor Cowen, a polymath who teaches economics at George Mason University, combines a branch of moral philosophy called “population ethics” (pioneered by the late Derek Parfit) with a branch of social science called “welfare economics.” In summary, economists engaged in welfare economics attempt to measure the aggregate well-being of populations, while philosophers engaged in population ethics attempt to answer the question posed in the title of this post. Cowen’s contribution is to explore this question from an economic perspective. Furthermore, according to Cowen (spoiler alert!), the welfare of future generations should matter just as much as our own welfare. Or stated in the formal jargon of academic economics, we should apply a low “discount rate” (possibly even as low as zero; see Cowen, p. 127) to the future. (As Cowen notes on page 65 of his book, “A discount rate tells us how to compare future benefits to current benefits (or costs) when we make decisions.”) Although a zero-discount rate may look like a morally attractive principle at first glance, there are numerous practical and theoretical problems with this view. (See this overview, for example, or see this lecture by Jens Saugstad.) We will explore some of these difficulties in our next few posts.

Via @MarcEdelman: how about selecting Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame, and Central Florida (#UCF) — the only four undefeated Division I teams this late into the 2018 college football season — to play in the college football championship?

http://www.printyourbrackets.com

Hat tip: The Amazing Tyler Cowen.

Although most North Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving today, we must never forget that on this day 55 years ago (22 Nov. 1963) President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. What if the presidential motorcade had continued down Main Street (further away from the book depository building where the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was lying in wait) instead of going down Elm Street?

Credit: Donald Roberdeau

During a brief visit to my alma mater UCSB earlier this week (go Gauchos!), my wife Sydjia photographed this bike-path tunnel, which connects the main campus with the seaside college town of Isla Vista. In place of ordinary fluorescent tubes, the tunnel is now lit up by a geometrical pattern of lights.

Imagine interstellar trade occurring at the speed of light (or close to light-speed) across galaxies, such as the various constellations pictured below. The economist Paul Krugman imagines just such a science-fiction scenario in a beautiful paper titled “[A] theory of interstellar trade,” which was published in the journal Economic Inquiry in 2010. (An ungated version of his formal paper is available here.) In the paper, Professor Krugman develops a theory of interstellar trade in goods between planets in the same inertial frame and ends up making a remarkable claim: interstellar competition will equalize interest rates across constellations.

There is just one small problem with Krugman’s theoretical analysis: he neglects the crucial role that interstellar contracts and interstellar law must play before any trade could occur across the universe in the first place. Alas, this type of omission is common among economists, even first-rate ones like Krugman. Many economists like to take the existence of a well-ordered legal system and the enforcement of contracts for granted. But trade cannot occur in a (legal) vacuum. Trade and markets require some set of rules and the enforcement of those rules, and it is precisely these essential things that are lacking at the interstellar level!