Sometimes, someone's sole reason for not implementing a plan or solution to a problem is that it has flaws -- or that it will yield some negative results. The problem with this approach is that it's all-or-nothing, so incremental improvement is essentially disallowed by it. It's important to remember that solutions and potential courses of action should be compared not absolutely but relatively to their alternatives, including the alternative that's already in place. If a particular course of action allows for the possibility of something going wrong, and the current plan also does, then your concern shouldn't be whether your new plan will solve all of your problems; it should be whether the new plan will be better than the current one.
1. If you're in a warzone and realize that it's almost certain that many people around you are about to die, this should not prevent you from saving the ones whom you know you can save. Saving three may not be as great as saving fifty, but it's still better than saving zero.
2. If you're standing on train tracks and a train is heading straight for you, but there are murderous thugs on both sides of the tracks, it would be foolish to continue to stand on the tracks simply because the thugs pose a risk to your safety.
Showing posts with label opportunity cost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opportunity cost. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Suffering sucks -- "objectively," Part II
Readers of this blog may already be familiar with Karl Popper's negative utilitarianism ("negativism"), and hopefully see some merit in the idea that, no matter how slight the discomfort, all desires are the result of deprivation. You can't enjoy life without first being unsatisfied with it; otherwise, you'd never be motivated to pursue that which you enjoy. Therefore, the elimination of negative sensation -- whether that means eliminating a biological drive, reducing the amount of time it takes to fulfill a desire, lowering the intensity of some form of discomfort, or eliminating a hurdle in the way of the temporary satisfying of a desire -- is a worthwhile pursuit. So far, so good.
But I'd like to append another term to this form of utilitarianism: pragmatism. Negative utilitarianism is still essentially a moral pursuit, which means that it is a subset of the overarching pursuit of logical outcomes in all contexts. This is fine, but how will the reduction and elimination of negative sensation work? How will we carry out tasks to this end? What will our tools be? How will we make decisions in scenarios where relative differences exist among competing potential actions? Pragmatic utilitarianism answers these questions, because, while utilitarianism addresses how functional or useful an idea is with respect to a value standard, pragmatism addresses whether the idea works at all, in any context -- and therefore, whether it is worth acting upon.
Moral utilitarianism: "What is the utility of this action? Will it be useful to the end of improving what we value?"
Negative utilitarianism: "What is the utility of this action? Will it be useful to the end of eliminating what we negatively value?"
Pragmatic utilitarianism: "Why do we value what we value, and what can we use in order to act to the end of maximizing and minimizing the interacting outputs? How can we test these potential actions for viability and workability? Once we've figured that out, what is the utility of the actions? Will they be useful to the end of eliminating what we negatively value?"
How this works: by employing qualitative analysis, or a kind of scrutiny pertaining to abstract qualities as found within finite physical objects, to the practical decision-making process in an effort to alter both quantities and qualities in an environment.
Where two or more qualities are the same but one is greater or less in quantity, a relative decision must be made; where two or more qualities are different, the quality which is most likely to yield the result of the highest value must be selected. The underlying principle of this practice is opportunity cost, a method for making decisions based on what, if anything, of value will be lost upon acting. After all, when making decisions, we necessarily exclude every action other than the one opted for, so it's essential that we understand what it is that we lose by gaining what we do from taking a particular action. The act of not acting, as implied by the wording of this sentence, is itself an action -- a kind of meta-action, to be specific, taken after assessing whether to act toward acting or "not acting." "Meta-decision" would be another term for this (deciding whether to decide).
Before refraining from making a decision in a situation, always be sure to ask yourself, "Am I sure that I'm unsure?"
But I'd like to append another term to this form of utilitarianism: pragmatism. Negative utilitarianism is still essentially a moral pursuit, which means that it is a subset of the overarching pursuit of logical outcomes in all contexts. This is fine, but how will the reduction and elimination of negative sensation work? How will we carry out tasks to this end? What will our tools be? How will we make decisions in scenarios where relative differences exist among competing potential actions? Pragmatic utilitarianism answers these questions, because, while utilitarianism addresses how functional or useful an idea is with respect to a value standard, pragmatism addresses whether the idea works at all, in any context -- and therefore, whether it is worth acting upon.
Moral utilitarianism: "What is the utility of this action? Will it be useful to the end of improving what we value?"
Negative utilitarianism: "What is the utility of this action? Will it be useful to the end of eliminating what we negatively value?"
Pragmatic utilitarianism: "Why do we value what we value, and what can we use in order to act to the end of maximizing and minimizing the interacting outputs? How can we test these potential actions for viability and workability? Once we've figured that out, what is the utility of the actions? Will they be useful to the end of eliminating what we negatively value?"
How this works: by employing qualitative analysis, or a kind of scrutiny pertaining to abstract qualities as found within finite physical objects, to the practical decision-making process in an effort to alter both quantities and qualities in an environment.
Where two or more qualities are the same but one is greater or less in quantity, a relative decision must be made; where two or more qualities are different, the quality which is most likely to yield the result of the highest value must be selected. The underlying principle of this practice is opportunity cost, a method for making decisions based on what, if anything, of value will be lost upon acting. After all, when making decisions, we necessarily exclude every action other than the one opted for, so it's essential that we understand what it is that we lose by gaining what we do from taking a particular action. The act of not acting, as implied by the wording of this sentence, is itself an action -- a kind of meta-action, to be specific, taken after assessing whether to act toward acting or "not acting." "Meta-decision" would be another term for this (deciding whether to decide).
Before refraining from making a decision in a situation, always be sure to ask yourself, "Am I sure that I'm unsure?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)