prior probability

I will begin posting a new series on “the paradox of politics” in the next day or two; in the meantime, enjoy!

Let’s take a moment to celebrate the memory of our dearly departed loved ones. Or better yet, let’s build them an ofrenda (see here)!

Today (11/1) is All Saints Day. The painting pictured below (“All Saints Day I”) is one of four works created by the great Russian avant garde artist Wassily Kandinsky in 1911 to commemorate this solemn occasion. More details here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poème_sur_le_désastre_de_Lisbonne

Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in south-western Jamaica as the strongest storm to ever hit the Caribbean island nation in modern history, brought to mind Voltaire’s poem on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

See also: “The Dialogue between Voltaire and Rousseau on the Lisbon Earthquake: The Emergence of a Social Science View“.

Among the luminaries I met during my recent visit to Puerto Rico was my old colleague and friend Daniel Nina. (Thanks to the good efforts of Orlando Martinez-Garcia, we met at Professor Nina’s home office in Santurce on Thursday afternoon and had dinner at the popular Costa Azul in Manati on Saturday night.) Among other accolades, it is no exaggeration to say that Prof Nina is the island’s most prolific author; pictured below, for example, are just some of the books he has published over the years! Also, he has played a pivotal role in my own intellectual development: it was Nina who introduced me to the late Carlitos del Valle and to two cult classics, Blade Runner (the director’s cut) and The Battle of Algiers.

My wife Sydjia and I were going to spend this past weekend at the tropical Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but our close friends Orlando and Mireya invited us to stay with them at their home in the magical town of Manatí, where we explored many beautiful beaches and shared many memorable meals together. (Special shout out to the cozy Restaurante Merced in the quaint little town of Barceloneta, where we dined on Friday night.)

When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of. The first is the spectator, whose sentiments with regard to my own conduct I endeavour to enter into, by placing myself in his situation, and by considering how it would appear to me, when seen from that particular point of view. The second is the agent, the person whom I properly call myself, and of whose conduct, under the character of a spectator, I was endeavouring to form some opinion. The first is the judge; the second the person judged of. (Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, III.i.6)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal, Satire VI, lines 347–348)

According to Adam Smith, each person divides himself into two persons. Person #1 is himself (the ego), while Person #2 is an external judge or spectator. Sometimes, Smith refers to this imaginary alter ego as “the man within the breast” (see here, for example), and at other times, he calls him the “impartial spectator” or “supposed impartial spectator” (again, see here). But regardless whether the impartial spectator and the man within the breast are one in the same or are two separate entities (i.e. the key question that my colleagues Daniel Klein, Nicholas Swanson, and Jeffrey Young recently brought to my attention and that I have been writing about this past week), I will now conclude my series on Adam Smith’s impartial spectator with a totally different question: who spectates the impartial spectator? That is, if each person has an internal man within his breast inside him, and if each person’s moral decisions are reviewed by this man within his breast, and (assuming the impartial spectator and the man within the breast are two distinct entities) if this man within the breast is, in turn, checked by a higher-level impartial spectator, then who checks the impartial spectator?