Answer to "Honesty promoted by self-interest".

Akka

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Coming from another thread :
newfangle said:
@Akka

This is possibly the worst time to introduce this, but I found a 16-page essay on why being a criminal isn't in your bests interests.

Yeah yeah, it's about a year late. Whaddya gonna do, shoot me? ;)

http://journals.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5139594
I promised him that I would make a new thread with my answer once I have read it.
(basically, the point is that dishonesty goes against the self-interest of someone)

It took some time, but I finished it at last, so I can keep my promise ^^


Overall, this a very good work. The analysis is of very high level, clear, neat, and precise.
The part with self-deception is simply brilliant. It should be mandatory for many people to read it (particularly many libertarian on this board :p). It's nearly flawless, except I think the author underestimate the ability for the mind to refuse, block and ignore something which annoys it.
The concepts are well explained, with examples and reasoning. I'm in agreement with most of the paper.

But (you saw this coming) there is some points that I disagree with, and they are at the basis of the conclusion.

First, the author, though talking only about tendencies, imply that by being dishonest, someone lose the fact from view, or at least use a lot of energy to keep the record of both the fictionnal world of lies and the real world. It's not necessarily the case. Someone can be dishonest WITHOUT losing the grasp on fact. Politicians are especially proficient at that, for example.

Second, and it's a more important point, the author is quite contempt about the importance of others' points of view in a lie. He repeatedly say that fooling others won't change the facts, like in "making them believe you're more competent won't make you more competent".
While he's right on some case, he's SERIOUSLY downplaying the importance of the others' opinion in a society. Interaction with people is a HUGE part of the regular life of someone (even a geek like me, so imagine :p), and a lot of what people think about you is influenced by what others tell them.
The facts also determine what someone think about you, but how he views as the fact is also determined in part by what he already think about you.
You can get immense benefit by manipulating people. Publicity, adds and PR are, in fact, an enormous part of any big business, and they mostly consist in presenting the facts in the best light possible, which usually mean lying flatly about them.
The author, all in all, vastly underestimate the importance of the opinions of others.

Third, this paper is very interesting as a theorical stuff. It's good at giving guidelines for people on an ideological point of view. But it's still theory. The rationnal self-interest thing is interesting as long as it stays in the "objective self-interest" stance (like health, business and son on). But it's somehow lacking in the "subjective self-interest" (as in self-fulfillement, desires and so on), which is where it doesn't work as well. Something could be considered not in the rationnal self-interest of someone, but it could, because of the character of the person, be really what's most interesting for him (someone whose ultimate desire is to do a very dangerous and unhealthy sport, by example. He would ruin his health doing it, but he would ruin his life not doing it ; so, his real best self-interest would be to still do it, even at the cost of his health).

I disagree on a fourth point, but it's more on a principle basis : he prices honesty only as he considers it the best way to achieve your self-interest, while I value honesty because it's a moral absolute. That's an ideological difference about values and ideals, so it's something that was expected.

And the last point I wish to address, is also a somehow important one. The author talked about lies and dishonesty in the long term. He explained how, in the end, it was usually not worth it.
But he simply wasn't convincing about short-term dishonesty, ie the one that gives you an instant benefit, with negligible bad consequences, and no need to sustain a lie afterward.
It could be as simple as lieing to a girl about your feelings so you could hump her, and then drop her.
It could be a single well-planned crime that bring you enough of money to not have to do another one again. Provided the plan is good enough, you wouldn't be caught, and you wouldn't need to build a false world of lie to keep it all running.
It could be sneaking into the mail of an entreprise you wish to work for, and remove every application for the job but yours, to ensure that you will get the job.
Etc.
His answer to that is simply that, as someone can never know all the consequences of his acts, then he simply should stick to honesty, just in case, because honesty as a better chance to work in his self-interest.
But that's a VERY weak argument. In fact, we could say the same for every business, and say that, in the end, it's safer to just be a salary man. Taking risks is part of mankind, and as such his argument doesn't look convincing at all.


All in all, while I consider this an excellent paper, and while I agree with the biggest part of it, the conclusions that the author draws in the end look quite faulty to me.
 
Sorry Akka. My lethargy prevents me from responding on time.

Alas, I don't feel as if I can elaborate more than what the author said, as she is far more knowledgable in the area than I am, but I'll take a stab at it nonetheless.


Akka said:
First, the author, though talking only about tendencies, imply that by being dishonest, someone lose the fact from view, or at least use a lot of energy to keep the record of both the fictionnal world of lies and the real world. It's not necessarily the case. Someone can be dishonest WITHOUT losing the grasp on fact. Politicians are especially proficient at that, for example.

While I agree with you here, I think it might be a small semantic problem. You state that the dishonest person does not grasp the fact. I don't think this is the problem. The problem is that they do grasp the fact, yet continue to ignore it. Again, politicians are the best example of this. :D

Akka said:
Second, and it's a more important point, the author is quite contempt about the importance of others' points of view in a lie. He repeatedly say that fooling others won't change the facts, like in "making them believe you're more competent won't make you more competent".
While he's right on some case, he's SERIOUSLY downplaying the importance of the others' opinion in a society. Interaction with people is a HUGE part of the regular life of someone (even a geek like me, so imagine :p), and a lot of what people think about you is influenced by what others tell them.
The facts also determine what someone think about you, but how he views as the fact is also determined in part by what he already think about you.
You can get immense benefit by manipulating people. Publicity, adds and PR are, in fact, an enormous part of any big business, and they mostly consist in presenting the facts in the best light possible, which usually mean lying flatly about them.
The author, all in all, vastly underestimate the importance of the opinions of others.

I'm not exactly sure what your point is here. If you're talking in terms of economics and the market, it of course makes sense that the opinions of others are exceedingly important. The author is not denying this.

On the personal level, the opinions of others really don't matter that much. When it comes to personal decisions, whether as trivial as what kind of shoes to buy, or as important as choosing a life's mate, the opinions of others will not flat-out change one's opinion. Certainly, they may guide the individual, they may advise the individual, they may even threaten the individual, but in the end the decision rests solely in the individual, because it is only he that is aware of his own values and value-judgements.


Akka said:
Third, this paper is very interesting as a theorical stuff. It's good at giving guidelines for people on an ideological point of view. But it's still theory. The rationnal self-interest thing is interesting as long as it stays in the "objective self-interest" stance (like health, business and son on). But it's somehow lacking in the "subjective self-interest" (as in self-fulfillement, desires and so on), which is where it doesn't work as well. Something could be considered not in the rationnal self-interest of someone, but it could, because of the character of the person, be really what's most interesting for him (someone whose ultimate desire is to do a very dangerous and unhealthy sport, by example. He would ruin his health doing it, but he would ruin his life not doing it ; so, his real best self-interest would be to still do it, even at the cost of his health).

You're right, the author does not elaborate on subjective self-interest. Firstly, let me assure you that I do believe that such a thing exists, and incidently, I use dangerous sports as my most common example when trying to explain them.

Firstly, its worth noting that if everyone had the same objective self-interest, everyone would be the same person. The is perhaps the key point of diversion between my views and those of objectivism (the author is an objectivist by the way, but hopefully that won't change your impression of the article). The fundamental point at which humans diverge is the subjective one.

Personally, I value my physical safety much higher than a mass production of endorphines, so, conseqently, I don't sky dive. Many other people highly value the thrill of death sports and other dangerous activities. Since this value-judgement is subjective, I say good on them! It is a simple fact of life that people like different things, and if someone wants to land balls-first in a lake of freezing water from 30000 feet, I can't really complain.

Happiness is an important corollary of self-interest, and so if doing something potentiallly harmful induces happiness for a person, it is not a logical contradiction for them to do so. Suicide, or other things with absolutely no positive benefits, are obviously very rarely in the best interests of the person (with the exception of such things like certain death in a concentration camp, in which case suicide looks a lot better).

Akka said:
And the last point I wish to address, is also a somehow important one. The author talked about lies and dishonesty in the long term. He explained how, in the end, it was usually not worth it.
But he simply wasn't convincing about short-term dishonesty, ie the one that gives you an instant benefit, with negligible bad consequences, and no need to sustain a lie afterward.
It could be as simple as lieing to a girl about your feelings so you could hump her, and then drop her.
It could be a single well-planned crime that bring you enough of money to not have to do another one again. Provided the plan is good enough, you wouldn't be caught, and you wouldn't need to build a false world of lie to keep it all running.
It could be sneaking into the mail of an entreprise you wish to work for, and remove every application for the job but yours, to ensure that you will get the job.
Etc.
His answer to that is simply that, as someone can never know all the consequences of his acts, then he simply should stick to honesty, just in case, because honesty as a better chance to work in his self-interest.
But that's a VERY weak argument. In fact, we could say the same for every business, and say that, in the end, it's safer to just be a salary man. Taking risks is part of mankind, and as such his argument doesn't look convincing at all.

I agree that the short term argument is a weak one as well. This is something that has plagued my mind for some time now.

But going alone with the argument the author provides, that since there is no way for a person to know the future, it is impossible to know whether or not his actions are in his best interests. In instance of the man that sifts through the company's mail in order to get a job, it is quite likely that some of the resumes that got tossed would provoke their owners to follow up on them, and contact the company. Though there might be instant gratification for the dishonest fellow, there is a good chance that either throw some flaw on his part, or through the victim's inquiries that he would get caught. Also consider the company's surpirse when only one applicant wants the job!

But, your example of the quick-crime with instant rewards presents an interesting problem. You also stipulate that the person never needs to commit the crime again. Though I think this scenerio is impossible (being able to commit a crime that has you set for the rest of your life, and not needing to estabolish a web of lies to achieve it is certainly a difficult task!). I'll think about this problem and get back to you.
 
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