WEBVTT 00:00.800 --> 00:01.320 PROFESSOR: All right. 00:01.320 --> 00:03.810 So I left you at the end of last lecture with this 00:03.810 --> 00:09.390 incredible cliffhanger I put up on the slide, but... 00:09.390 --> 00:12.760 So let me get a running start and let you know where we 00:12.760 --> 00:15.280 were, finish up that lecture, and then move in to 00:15.280 --> 00:17.860 the topics for today. 00:17.860 --> 00:22.050 So as you recall, at the end of last lecture I was talking 00:22.050 --> 00:26.250 about a particular critique which has been offered by 00:26.250 --> 00:29.920 contemporary social psychologists of Aristotle's 00:29.919 --> 00:31.349 moral theory. 00:31.350 --> 00:36.610 As you recall, Aristotle has a moral theory whose fundamental 00:36.610 --> 00:41.760 notion is that of the person with good character--the one 00:41.755 --> 00:45.695 who acts as the well-raised one, the person with practical 00:45.700 --> 00:47.070 wisdom would act. 00:47.070 --> 00:50.160 Aristotle calls that person the phronimos. 00:50.162 --> 00:55.122 And John Doris, in the essay we read, gave voice to a 00:55.120 --> 00:58.850 concern which a number of philosophers have expressed in 00:58.850 --> 01:03.060 recent years, which is the concern that Aristotle's moral 01:03.060 --> 01:06.710 theory commits a mistake. 01:06.710 --> 01:10.120 It commits what psychologists call the fundamental 01:10.120 --> 01:10.730 attribution error. 01:10.730 --> 01:15.080 And that's the idea that it's character rather than 01:15.080 --> 01:18.500 circumstance that's the primary determinant of action. 01:18.500 --> 01:24.010 And Doris adduced a number of psychological studies that 01:24.010 --> 01:28.000 purport to show that the primary determinant of action 01:28.000 --> 01:30.870 is circumstance rather than some standing 01:30.870 --> 01:32.490 feature of the person. 01:32.490 --> 01:35.430 So he told us the story of the guys in the phone booth and 01:35.430 --> 01:38.610 suggested that it's a local feature of mood that 01:38.605 --> 01:41.535 determines whether people are likely to be helpful rather 01:41.540 --> 01:43.520 than a standing feature of character. 01:43.520 --> 01:46.250 He told us the story of the Good Samaritan study, again 01:46.250 --> 01:50.220 suggesting that it was circumstance or situation that 01:50.215 --> 01:51.125 affected behavior, not 01:51.125 --> 01:52.695 standing features of character. 01:52.700 --> 01:57.870 We ourselves read and thought about the Milgram experiments: 01:57.865 --> 02:00.545 circumstances in which people find themselves behaving in 02:00.550 --> 02:02.640 ways that one might think are out of character. 02:02.640 --> 02:05.860 And we talked about previously, and we'll talk 02:05.860 --> 02:09.240 about it again, the idea of moral luck: the idea that one 02:09.240 --> 02:11.500 may find oneself in circumstances 02:11.500 --> 02:14.400 that lead to behavior. 02:14.400 --> 02:19.980 So there is no doubt that there is an element of truth 02:19.980 --> 02:24.200 to the claim that circumstance is a major 02:24.200 --> 02:27.190 contributor to behavior. 02:27.190 --> 02:32.440 It's undeniable that there are circumstances that contribute 02:32.442 --> 02:35.832 to how it is that people act. 02:35.830 --> 02:39.380 But that strand of social psychology that Doris is 02:39.375 --> 02:44.245 stressing is, I think, only part of the story. 02:44.250 --> 02:48.800 So in addition to circumstance contributing to character, 02:48.800 --> 02:53.310 there's a large body of research in psychology known 02:53.305 --> 02:58.735 as personality psychology which looks at a set of traits 02:58.740 --> 03:03.790 that seem to be pretty well established in people by their 03:03.790 --> 03:05.990 first year of life. 03:05.990 --> 03:10.570 These are traits that are quite stable over time, and 03:10.570 --> 03:15.800 that end up correlating with a large range of other measures. 03:15.800 --> 03:19.570 These are things like openness to new experience, 03:19.570 --> 03:23.540 conscientiousness in carrying out responsibilities, 03:23.540 --> 03:28.520 extroversion as opposed to introversion, agreeableness, 03:28.520 --> 03:32.030 and neuroticism: a certain kind of anxiety. 03:32.030 --> 03:36.090 So although it is the case that circumstance plays a 03:36.090 --> 03:40.750 major role in determining how it is that people behave, it 03:40.750 --> 03:44.460 is also the case that there are contributions from 03:44.460 --> 03:47.170 individual personality. 03:47.170 --> 03:53.210 And one of the most dramatic pieces of evidence in favor of 03:53.210 --> 03:57.140 that are Walter Mischel's famous deferred gratification 03:57.136 --> 04:00.546 studies which I'll discuss now and then again 04:00.550 --> 04:02.910 later in the lecture. 04:02.910 --> 04:06.330 It looks like, if Mischel's studies which involve 04:06.330 --> 04:09.440 thousands and thousands of children are to be trusted, 04:09.440 --> 04:13.620 that the early capacity for self-regulation or delay of 04:13.620 --> 04:17.420 gratification in the face of temptation is highly 04:17.420 --> 04:23.500 predictive of all sorts of things ranging from SAT scores 04:23.500 --> 04:26.670 to social relations in school. 04:26.670 --> 04:31.470 Social and cognitive functions seem to correlate with the 04:31.470 --> 04:35.000 certain features about early experience. 04:35.000 --> 04:39.280 So although it is undoubtedly the case that the situationist 04:39.280 --> 04:43.690 critique gets something right and it is undoubtedly a 04:43.690 --> 04:47.480 mistake to think that the sole contribution to behavior is 04:47.480 --> 04:50.660 character, and that the features of the environment 04:50.660 --> 04:56.170 play no role, to say that only contribution to behavior is 04:56.170 --> 04:59.330 circumstance and that there's no contribution on the part of 04:59.330 --> 05:03.020 the individual is, I think, a mistake. 05:03.020 --> 05:05.580 And those of you who are interested in looking at what 05:05.580 --> 05:09.540 those individual differences look like in children early on 05:09.540 --> 05:13.060 may enjoy watching some of the videos of the Mischel studies 05:13.060 --> 05:16.080 where you get to see children sitting in front of 05:16.080 --> 05:19.080 marshmallows, looking like this, or 05:19.080 --> 05:25.110 this, or this, or this. 05:25.110 --> 05:29.610 Or--poor thing--she's destined for low SAT scores, but wow is 05:29.610 --> 05:32.770 that marshmallow going to taste good. 05:32.770 --> 05:35.730 So any of you who wants to watch some of these, here are 05:35.730 --> 05:38.370 three very different presentations of the 05:38.370 --> 05:38.700 marshmallow case. 05:38.700 --> 05:41.860 And again, these slides will be up so you can go get them 05:41.860 --> 05:43.270 off the Internet. 05:43.270 --> 05:43.470 OK. 05:43.470 --> 05:48.170 So that's the closing of last lecture, and obviously a 05:48.170 --> 05:52.450 straightforward segue way into the topic of today's lecture 05:52.450 --> 05:57.040 which is the question in some ways with which we began this 05:57.040 --> 06:01.050 section of the course: the question of strategies for 06:01.050 --> 06:06.060 regulating oneself in the face of weakness of the will. 06:06.060 --> 06:10.830 Now, what we emphasized in last lecture was Aristotle's 06:10.830 --> 06:15.920 picture of what it takes for someone to be virtuous. 06:15.920 --> 06:18.360 And Aristotle said that in order to be virtuous, you need 06:18.360 --> 06:20.250 to satisfy four conditions. 06:20.250 --> 06:23.380 You need to know what's the right thing to do, you need to 06:23.380 --> 06:26.720 decide to do that thing because it's the right thing, 06:26.720 --> 06:30.170 you need to do so stably, and you need to do so in a way 06:30.170 --> 06:33.440 that doesn't cut against your inclinations. 06:33.440 --> 06:35.800 Those are the four features that are required to be 06:35.800 --> 06:37.820 virtuous on Aristotle's picture. 06:37.822 --> 06:42.222 And corresponding to virtue on the other end of the spectrum, 06:42.220 --> 06:47.140 is the Aristotelian notion of vice which is basically its 06:47.140 --> 06:48.710 exact opposite. 06:48.710 --> 06:54.150 It's a harmonious, stable, knowledgeable, decided 06:54.150 --> 06:59.010 tendency to act in keeping with exactly what's wrong. 06:59.010 --> 07:01.970 So the vicious person has knowledge of what's the wrong 07:01.970 --> 07:04.830 thing to do, decides to do it because it's the wrong thing, 07:04.830 --> 07:09.290 stably does so, and doesn't feel any inclination to do the 07:09.290 --> 07:10.590 right thing. 07:10.590 --> 07:15.660 So those are two ends of the Aristotelian spectrum. 07:15.660 --> 07:18.680 In fact, there are two things which lie a bit beyond the end 07:18.680 --> 07:19.810 of the Aristotelian spectrum. 07:19.805 --> 07:23.435 As you know from you reading guide, Aristotle also 07:23.440 --> 07:27.380 identifies the notion somewhat akin to the state that 07:27.380 --> 07:29.830 Jonathan Shay calls the berserk state. 07:29.830 --> 07:33.330 This is the state that Aristotle calls bestiality, a 07:33.330 --> 07:35.080 state below virtue and vice. 07:35.080 --> 07:38.500 And he gives examples from some of the Greek tragedies of 07:38.500 --> 07:41.120 tearing a body apart limb from limb. 07:41.116 --> 07:45.126 So Aristotle thinks it's possible to move out of the 07:45.130 --> 07:47.390 moral realm altogether. 07:47.390 --> 07:51.430 Vice, on the Aristotelian picture, is still a kind of 07:51.430 --> 07:54.470 stable and predictable way to act in the world. 07:54.470 --> 07:57.800 Bestiality lies below that. 07:57.800 --> 08:04.100 And above virtue lies this idea of divinity: a state 08:04.100 --> 08:06.750 whereby regulating with respect to 08:06.750 --> 08:10.170 virtue isn't even required. 08:10.170 --> 08:13.490 But the heart of the discussion that we read in 08:13.490 --> 08:17.490 chapter seven of Aristotle's Ethics for today concerns 08:17.490 --> 08:20.410 itself with this range of states 08:20.410 --> 08:22.500 between virtue and vice. 08:22.502 --> 08:25.792 And Aristotle gives a really nice taxonomy of those which I 08:25.790 --> 08:30.430 think is helpful for understanding what it is to 08:30.430 --> 08:31.680 engage in self-regulation. 08:34.360 --> 08:36.760 I should stress that I am no Aristotle scholar, and that 08:36.760 --> 08:39.060 what I'm providing is a somewhat contrived 08:39.060 --> 08:39.830 reconstruction. 08:39.832 --> 08:43.402 But I think it's helpful for getting a handle on what these 08:43.400 --> 08:45.560 distinctions amount to. 08:45.556 --> 08:49.936 So we might ask first, what would a state look like that 08:49.940 --> 08:53.840 shares with virtue that one has knowledge of the right 08:53.840 --> 08:57.070 thing to do, that one decides to do it for that reason, and 08:57.070 --> 09:00.800 that one has the inclination, but that lacks a kind of 09:00.800 --> 09:03.940 character, or logical stability, that Aristotle 09:03.940 --> 09:07.690 takes to be a hallmark of true virtue? 09:07.690 --> 09:10.090 That, I think, is the state that Aristotle calls 09:10.090 --> 09:11.230 temperance. 09:11.230 --> 09:14.520 One's inclined to do the right thing because 09:14.520 --> 09:15.440 it's the right thing. 09:15.440 --> 09:17.220 And one knows what the right thing is. 09:17.220 --> 09:21.290 But there isn't the sort of predictable, law-like, 09:21.290 --> 09:25.340 stability of character that virtue requires. 09:25.336 --> 09:28.786 Corresponding to temperance, on the other side of the 09:28.790 --> 09:33.440 scale, is what Aristotle calls intemperance which is, in some 09:33.436 --> 09:36.646 sense, the mirror image of temperance. 09:36.650 --> 09:40.960 Here one is simply inclined to do the wrong thing because 09:40.960 --> 09:42.620 it's the wrong thing. 09:42.620 --> 09:48.840 But not as a hard feature of character in the way that he 09:48.840 --> 09:52.340 gives in the case of vice, but just as a matter of 09:52.340 --> 09:53.500 temperament. 09:53.500 --> 09:57.560 So the temperate person, with inclination, 09:57.560 --> 09:59.230 does the right thing. 09:59.230 --> 10:00.910 They're inclined to do the right thing and 10:00.910 --> 10:02.590 they act in that way. 10:02.586 --> 10:07.476 The intemperate person, with inclination, does the wrong 10:07.480 --> 10:12.080 thing and feels no conflict in the face of it. 10:12.080 --> 10:15.200 What happens if we remove another one of the 10:15.200 --> 10:16.710 Aristotelian features? 10:16.710 --> 10:19.440 What happens if we have knowledge of what's the right 10:19.440 --> 10:25.050 thing to do and the decision to do the right thing, but our 10:25.050 --> 10:29.830 inclination pulls us in the other direction? 10:29.830 --> 10:33.780 So we have made a decision to act in keeping with what's 10:33.780 --> 10:39.180 right, at least at an abstract level if not a concrete one, 10:39.180 --> 10:40.760 we have a sense of what's right. 10:40.760 --> 10:44.380 Aristotle says, and I put this approximation in front of the 10:44.380 --> 10:47.230 knowledge that "what the continent and incontinent 10:47.225 --> 10:52.465 person have is the recognition of the general rule, but some 10:52.470 --> 10:55.680 difficulty recognizing whether the general rule applies in 10:55.680 --> 11:00.200 this particular case." So the continent person has a sense 11:00.200 --> 11:05.200 of what the right thing to do is, has made a decision to act 11:05.200 --> 11:09.510 in keeping with that, but her inclination pulls her in 11:09.510 --> 11:11.070 another direction. 11:11.070 --> 11:14.810 She finds it difficult to avoid the chocolate cake. 11:14.810 --> 11:18.610 She finds it difficult to get up when her alarm rings. 11:18.610 --> 11:22.160 She finds it difficult to resist the marshmallow in 11:22.160 --> 11:23.640 order to get the second. 11:23.640 --> 11:28.010 But somehow she contains herself and acts against her 11:28.010 --> 11:29.590 inclination. 11:29.592 --> 11:33.282 The mirror image of the continent person is 11:33.276 --> 11:36.326 Aristotle's incontinent person. 11:36.332 --> 11:40.352 In terms of their decision, they are like 11:40.350 --> 11:41.540 the continent one. 11:41.540 --> 11:46.420 They want to do the thing that corresponds with morality. 11:46.420 --> 11:48.810 Like the continent person, they have a sense of the 11:48.810 --> 11:51.580 general rule, a little difficulty seeing how it 11:51.580 --> 11:53.190 applies in this particular case. 11:53.187 --> 11:57.157 And like the continent person, they have an inclination to go 11:57.160 --> 12:00.890 towards a pleasure which attracts them. 12:00.890 --> 12:04.490 But unlike the continent person, the incontinent person 12:04.490 --> 12:08.740 finds herself unable to overcome the inclination. 12:08.740 --> 12:12.670 And so, below the line, she acts in 12:12.670 --> 12:16.040 keeping with what's wrong. 12:16.036 --> 12:20.446 Finally, Aristotle considers a pair of cases where the 12:20.450 --> 12:24.270 attraction to doing the wrong thing is not a desire for a 12:24.270 --> 12:28.660 pleasure, but a desire to avoid pain. 12:28.660 --> 12:32.980 So in some cases, one doesn't get full credit for being 12:32.980 --> 12:37.100 continent, one doesn't resist a pleasure, but one is willing 12:37.100 --> 12:41.470 to put up with a certain amount of discomfort in the 12:41.470 --> 12:43.210 face of doing the right thing. 12:43.210 --> 12:46.610 Aristotle calls that resistance: continence in the 12:46.610 --> 12:48.280 face of pain. 12:48.281 --> 12:51.981 And corresponding to that, below the line, is softness: 12:51.980 --> 12:54.770 incontinence in the face of pain. 12:54.770 --> 12:58.440 Doing the wrong thing because one has given in to a certain 12:58.440 --> 13:01.250 kind of discomfort. 13:01.254 --> 13:05.214 So I put this list before you because I think it's not 13:05.210 --> 13:10.500 completely clear on a first read, or a second, or a third, 13:10.500 --> 13:15.870 or a fourth through Book Seven of Aristotle's Ethics, how 13:15.870 --> 13:20.030 carefully structured Aristotle's picture of the 13:20.030 --> 13:23.900 human soul and its strengths and weaknesses is. 13:23.900 --> 13:27.510 But I think that if we see it as a set of paired 13:27.510 --> 13:33.350 characteristics, each of which lacks or has certain of the 13:33.350 --> 13:37.880 features of paradigmatic Aristotelian virtue, then we 13:37.880 --> 13:41.300 can get a pretty clear sense of what the Aristotelian 13:41.300 --> 13:43.290 picture looks like. 13:43.290 --> 13:47.370 And I encourage you, armed with this framework, to go 13:47.370 --> 13:50.970 back to the text which we've been reading over and over in 13:50.965 --> 13:54.225 this class: the text at the end of Book One and beginning 13:54.230 --> 13:56.540 of Book Two of Aristotle's Ethics. 13:56.540 --> 14:01.920 And try, yet again, to see what the picture of virtue is 14:01.920 --> 14:05.200 that Aristotle is concerned with. 14:05.200 --> 14:08.470 So what I want to do in the remainder of the lecture today 14:08.470 --> 14:12.970 -- and we're going to need our clickers pretty soon -- 14:12.970 --> 14:19.790 is to talk about Aristotle's idea of incontinence. 14:19.790 --> 14:24.950 What it is to be in a situation where one knows what 14:24.950 --> 14:27.110 the right thing to do is, in the abstract. 14:27.110 --> 14:29.670 One's committed to doing the right thing. 14:29.670 --> 14:32.470 But one has an inclination that pulls in the other 14:32.470 --> 14:36.600 direction, and one gives in to that inclination. 14:36.600 --> 14:41.360 So we're to ask, by starting to give you a choice. 14:41.363 --> 14:44.523 And let me say, this is a real poll. 14:44.518 --> 14:48.708 I have here the money, right here in this envelope. 14:48.705 --> 14:51.745 And I have here -- 14:51.750 --> 14:52.380 I'm not kidding -- 14:52.380 --> 14:56.620 I have here a class list. And during the ten seconds that 14:56.620 --> 15:00.180 you're answering this poll, I will close my eyes and select 15:00.180 --> 15:03.720 a name from the class list. So I'm asking you right now. 15:03.720 --> 15:06.690 You'll have 10 seconds once I start the timer to 15:06.694 --> 15:07.934 choose what you want. 15:07.930 --> 15:13.180 One of you is really going to get either $5 right now, or $6 15:13.180 --> 15:14.510 on Thursday. 15:14.511 --> 15:16.751 And It could be you. 15:16.750 --> 15:17.130 OK. 15:17.130 --> 15:18.180 So clickers out. 15:18.180 --> 15:32.080 We have 10 seconds left. 15:32.079 --> 15:32.999 OK. 15:33.000 --> 15:36.580 So let's see what the responses are on this. 15:36.579 --> 15:37.779 OK. 15:37.784 --> 15:40.704 22% of you want $5 now. 15:40.700 --> 15:44.690 78% of you want $6 in two days. 15:44.690 --> 15:45.330 Sarah Cox? 15:45.329 --> 15:47.829 Sarah Cox, are you here? 15:47.833 --> 15:49.503 Sarah Cox, which did you choose? 15:49.500 --> 15:51.450 STUDENT: [INAUDIBLE]. 15:51.450 --> 15:51.780 PROFESSOR: OK. 15:51.780 --> 15:55.560 Well, I'll keep this right with me, and I'll put it in my 15:55.560 --> 15:56.690 copy of Aristotle's Ethics. 15:56.690 --> 15:58.890 So I'm good for my word. 15:58.890 --> 15:59.610 OK. 15:59.610 --> 16:03.170 22% of you, however, would be just getting the 16:03.170 --> 16:04.580 envelope right now. 16:04.580 --> 16:06.780 OK, second poll. 16:06.780 --> 16:08.380 Which do you choose? 16:08.380 --> 16:10.160 And again, I have money. 16:10.160 --> 16:11.090 I have a second envelope. 16:11.090 --> 16:12.110 It's in my bag. 16:12.110 --> 16:20.200 And you can choose $5 in 35 days, or $6 in 37 days. 16:20.200 --> 16:21.100 OK? 16:21.100 --> 16:25.700 $5 in 35 days, or $6 in 37 days. 16:25.700 --> 16:26.610 Polling open. 16:26.610 --> 16:27.630 Ten seconds. 16:27.630 --> 16:29.230 Ten, nine, eight -- 16:29.230 --> 16:33.820 $5, 35 days. $6 in 37 days. 16:33.820 --> 16:38.030 And let's see how the numbers came out. 16:38.030 --> 16:39.980 OK. 16:39.980 --> 16:42.100 All right. 16:42.100 --> 16:45.270 You experimental error folks are very good at showing the 16:45.270 --> 16:48.100 experimental error aspect of pushing buttons on these. 16:48.100 --> 16:51.160 Or maybe, maybe there are some of you who see 16:51.160 --> 16:52.410 this as being different. 16:52.410 --> 17:00.520 OK, 20% of you were preferring to take $5 today over 6$ on 17:00.520 --> 17:05.150 Thursday, even though almost none of you wanted to take the 17:05.150 --> 17:08.000 same decision in a month. 17:08.000 --> 17:11.860 Now, let me point something out to you which, of course, 17:11.860 --> 17:16.400 to the rational part of your soul is completely obvious. 17:16.400 --> 17:19.630 These bets are identical. 17:19.630 --> 17:24.860 I offered you $5 on the 15th versus $6 on the 17th. 17:24.860 --> 17:34.200 Or I offered you $5 on the 22nd versus $6 on the 24th. 17:34.200 --> 17:40.280 When it comes to the 22nd of March, oh 22% of you, who gave 17:40.280 --> 17:44.320 different answers in these two cases, you will be in exactly 17:44.320 --> 17:48.450 the same situation with respect to the $5 and $6 that 17:48.450 --> 17:52.940 you are with respect to the $5 and $6 right now. 17:52.940 --> 17:59.090 There's no difference between this choice and this choice. 17:59.090 --> 18:05.920 Nonetheless, it turns out to be consistently the case that 18:05.920 --> 18:12.880 human beings and non-human animals have a tendency to 18:12.880 --> 18:18.430 start acting differently towards delayed rewards when 18:18.430 --> 18:23.190 they are happening in the far future and when they are 18:23.190 --> 18:26.660 happening in the near future. 18:26.660 --> 18:32.500 So for many decades the psychologist, George Ainslie, 18:32.497 --> 18:38.887 has studied decisions that have the following structure. 18:38.890 --> 18:43.210 One has a choice between a smaller reward that one can 18:43.210 --> 18:49.010 get sooner, like the $5 as opposed to the $6, or a larger 18:49.010 --> 18:53.540 reward that one can get later. 18:53.540 --> 18:59.300 And Ainslie has studied this phenomenon in the context of 18:59.300 --> 19:02.370 human and non-human animals. 19:02.370 --> 19:06.210 And I'm going to read aloud a quote to you, which will be up 19:06.210 --> 19:10.750 on the slides on the web site, that gives you a sense of what 19:10.745 --> 19:12.335 this phenomenon amounts to. 19:12.340 --> 19:15.010 Ainslie calls it hyperbolic discounting. 19:15.010 --> 19:20.710 And he says "people often, and lower animals always, discount 19:20.710 --> 19:24.070 the prospect of future rewards in a curve that's more deeply 19:24.070 --> 19:28.420 bowed than a rational, exponential curve." 19:28.420 --> 19:33.050 So it's perfectly rational to discount future rewards if 19:33.050 --> 19:35.280 there's uncertainty involved, right? 19:35.280 --> 19:40.320 If I offered you $5 now or $6 in 20 years, it would make 19:40.320 --> 19:43.440 perfect sense to take the $5 now because your degree of 19:43.440 --> 19:47.370 uncertainty about whether you would get the $6 is 19:47.370 --> 19:49.580 sufficiently great with respect to your degree of 19:49.580 --> 19:52.580 certainty that you would get the $5. 19:52.580 --> 19:56.320 But the difference, I hope, between thinking whether you 19:56.320 --> 19:59.150 and I and this classroom are going to be around this 19:59.150 --> 20:04.570 Thursday, as opposed to three weeks from now on a Thursday, 20:04.570 --> 20:06.880 is trivial. 20:06.880 --> 20:10.480 "Over a range of delays," continues Ainslie, "from 20:10.480 --> 20:14.260 seconds to decades, there are pairs of alternative rewards 20:14.260 --> 20:17.820 such that subjects prefer the smaller, earlier reward over 20:17.820 --> 20:21.370 the larger later alternative when the delay to the smaller 20:21.370 --> 20:23.650 reward will be short." Right? 20:23.650 --> 20:26.470 Those of you who preferred $5 today as 20:26.470 --> 20:28.730 opposed to $6 on Thursday. 20:28.730 --> 20:31.680 "But prefer the larger, later reward when the smaller 20:31.680 --> 20:36.520 alternative will be more delayed." $5 in 35 days versus 20:36.520 --> 20:38.620 $6 in 37 days. 20:38.620 --> 20:41.700 "Even though the time from the earlier to the later reward 20:41.695 --> 20:44.115 stays the same. 20:44.120 --> 20:47.570 The curves that fit the observed data best are 20:47.570 --> 20:48.770 hyperbolic. 20:48.770 --> 20:52.190 That is, they show value as inversely proportional to 20:52.190 --> 20:53.300 delay." 20:53.300 --> 20:59.680 So again, what happens is, that for a period of time, A, 20:59.680 --> 21:03.050 the larger reward is preferred to the smaller one, right? 21:03.050 --> 21:03.780 That's you. 21:03.780 --> 21:05.170 It's in 37 days. 21:05.170 --> 21:06.490 It's in 36 days. 21:06.490 --> 21:07.540 It's in 35 days. 21:07.540 --> 21:09.420 It's in 34 days. 21:09.420 --> 21:14.700 All that time, you prefer the $6 two days later to the $5 21:14.700 --> 21:18.250 now, or to the $5 two days earlier. 21:18.250 --> 21:22.610 And then all of a sudden as the event draws near, the 21:22.610 --> 21:29.690 value of the smaller reward looms larger in your mind. 21:29.690 --> 21:34.590 Decision after decision has this structure. 21:34.590 --> 21:40.120 Suppose you want to train to be a competitive cyclist, or 21:40.120 --> 21:45.120 some sort of athletic endeavor, that's your larger, 21:45.120 --> 21:47.450 later reward. 21:47.446 --> 21:50.396 Suppose that one of the things that's incompatible with your 21:50.400 --> 21:55.490 becoming a competitive cyclist is the eating of Crisco 21:55.490 --> 21:59.160 covered cupcakes. 21:59.160 --> 22:02.240 You're walking along, and at the beginning it's completely 22:02.240 --> 22:05.220 clear to you that what you prefer is to be a cyclist. You 22:05.220 --> 22:08.290 wake up in the morning, you say: "what I'm going to do is 22:08.290 --> 22:09.910 plan for my bicycling. 22:09.910 --> 22:12.960 I'm not going to be distracted by stupid things like Crisco 22:12.960 --> 22:16.050 covered cupcakes." And you walk along and still to you 22:16.045 --> 22:19.225 now, there's your eyes, you see ahh, the reward of the 22:19.230 --> 22:21.630 bicycle is greater than the reward of the cupcake. 22:21.625 --> 22:27.975 And all of a sudden as the cupcake grows nearer, you take 22:27.980 --> 22:32.920 the smaller, sooner reward and the larger, later falls out 22:32.920 --> 22:34.890 from possibility. 22:34.890 --> 22:38.190 Suppose you resolve that tomorrow morning you're going 22:38.190 --> 22:46.190 to get up super early to write your paper for Philosophy 181, 22:46.190 --> 22:47.020 COGSCI 281. 22:47.020 --> 22:51.460 And so you set your alarm, and you have the 22:51.460 --> 22:53.470 ringing of the alarm. 22:53.470 --> 22:56.790 And when you go to bed you set it for 5:30. 22:56.790 --> 23:01.260 You can see that larger later reward is a bigger one. 23:01.260 --> 23:04.780 And it comes to be 5:30 in the morning and the alarm is 23:04.780 --> 23:07.240 ringing, and you turn it off. 23:07.240 --> 23:11.970 And oops, away goes the possibility of the larger, 23:11.970 --> 23:13.740 later reward. 23:13.740 --> 23:17.500 Or suppose you're one of Mischel's subjects in the 23:17.500 --> 23:18.370 marshmallow study. 23:18.370 --> 23:20.770 Here's your larger, later reward: two marshmallows. 23:20.765 --> 23:23.995 Here's your smaller, sooner reward: one marshmallow. 23:24.000 --> 23:27.410 Ask in the abstract, it's pretty clear to you two 23:27.410 --> 23:29.840 marshmallows is definitely better than one 23:29.840 --> 23:32.230 marshmallow until -- 23:32.230 --> 23:32.950 until what? 23:32.950 --> 23:35.650 Until you're sitting in the room with the one marshmallow 23:35.650 --> 23:40.480 and oops, you lost your chance. 23:40.480 --> 23:44.030 So what I want to do in the remainder of the lecture 23:44.025 --> 23:48.155 today, is talk a little bit about the psychological state 23:48.160 --> 23:52.780 of the children involved in Mischel's studies, and then 23:52.780 --> 23:56.650 connect that for you to some more general research on 23:56.650 --> 23:58.090 self-regulation. 23:58.090 --> 24:02.910 And finally connect that to the discussion of principles 24:02.910 --> 24:07.500 that we had in our reading from Nozick today. 24:07.500 --> 24:10.900 So when Walter Mischel began doing these marshmallow 24:10.900 --> 24:16.410 studies roughly 40 years ago, there was a theory in place 24:16.412 --> 24:21.732 that the best way to engage in self-regulation was to think 24:21.730 --> 24:24.780 about the reward that you were going to get if you did the 24:24.780 --> 24:26.310 right thing. 24:26.310 --> 24:29.920 So on that theory, the best way for kids to be able to 24:29.920 --> 24:33.240 resist the one marshmallow in order to get the two 24:33.240 --> 24:37.360 marshmallows would be for the experimenter to make it 24:37.360 --> 24:41.660 incredibly vivid to them that if they waited, they could 24:41.660 --> 24:44.230 have two marshmallows. 24:44.230 --> 24:49.360 So kids were brought into the room in one of two conditions. 24:49.360 --> 24:51.970 In one of the conditions, there was one marshmallow over 24:51.970 --> 24:54.250 here and two marshmallows over there. 24:54.250 --> 24:56.390 The rewards were visible. 24:56.386 --> 24:57.976 The kids came in. 24:57.980 --> 25:03.380 And they lasted, on average, about four minutes before they 25:03.380 --> 25:06.520 reached over and grabbed the single marshmallow, thereby 25:06.520 --> 25:09.310 losing the second. 25:09.310 --> 25:12.650 When the rewards were hidden, however, when the kids 25:12.645 --> 25:15.515 couldn't see the marshmallows and were brought into the room 25:15.520 --> 25:19.310 and told you can either have one marshmallow now, or if you 25:19.310 --> 25:21.660 can wait long enough, you can have two marshmallows. 25:21.660 --> 25:26.710 Kids waited, on average, 12 minutes. 25:26.710 --> 25:32.130 Then Mischel wondered what was driving the capacity of the 25:32.130 --> 25:38.660 children with hidden rewards to sustain their self-control 25:38.660 --> 25:39.970 long enough. 25:39.974 --> 25:43.974 So the second condition he tried was to take the kids who 25:43.970 --> 25:47.240 were in the circumstance where the rewards were hidden, and 25:47.237 --> 25:51.797 tell them to think really hard about the reward, think really 25:51.800 --> 25:54.030 hard about those marshmallows. 25:54.030 --> 25:57.640 The effect of thinking hard about the marshmallows was 25:57.636 --> 26:00.886 that the performance dropped to exactly the level that it 26:00.892 --> 26:03.382 had been in the case of the kids for whom 26:03.380 --> 26:04.370 the reward was visible. 26:04.365 --> 26:09.435 And in fact, thinking about the reward in the visible case 26:09.440 --> 26:11.390 made it no worse. 26:11.390 --> 26:15.560 So the problem was that when you thought about the reward, 26:15.560 --> 26:19.690 it became salient and resistance became difficult. 26:19.690 --> 26:22.370 So, thought Mischel, what if we try it the other way? 26:22.370 --> 26:25.950 What if we take the kids for whom the reward is visible and 26:25.950 --> 26:27.890 ask them to think happy thoughts about 26:27.885 --> 26:28.765 something else, right? 26:28.770 --> 26:31.880 Look around the room, recite the alphabet, tell yourself 26:31.880 --> 26:34.440 the story about the three little pigs, do something to 26:34.440 --> 26:35.430 keep yourself distracted. 26:35.425 --> 26:39.405 And the result was that if the kids thought distracting 26:39.410 --> 26:42.840 thoughts, they acted exactly as the kids in the hidden 26:42.835 --> 26:43.455 rewards situation. 26:43.460 --> 26:47.200 And it made no difference in the hidden situation to think 26:47.200 --> 26:49.250 distracting thoughts. 26:49.250 --> 26:55.250 So the presence of the temptation before your mind is 26:55.250 --> 26:59.380 part of what makes the temptation difficult to 26:59.380 --> 27:03.390 resist. And indeed, Mischel thought 27:03.390 --> 27:06.260 about this more generally. 27:06.260 --> 27:10.310 He presented kids with either a photograph or a real 27:10.310 --> 27:14.620 marshmallow, it didn't matter which, and asked them either 27:14.620 --> 27:18.240 to pretend that it was real or to think about tasting this, 27:18.235 --> 27:22.605 think about how excellent that marshmallow is going to taste. 27:22.610 --> 27:27.330 And the delay which kids were able to impose upon themselves 27:27.330 --> 27:30.340 averaged about six minutes. 27:30.340 --> 27:33.690 Whereas when he had even a real marshmallow before them, 27:33.690 --> 27:36.430 and asked the kids to pretend that it's imaginary or to 27:36.430 --> 27:38.790 think about it abstractly, think about the number of 27:38.790 --> 27:41.770 marshmallows there are, think about the letter that the word 27:41.770 --> 27:48.890 marshmallow starts with, think about the nature of a candy 27:48.890 --> 27:49.880 store and how -- 27:49.880 --> 27:51.000 I mean, these are four-year-olds -- 27:51.000 --> 27:53.020 think about the nature of a candy store and how candy 27:53.020 --> 27:54.900 stores work in an abstract sense. 27:54.900 --> 28:01.370 Kids were able to regulate themselves for 18 minutes. 28:01.370 --> 28:03.840 So what was going on here? 28:03.840 --> 28:08.240 What ties together the cases where we get very short 28:08.240 --> 28:11.360 numbers: kids are only able to last four minutes, then give 28:11.360 --> 28:12.410 in to the temptation. 28:12.410 --> 28:15.610 And what ties together the cases where 28:15.610 --> 28:18.210 we get large numbers? 28:18.210 --> 28:22.370 Mischel's hypothesis, and this fits with the material that we 28:22.370 --> 28:28.280 discussed on January 20th, is that there are two systems of 28:28.280 --> 28:31.020 processing rewards. 28:31.020 --> 28:35.520 There's a hot system which acts on what Plato or 28:35.520 --> 28:39.610 Aristotle would call appetite, or perhaps spirit. 28:39.610 --> 28:42.580 It acts on the basis of passion. 28:42.580 --> 28:46.450 And when we think about things with a vivid, emotional 28:46.450 --> 28:50.980 attraction to them, that system gets activated and 28:50.980 --> 28:57.560 Plato's horses, Aristotle's non-rational parts, system 28:57.560 --> 29:03.920 one, aliefs and all the rest get going. 29:03.920 --> 29:07.400 That's the system that's active when the rewards are 29:07.400 --> 29:09.630 visible and there's no instruction. 29:09.630 --> 29:13.230 When you're thinking vividly about the rewards, the 29:13.233 --> 29:18.903 appetitive parts of soul are brought on line, and 29:18.900 --> 29:23.740 resistance to temptation becomes difficult. 29:23.740 --> 29:29.260 By contrast, when kids are asked to think abstractly or 29:29.260 --> 29:34.190 to pretend that the marshmallow is imaginary, a 29:34.190 --> 29:39.670 cool, rational system--a system that is the one 29:39.670 --> 29:43.970 involved in belief that is Plato's charioteer, that is 29:43.970 --> 29:48.190 the System Two of the dual processing tradition--that is 29:48.190 --> 29:51.900 the belief in the alief-belief tradition--comes on line. 29:51.900 --> 29:56.930 And in the face of this cool processing system, which gives 29:56.930 --> 30:02.460 us a sort of rational distance from what we confront, all of 30:02.460 --> 30:07.700 a sudden self-regulation becomes possible. 30:07.700 --> 30:13.520 So Mischel's studies fit in to a larger framework for 30:13.520 --> 30:17.710 thinking about how to overcome temptation. 30:17.710 --> 30:22.290 One which you'll not be surprised to hear is 30:22.290 --> 30:25.650 articulated, as is almost everything that we're thinking 30:25.650 --> 30:30.010 about in this course, in one of the two great founding 30:30.010 --> 30:33.730 narratives of the Western literary tradition--in this 30:33.730 --> 30:37.270 case, Homer's Odyssey. 30:37.270 --> 30:42.910 Odysseus, pictured here in elegant, white tunic, is 30:42.910 --> 30:46.400 trying to get home from the Trojan War. 30:46.400 --> 30:50.790 He's trying to get back to his wife who is waiting faithfully 30:50.790 --> 30:54.910 for him at home, and it's taking him about 30:54.910 --> 30:57.810 20 years to do so. 30:57.810 --> 31:03.710 And along the way as he tries to go home, he faces all sorts 31:03.710 --> 31:08.820 of temptations which threaten to divert him from his path. 31:08.820 --> 31:12.500 And the temptation that he faces in this picture, 31:12.500 --> 31:16.610 illustrated here in the form of these beautiful flying 31:16.610 --> 31:20.340 women who look, to me, a little bit like dementors from 31:20.340 --> 31:22.390 Harry Potter. 31:22.391 --> 31:25.611 He, however, finds them enormously tempting. 31:25.610 --> 31:30.760 And he's trying to figure out how to get the ship past the 31:30.760 --> 31:35.860 sirens, whose songs threaten to cause the ship to founder 31:35.860 --> 31:39.600 upon the shoal, so that he can get home to Penelope. 31:39.602 --> 31:45.382 And what he comes up with are two different strategies. 31:45.382 --> 31:50.262 The first strategy he applies to his sailors. 31:50.260 --> 31:53.410 You will see that around the ears of each of 31:53.410 --> 31:56.420 them is cotton batting. 31:56.420 --> 32:01.600 He blocks their ears so that the apparent utility of the 32:01.600 --> 32:04.860 sirens is reduced for them. 32:04.860 --> 32:10.080 Unable to hear their song, the sailors are able to continue 32:10.080 --> 32:15.690 rowing the boat past their source of temptation. 32:15.690 --> 32:20.710 What he does to himself, as you can see, is he has 32:20.710 --> 32:28.480 himself, at point A on the Ainslie curve, lashed to the 32:28.480 --> 32:36.810 mast. Because, like Mischel's children and like Ainslie, he 32:36.810 --> 32:43.020 recognizes that when the siren's song is available to 32:43.020 --> 32:47.870 him directly, he will be in that B state where the 32:47.870 --> 32:51.640 smaller, sooner reward--like turning off your alarm clock 32:51.639 --> 32:55.509 or eating that cupcake--looms larger to him. 32:55.510 --> 33:01.930 So what Odysseus does is, he ties himself to the mast. Even 33:01.929 --> 33:07.549 though the temptation of the reward is evident to him, he 33:07.550 --> 33:14.300 has rendered himself unable to act on that temptation. 33:14.300 --> 33:17.540 And there is a tradition, in the contemporary decision 33:17.540 --> 33:22.530 theory literature, to use this metaphor of Ulysses and the 33:22.530 --> 33:25.090 sirens, Odysseus and the sirens depending which 33:25.090 --> 33:28.230 translation you use of the name, to think about 33:28.230 --> 33:31.040 strategies for self-regulation. 33:31.044 --> 33:34.944 And it turns out that it's helpful, I think, to think 33:34.940 --> 33:38.960 about these strategies as falling into three categories. 33:38.960 --> 33:44.040 If you're trying to get past a temptation that has the 33:44.040 --> 33:46.370 structure that we've been looking at in this class, of 33:46.372 --> 33:50.652 smaller, sooner reward that, because of temporal 33:50.650 --> 33:55.760 discounting, looms disproportionately large in 33:55.760 --> 33:59.260 your decision structure. 33:59.260 --> 34:04.920 One way to get around it is by means of external constraints. 34:04.920 --> 34:07.970 You can separate yourself from the ability to act on the 34:07.970 --> 34:08.540 temptation. 34:08.540 --> 34:12.560 You can turn off the Internet on your computer, you can use 34:12.560 --> 34:15.250 one of those cell phone condoms, you can render 34:15.250 --> 34:20.010 yourself unable to act on the basis of that which is going 34:20.010 --> 34:22.220 to distract you from your path. 34:22.220 --> 34:24.940 You can put your alarm clock all the way across the room 34:24.940 --> 34:27.730 you can take the cupcakes out of your house, you can put 34:27.730 --> 34:30.570 your credit card in a glass of water in the freezer. 34:30.570 --> 34:33.390 All of these are ways of separating yourself from the 34:33.390 --> 34:35.550 ability to act on the temptation. 34:35.548 --> 34:39.128 Or you can separate yourself from the appeal of the 34:39.130 --> 34:41.400 temptation in some way. 34:41.400 --> 34:45.480 You can reduce its subjective utility to you by, for 34:45.480 --> 34:51.950 example, blocking your ears so you won't even notice that the 34:51.950 --> 34:54.230 temptation is there. 34:54.230 --> 34:59.190 So that's a way of externalizing responsibility 34:59.190 --> 35:01.640 for decision making in this case. 35:01.642 --> 35:05.932 And it's an extraordinarily effective way of 35:05.930 --> 35:07.580 self-regulating. 35:07.580 --> 35:10.260 You are an agent in the world. 35:10.262 --> 35:12.922 The actions which you're going to perform are 35:12.922 --> 35:14.152 actions on the world. 35:14.150 --> 35:17.710 And separating yourself from the ability to perform those 35:17.710 --> 35:21.250 actions is one way to get around temptation. 35:21.250 --> 35:23.440 A second way to get around temptation, which we've 35:23.440 --> 35:27.240 discussed a lot in the last two classes, is by direct 35:27.240 --> 35:31.350 appeal to the spirited or appetitive parts of your soul. 35:31.345 --> 35:34.065 So you can manipulate incentive 35:34.070 --> 35:36.440 structures for yourself. 35:36.440 --> 35:40.890 You can change the relative utilities 35:40.890 --> 35:42.270 of the various rewards. 35:42.270 --> 35:45.300 You can subject yourself to interpersonal pressures. 35:45.300 --> 35:47.950 Remember we put the smiley faces on your computers so 35:47.950 --> 35:51.170 that the gaze of the eyes of others would help you stick to 35:51.170 --> 35:52.280 your tasks. 35:52.280 --> 35:54.080 Or you can cultivate habits, right? 35:54.080 --> 35:57.750 You can get spirit and appetite into line with reason 35:57.750 --> 36:01.840 by cultivating natural ways of responding to things. 36:01.840 --> 36:05.970 But the third way that you can get around temptations, is the 36:05.970 --> 36:09.600 one which we haven't discussed yet, and that 36:09.600 --> 36:13.140 is by means of reason. 36:13.142 --> 36:18.452 And it is in this light that Nozick discusses the roles 36:18.450 --> 36:22.850 that principles can play in allowing us not to be 36:22.850 --> 36:24.490 incontinent. 36:24.492 --> 36:27.652 So Nozick points out, quite generally, that what 36:27.650 --> 36:32.240 principles do is they group actions by putting them under 36:32.240 --> 36:35.910 a general rubric so that linked actions are viewed or 36:35.910 --> 36:38.610 treated in the same way. 36:38.610 --> 36:45.400 If one takes on as a principle to be a vegetarian, then any 36:45.400 --> 36:50.510 act of eating meat is seen as a violation of that principle. 36:50.510 --> 36:53.910 Even if one thinks there are circumstances where eating 36:53.910 --> 36:57.840 meat might be the right thing to do, all things considered. 36:57.840 --> 37:02.500 What the principle does is to classify that act with other 37:02.500 --> 37:09.310 acts of eating meat so that the actions become symbolic of 37:09.310 --> 37:10.830 one another. 37:10.830 --> 37:15.510 Smoking a single cigarette isn't so bad, but smoking lots 37:15.510 --> 37:16.980 of cigarettes is. 37:16.983 --> 37:21.233 And one thing that a principle can do is to let you have any 37:21.230 --> 37:27.930 one instance stand as an example of all. 37:27.930 --> 37:31.980 Principles, says Nozick, constitute a way of binding 37:31.980 --> 37:35.110 ourselves to the mast, not through external constraints 37:35.110 --> 37:41.160 like ropes, but through internal commitments to 37:41.160 --> 37:44.780 following their mandates. 37:44.781 --> 37:47.631 And he points out that principles are affected in a 37:47.630 --> 37:50.390 wide range of cases. 37:50.390 --> 37:52.860 Intellectually, if you have the idea that there's a 37:52.860 --> 37:56.730 principle that connects one set of facts to another, then 37:56.726 --> 38:00.376 the principle can transmit probability or support. 38:00.380 --> 38:03.920 The old cases came out a particular way. 38:03.920 --> 38:09.160 Every time you observed a certain kind of causation, it 38:09.160 --> 38:11.440 had a particular structure. 38:11.440 --> 38:14.160 You identified a principle, and you're now in a position 38:14.160 --> 38:17.500 to make predictions about new cases. 38:17.496 --> 38:21.196 Interpersonally, they let you appear to 38:21.200 --> 38:23.200 be a reliable person. 38:23.200 --> 38:26.970 Your past actions were of a certain kind, right? 38:26.970 --> 38:31.000 Every time I said I would give you money, I gave you money. 38:31.000 --> 38:34.440 So you can conclude on that basis I have a principle: 38:34.440 --> 38:35.770 repay my debts. 38:35.770 --> 38:38.800 And on that basis, you predict my future actions. 38:38.802 --> 38:43.562 It's in fact, exactly because of that, that I switched all 38:43.560 --> 38:47.190 the written exercises to Thursdays rather than having 38:47.190 --> 38:49.300 extensions on some of them. 38:49.300 --> 38:53.570 My thought was this: suppose I had given extensions on two of 38:53.570 --> 38:56.360 the essays from Tuesday to Thursday? 38:56.360 --> 38:58.260 I'd look unprincipled about the 38:58.260 --> 39:01.050 regulations for this course. 39:01.050 --> 39:03.640 How will I be in a position to enforce the course's 39:03.640 --> 39:06.970 requirements if I appear unprincipled? 39:06.970 --> 39:11.060 Ah, suppose I adopt a new principle, the Thursday due 39:11.060 --> 39:15.740 date, with respect to which I am unwavering? 39:15.740 --> 39:17.960 Introspect a minute. 39:17.960 --> 39:22.860 Strangely, that seems more authoritative than having most 39:22.860 --> 39:26.670 of them due on Tuesdays and some on Thursdays. 39:26.670 --> 39:29.480 Intrapersonally, conceptualizing oneself in 39:29.480 --> 39:33.760 terms of principles gives a kind of narrative continuity 39:33.760 --> 39:35.170 to one's life. 39:35.170 --> 39:40.160 My past self was the kind of person who would never do X. 39:40.160 --> 39:45.080 My past self is the kind of person who always does Y. 39:45.080 --> 39:48.840 Articulating it in terms of a principle lets me connect my 39:48.840 --> 39:51.270 future self to my past self. 39:51.270 --> 39:56.400 It gives me a sense of continuity over time. 39:56.404 --> 40:02.774 And finally, intrapersonally, principles provide ways of 40:02.770 --> 40:05.180 overcoming temptation. 40:05.180 --> 40:09.530 Ooh, every time I see a cupcake I want to eat it, but 40:09.530 --> 40:14.080 if I have a principle that I don't eat dessert after 4:00 40:14.080 --> 40:16.940 pm, then it's easy. 40:16.940 --> 40:19.440 I don't have to make a decision on a 40:19.435 --> 40:21.435 case-by-case basis. 40:21.440 --> 40:23.700 The single act of eating that cupcake once. 40:23.700 --> 40:25.010 Why that once? 40:25.010 --> 40:28.150 Why wouldn't I then do it all the time becomes a way of 40:28.150 --> 40:31.150 committing myself to future actions. 40:31.150 --> 40:34.830 Those of you who practice an instrument know that the 40:34.830 --> 40:40.510 easiest practice schedule is to practice every day. 40:40.510 --> 40:42.780 Because if you practice every day, there's no question of 40:42.780 --> 40:45.640 whether this is one of the days that 40:45.640 --> 40:47.850 you're going to practice. 40:47.850 --> 40:52.520 If you are committed to a certain kind of religious 40:52.520 --> 40:55.750 behavior, or a certain kind of dietary restriction, or a 40:55.750 --> 40:59.590 certain kind of exercise regimen, the easiest way to 40:59.590 --> 41:05.170 implement it is to say always, with respect to this domain, 41:05.170 --> 41:08.140 will I behave in those ways. 41:08.140 --> 41:11.730 And, in fact, Nozick suggests that this is exactly the way 41:11.730 --> 41:15.330 to use principles to get past the Ainslie curve. 41:15.330 --> 41:18.040 The mark of a principle, he says, is that it ties the 41:18.040 --> 41:22.170 decision whether to do an immediate particular act to a 41:22.170 --> 41:23.480 whole class of actions of which the 41:23.480 --> 41:25.370 principle makes it part. 41:25.370 --> 41:29.790 The act now stands for the whole class. 41:29.790 --> 41:32.840 I discovered that I'm overusing a particular kind of 41:32.840 --> 41:36.180 relaxational substance on weekends. 41:36.180 --> 41:40.080 And the most straightforward way for me deal with that 41:40.080 --> 41:43.260 situation is to put a categorical 41:43.260 --> 41:46.890 restriction on my behavior. 41:46.890 --> 41:51.180 Moreover, points out Nozick, I can make use of a really 41:51.180 --> 41:55.330 interesting irrationality about myself to fight 41:55.330 --> 41:58.540 irrationality with irrationality. 41:58.540 --> 42:02.280 Remember, I pointed out to you a few lectures ago, that 42:02.280 --> 42:05.900 people who lose a $10 bill on the way to the theater are 42:05.900 --> 42:08.320 happy to buy a new ticket when they get there. 42:08.320 --> 42:11.040 But people who lost a $10 ticket on the way to the 42:11.040 --> 42:14.090 theatre are unhappy to do so. 42:14.090 --> 42:17.810 That's an instance of a general phenomenon known as 42:17.810 --> 42:20.300 sunk costs, that when we've invested a lot of effort in 42:20.300 --> 42:25.280 something, we're reluctant to stop acting on its basis, even 42:25.280 --> 42:27.890 if right then we don't prefer to do it anymore. 42:27.887 --> 42:32.387 And so Nozick suggests that if during A, that period leading 42:32.390 --> 42:35.280 up to the Ainslie curve, we invest many resources in the 42:35.280 --> 42:38.650 future in pursuit of the larger reward, the fact that 42:38.652 --> 42:42.412 we tend not to ignore sunk costs provides us with a way 42:42.410 --> 42:45.610 to get past the temptation during the period, B, to 42:45.610 --> 42:48.000 choose the smaller, sooner. 42:47.996 --> 42:52.186 If I decide I want to go to six plays a year and I buy six 42:52.190 --> 42:55.790 tickets, then even if it's raining on one of the nights 42:55.790 --> 42:59.900 that I was supposed to go, my tendency towards sunk costs 42:59.900 --> 43:02.560 will help me act on my action. 43:02.560 --> 43:04.270 All right, last two minutes. 43:04.270 --> 43:06.060 Let me connect this to what we've done 43:06.060 --> 43:07.810 and where we're going. 43:07.810 --> 43:10.410 This, as you know, is the last lecture in the first unit of 43:10.410 --> 43:10.950 the course. 43:10.950 --> 43:15.040 We began this unit by reading Dan Ariely's Predictably 43:15.040 --> 43:18.510 Irrational popular chapter--and we ended this 43:18.510 --> 43:21.680 unit by reading Ariely's Predictably Irrational popular 43:21.680 --> 43:24.060 chapter on procrastination. 43:24.060 --> 43:28.940 But, unlike your experience on January 11th, you now have a 43:28.940 --> 43:33.360 philosophical framework in which to place his discussion. 43:33.360 --> 43:37.280 Unlike on January 11th, you now have a psychological 43:37.280 --> 43:39.640 framework in which to place his discussion. 43:39.640 --> 43:42.620 You've read Haidt, you've read Batson, you've read the dual 43:42.620 --> 43:45.000 processing work, you've read Milgram, and Shay, and 43:45.000 --> 43:46.180 Stockdale and Kazdin. 43:46.180 --> 43:49.010 And you've read his own scientific presentation of the 43:49.006 --> 43:53.466 case, and you've thought about the connections between them. 43:53.470 --> 43:55.500 What comes next? 43:55.500 --> 43:59.260 What comes next is a chance, in your 5th and 6th directed 43:59.260 --> 44:04.190 exercises, to address three psychology articles which you, 44:04.190 --> 44:07.230 yourself, are going to choose and summarize, and then come 44:07.230 --> 44:10.120 up with an experiment on the basis of. 44:10.120 --> 44:13.710 What comes next is a chance to think about the philosophical 44:13.710 --> 44:17.400 framework by writing your first and second essays. 44:17.400 --> 44:20.230 And what comes at the end of the course, and I'll preview 44:20.230 --> 44:23.860 it now, is a chance to think about the connections between 44:23.860 --> 44:27.820 them in the context of your final directed exercise. 44:27.820 --> 44:32.490 Which is going to be to design a week of the course yourself 44:32.490 --> 44:36.590 in which you choose texts that you think multiply 44:36.590 --> 44:39.040 illuminate the topic. 44:39.040 --> 44:43.690 So next lecture we'll move on to our discussion of morality. 44:43.692 --> 44:46.662 And I'll connect it back to some of the issues we've been 44:46.660 --> 44:48.220 talking about so far. 44:48.220 --> 44:51.680 And I look forward to seeing you on Thursday, and 44:51.680 --> 44:55.470 especially to giving away the $6 to the very rational 44:55.470 --> 44:57.990 student who was lucky enough to earn it.