WEBVTT 00:00.600 --> 00:01.230 PROFESSOR: OK. 00:01.230 --> 00:06.840 So today's lecture is devoted, in some sense, to this tying 00:06.840 --> 00:09.130 up of loose ends. 00:09.130 --> 00:14.820 I have from you, 29 single-spaced pages worth of 00:14.820 --> 00:19.120 questions, which you asked in your directed exercise nine. 00:19.120 --> 00:22.250 And I'm going to answer all of them in detail. 00:22.250 --> 00:25.540 Actually I'm not going to answer all of them in detail. 00:25.540 --> 00:29.080 I'm going to try to pick out some of the ones that I think 00:29.080 --> 00:32.750 will be of general interest and welcome those of you whose 00:32.750 --> 00:37.670 questions aren't answered to come by during office hours. 00:37.670 --> 00:42.500 So one way to think about what we do when we encounter an 00:42.500 --> 00:46.480 article in this class is thinking about what you do 00:46.480 --> 00:51.900 when you encounter a building for the first time-- say, the 00:51.900 --> 00:52.580 Eiffel Tower-- 00:52.580 --> 00:56.970 and are given guidance about how to make 00:56.970 --> 00:59.510 sense of that building. 00:59.510 --> 01:02.770 So one of the things that I've tried to do for each of the 01:02.770 --> 01:06.470 articles or books that we've read is just to give you a 01:06.470 --> 01:09.410 sense of its general shape. 01:09.410 --> 01:13.150 To give you a sense of what's distinctive about it, to give 01:13.150 --> 01:17.680 you a sense of how it's structured internally and how 01:17.680 --> 01:22.000 that internal structure determines what it is that 01:22.000 --> 01:25.010 we're able to do with that article and what it is that 01:25.010 --> 01:27.950 that article is able to illuminate. 01:27.950 --> 01:32.580 But I've tried, in certain cases, to give you a sense of 01:32.580 --> 01:37.960 the neighborhood in which that article can be found, just as 01:37.960 --> 01:41.220 in talking about the Eiffel Tower, I might show you where 01:41.220 --> 01:43.350 in Paris it's located. 01:43.350 --> 01:47.640 Or I might try to give you a sense of how that article 01:47.640 --> 01:50.550 relates to other approaches of the same kind -- 01:50.550 --> 01:53.180 how the Eiffel Tower relates to other 01:53.180 --> 01:56.540 iconic monumental buildings. 01:56.540 --> 01:59.860 The question of the relation between the individual 01:59.860 --> 02:04.100 articles that we read for today and the larger framework 02:04.100 --> 02:07.000 is primarily something that I'll discuss 02:07.000 --> 02:09.320 in Thursday's lecture. 02:09.320 --> 02:13.450 Though I'll get at some of it in comparing and contrasting 02:13.450 --> 02:15.900 the political philosophy views today. 02:15.900 --> 02:21.630 What I want to do a bit more of today is to look at some of 02:21.630 --> 02:25.570 the details of some of the arguments and articles and 02:25.570 --> 02:29.250 writings that we've considered in the way that we might look 02:29.250 --> 02:34.810 at part of a building and ask how it's structured there, 02:34.810 --> 02:38.770 recognizing that in so doing, there's lots of other parts of 02:38.770 --> 02:42.870 the building to which we don't pay attention. 02:42.870 --> 02:47.370 Or we might want to ask, with respect to what sort of 02:47.370 --> 02:50.600 problem is the building constructed? 02:50.600 --> 02:53.870 Here are the plans for the Eiffel Tower. 02:53.870 --> 02:59.160 So the goal in today's lecture is, with regard to a number of 02:59.160 --> 03:02.790 the questions that you raised in your directed exercise 03:02.790 --> 03:05.890 nine, to look at some of the details of some of the 03:05.890 --> 03:11.180 arguments and, to a smaller extent, to put those in a 03:11.180 --> 03:12.750 larger framework. 03:12.750 --> 03:17.270 Now in so doing, it's important for me to 03:17.270 --> 03:19.510 acknowledge that there are a tremendous number of 03:19.510 --> 03:23.190 interesting questions that you asked that I'm not even going 03:23.190 --> 03:25.540 to come close to answering. 03:25.540 --> 03:29.120 There were a large number of very interesting questions 03:29.120 --> 03:32.740 about the connections between the political philosophy of 03:32.740 --> 03:37.190 Rawls and Nozick, for example, and the U.S. Constitution. 03:37.190 --> 03:40.120 I'm not going to have anything to say about that. 03:40.120 --> 03:43.760 There were questions asked about the childhoods of the 03:43.760 --> 03:46.180 various authors that we read and how that might have 03:46.180 --> 03:47.590 affected their views. 03:47.590 --> 03:49.920 I'm not going to have much to say about that. 03:49.920 --> 03:52.620 And perhaps my favorite question: I was asked, if I 03:52.620 --> 03:55.830 could have coffee at Blue State with any one of the 03:55.830 --> 03:59.790 authors that we had read this semester, who would I choose? 03:59.790 --> 04:02.700 And I guess I wouldn't choose Robert Nozick because he 04:02.700 --> 04:04.480 wouldn't want to go to Blue State. 04:04.480 --> 04:07.650 But beyond that it's hard to know how 04:07.650 --> 04:09.750 to answer that question. 04:09.750 --> 04:16.510 So what I'm going to do today is basically in three parts. 04:16.510 --> 04:20.860 The first large part of the lecture, I'm going to go over 04:20.860 --> 04:24.900 in some detail a leftover item from our 04:24.900 --> 04:27.240 lecture two classes ago. 04:27.240 --> 04:31.030 That is, say a little bit about Cass Sunstein on norms. 04:31.030 --> 04:35.580 And I'm going to use that as a way of segueing into certain 04:35.580 --> 04:39.970 puzzles that we face about heuristics and the question of 04:39.970 --> 04:44.180 how those fit into the dual processing tradition. 04:44.180 --> 04:47.920 But that will also be a major focus of Thursday's lecture. 04:47.920 --> 04:50.590 So please don't be disappointed if I don't get to 04:50.590 --> 04:52.300 your question in that section. 04:52.300 --> 04:56.640 And then I'll close that section by identifying for 04:56.640 --> 04:59.690 you, a cluster of courses that you might be interested in 04:59.690 --> 05:03.370 taking if that was the part of this class that interested you 05:03.370 --> 05:04.100 most. 05:04.100 --> 05:06.500 I'll then have some things to say about the political 05:06.500 --> 05:08.330 philosophy section of the course. 05:08.330 --> 05:11.910 And I'll close today's lecture with the moral philosophy 05:11.910 --> 05:16.210 section of the course, each time indicating places to go 05:16.210 --> 05:20.470 next if you were particularly moved by some of the readings 05:20.470 --> 05:21.980 that we did. 05:21.980 --> 05:28.080 So let's start with a somewhat detailed introduction to what 05:28.080 --> 05:34.030 it is that Cass Sunstein said in the 1996 article that we 05:34.030 --> 05:38.500 read for last Tuesday's class. 05:38.500 --> 05:43.470 What Sunstein is attempting to do in that piece is to 05:43.470 --> 05:49.150 identify the ways in which our attitudes towards certain 05:49.150 --> 05:54.230 kinds of behaviors on our part and the part of others towards 05:54.230 --> 05:57.430 certain sorts of decisions on our part and the part of 05:57.430 --> 06:03.800 others are affected by what he calls, drawing from a large 06:03.800 --> 06:08.110 body of sociological literature, social norms. 06:08.110 --> 06:12.710 Social norms are basically social attitudes of approval 06:12.710 --> 06:18.040 and disapproval that specify, through the kinds of tacit 06:18.040 --> 06:24.130 mechanisms that human beings as social primates have for 06:24.130 --> 06:27.990 expressing disapproval and approval of 06:27.990 --> 06:31.720 one's and other's actions. 06:31.720 --> 06:36.000 That is, social attitudes of approval and disapproval 06:36.000 --> 06:39.070 specifying what ought to be done and what 06:39.070 --> 06:41.110 ought not to be done. 06:41.110 --> 06:45.820 Subtle things like nuanced facial expressions, 06:45.820 --> 06:50.880 approaches, avoidances, all of the social cues to which we 06:50.880 --> 06:55.150 are extraordinarily sensitive in infancy, to which we are 06:55.150 --> 07:00.200 extraordinarily sensitive in our early years, to which we 07:00.202 --> 07:05.522 are absolutely, exquisitely sensitive in middle school and 07:05.520 --> 07:06.750 high school. 07:06.750 --> 07:11.680 And to which we continue to be sensitive throughout our life. 07:11.680 --> 07:15.870 What Sunstein points out is that social norms determine 07:15.870 --> 07:16.930 social meanings. 07:16.930 --> 07:20.420 That is, they determine the attitudes and commitments that 07:20.420 --> 07:24.750 a particular type of conduct signals. 07:24.750 --> 07:30.860 So, he points out, if you fasten your seatbelt in a 07:30.860 --> 07:38.270 country where seatbelt use is not the norm then you express 07:38.270 --> 07:46.330 in so doing implicit criticism of the ability of your driver 07:46.330 --> 07:50.320 to navigate the car effectively on the highway. 07:50.320 --> 07:54.540 Fastening your seatbelt is an insult. 07:54.539 --> 07:59.249 When my family and I rent cars in Eastern Europe, where my 07:59.250 --> 08:03.270 husband is from, rental cars typically come, if you don't 08:03.270 --> 08:08.840 rent them from a major agency, with a small metal plate that 08:08.840 --> 08:12.670 you can slide into the seatbelt lock without having a 08:12.670 --> 08:16.250 seatbelt attached to it so that the annoying beeping 08:16.250 --> 08:19.230 sound goes off and you don't have to wear 08:19.230 --> 08:22.640 your insulting seatbelt. 08:22.640 --> 08:28.300 Whereas in nations where seatbelt use is the norm, 08:28.300 --> 08:33.690 where seatbelt use is in fact the law, the failure to fasten 08:33.690 --> 08:39.330 your seatbelt is an expression of disrespect. 08:39.330 --> 08:43.590 When I was growing up my family, to my great 08:43.590 --> 08:48.650 embarrassment, separated its vegetable scraps from its 08:48.650 --> 08:51.600 paper scraps and put them in the backyard 08:51.600 --> 08:54.910 into a compost heap. 08:54.910 --> 09:00.250 The social meaning of a compost heap in the 1970s in 09:00.250 --> 09:07.460 suburban Massachusetts was one of non-normativity. 09:07.460 --> 09:13.880 It was one of an expression, perhaps, that we were more 09:13.880 --> 09:17.770 socially conscious than our neighbors, perhaps thought we 09:17.770 --> 09:19.890 were better than our neighbors. 09:19.890 --> 09:25.320 But whatever it was it wasn't a way of fitting in. 09:25.320 --> 09:29.750 It is now the case in large portions of America that a 09:29.750 --> 09:34.460 compost heap or the carrying of a recyclable bag or the 09:34.460 --> 09:39.170 replacement of your light bulb with a full-spectrum long-term 09:39.170 --> 09:44.370 bulb simply expresses respect for the environment rather 09:44.370 --> 09:47.810 than an outlier attitude. 09:47.810 --> 09:51.300 My Hungarian nephew, when he came to visit us this summer, 09:51.300 --> 09:57.640 wore what he thought to be very stylish Iron Maiden 09:57.640 --> 10:03.110 t-shirts, which in Budapest were in expression of cool. 10:03.110 --> 10:09.170 In our suburban Connecticut environment, his actions were 10:09.170 --> 10:14.230 often misperceived as rebellious because of the 10:14.230 --> 10:18.780 social signals that his clothing sent. 10:18.780 --> 10:23.420 So the reason that I had you read the Sunstein article in 10:23.420 --> 10:27.670 the context of our political philosophy discussion was to 10:27.670 --> 10:35.030 point out to you how many more layers of complexity there are 10:35.030 --> 10:39.950 when we start thinking about what kind of social structures 10:39.950 --> 10:42.920 are legitimate. 10:42.920 --> 10:47.250 There was, in addition, a very particular question about the 10:47.250 --> 10:51.180 Sunstein article, which was raised in the context of our 10:51.180 --> 10:55.930 feedback page, about which I want to say a small bit by way 10:55.930 --> 10:57.730 of transition. 10:57.730 --> 11:02.120 So one of the students asked whether I could characterize 11:02.120 --> 11:05.890 Sunstein's somewhat complicated argument about 11:05.890 --> 11:09.390 willingness to pay and willingness to allow. 11:09.390 --> 11:11.640 So what we're doing now is we're looking at a very 11:11.640 --> 11:16.440 particular girder of a very particular argument. 11:16.440 --> 11:21.760 So Sunstein in that article, you may recall, introduces a 11:21.760 --> 11:26.480 discussion of what's known as the endowment effect, which is 11:26.480 --> 11:31.730 basically the tendency of human beings to demand more to 11:31.730 --> 11:36.510 give up an owned object then they would be prepared to pay 11:36.510 --> 11:39.720 to acquire that object. 11:39.720 --> 11:44.120 And the term for how much it is that somebody's willing to 11:44.120 --> 11:51.300 sell something for is WTA, willingness to accept payment, 11:51.300 --> 11:54.040 whereas the term for that which somebody's willing to 11:54.040 --> 12:00.400 pay for an object is WTP, or willingness to pay. 12:00.400 --> 12:08.290 It turns out that if I have a beautiful Yale mug, which I 12:08.290 --> 12:16.090 seek to sell to you, that our assessments of its value will 12:16.090 --> 12:18.720 very often differ. 12:18.720 --> 12:22.990 I may well say that I won't part with my beautiful mug for 12:22.990 --> 12:25.350 anything less than $10. 12:25.350 --> 12:29.610 Whereas you say, "I wouldn't buy your crappy old mug for 12:29.610 --> 12:34.610 anything more than $5." Even if, when we alter the 12:34.610 --> 12:38.610 situation and you have the mug and I don't, our 12:38.610 --> 12:41.800 responses are inverted. 12:41.800 --> 12:45.320 I wouldn't buy your crappy old mug for anything more than $5 12:45.320 --> 12:48.950 and you wouldn't part with it for anything less than $10. 12:48.950 --> 12:54.830 Now Sunstein, 15 years ago in this article, hypothesizes 12:54.830 --> 13:00.440 that what explains this effect is primarily something about 13:00.440 --> 13:06.520 social norms. It looks like, at least to some extent, that 13:06.520 --> 13:08.850 he was wrong about that. 13:08.850 --> 13:12.350 At least that he was wrong that social norms fully 13:12.350 --> 13:14.670 explain the phenomena. 13:14.670 --> 13:18.810 Because research done in Laurie Santos lab at this very 13:18.810 --> 13:24.380 university in the last five years seems to suggest that 13:24.380 --> 13:28.490 something akin to the endowment effect can be found 13:28.490 --> 13:31.660 even in Capuchin monkeys. 13:31.660 --> 13:38.380 A tendency to value more that which is yours than that which 13:38.380 --> 13:43.650 is not, even when the objects are identical. 13:43.650 --> 13:49.590 That said, there is still reason to think that Sunstein 13:49.590 --> 13:54.950 is on to something when he argues that the willingness to 13:54.950 --> 14:00.680 pay, willingness to allow distinction, in some ways is 14:00.680 --> 14:04.720 tracking something about social meaning. 14:04.720 --> 14:10.460 So he points out that in a series of studies done in the 14:10.460 --> 14:16.570 context of behavioral economics with WEIRD subjects 14:16.570 --> 14:21.660 near the University of Chicago, for at least Western, 14:21.660 --> 14:26.850 educated, industrialized, rich, democratic, adults, it 14:26.850 --> 14:32.240 looks like this asymmetry is rather profound. 14:32.240 --> 14:36.150 So he described this study, the details of which I had 14:36.150 --> 14:40.760 thought I would go through but I won't, in which what you see 14:40.760 --> 14:46.550 is a rather radical asymmetry in subject's willingness to 14:46.550 --> 14:51.730 either acquire an object from another or part with an object 14:51.730 --> 14:54.200 that they own. 14:54.200 --> 14:58.050 Sunstein's response to these sorts of cases is to suggest 14:58.050 --> 15:01.470 that the difference here has a lot to do with social norms 15:01.470 --> 15:03.270 and meanings. 15:03.270 --> 15:08.730 So that being willing to, for example accept a certain 15:08.730 --> 15:14.730 amount of money to allow the extinction of a species has a 15:14.730 --> 15:18.460 very different social meaning than-- 15:18.460 --> 15:21.860 what you might think of as structurally the same-- 15:21.860 --> 15:26.710 accepting, or being willing to pay a certain amount of money 15:26.710 --> 15:30.570 to prevent the extinction of the species. 15:30.570 --> 15:36.450 Whether you consider the state of the world where the species 15:36.450 --> 15:40.980 is extinct or whether you consider the state of the 15:40.980 --> 15:45.340 world where the species is present and it's your job to 15:45.340 --> 15:50.840 save it, to be the baseline, turns out to affect people's 15:50.840 --> 15:52.890 evaluation of it. 15:52.890 --> 15:57.120 And Sunstein suggests in the article, more generally, that 15:57.120 --> 16:01.430 numerous of our actions, numerous of our decisions, are 16:01.430 --> 16:05.180 driven at least in part by internal and 16:05.180 --> 16:08.090 external social meaning. 16:08.086 --> 16:13.026 And that, as a consequence, an effective mechanism for 16:13.030 --> 16:17.970 influencing actions and decisions is to influence the 16:17.970 --> 16:21.320 social meanings of those actions and decisions. 16:21.320 --> 16:27.940 So that, he suggests, it turns out to be an inevitable role 16:27.944 --> 16:37.214 of government to regulate behavior by the affirmation or 16:37.210 --> 16:40.670 introduction or disavowal of certain 16:40.670 --> 16:43.560 kinds of social meaning. 16:43.560 --> 16:48.660 And we address the issue of this sort of indirect 16:48.660 --> 16:53.240 non-rational control of behavior in the context of our 16:53.240 --> 16:56.880 discussion of Plato on censorship. 16:56.880 --> 17:00.590 Now this distinction between willingness to pay and 17:00.590 --> 17:04.090 willingness to allow, the details of which we're now 17:04.090 --> 17:09.670 going to set aside, can be used to think about one of the 17:09.670 --> 17:13.320 examples, which we talked about in many lectures and 17:13.320 --> 17:16.660 which we'll talk about again on Thursday. 17:16.660 --> 17:22.410 Namely, the fact that there is an undeniable tendency of 17:22.410 --> 17:28.860 people, this class included, to respond differently to the 17:28.860 --> 17:33.220 classic trolley case, where one diverts a trolley from a 17:33.222 --> 17:36.812 track where it's about to hit five onto a track where it's 17:36.810 --> 17:42.390 about to hit one, and trolley cases involving pushing 17:42.390 --> 17:45.700 someone off a bridge. 17:45.700 --> 17:52.650 So whereas the first one among you produced only 15% of you 17:52.650 --> 17:56.830 saying that it was prohibited to turn the trolley, the 17:56.830 --> 17:59.840 second case, the one where you're asked to push the fat 17:59.840 --> 18:05.050 man off the bridge, thereby killing one and saving five, 18:05.050 --> 18:10.770 produced among you a 78% conclusion 18:10.770 --> 18:14.420 that the act was forbidden. 18:14.420 --> 18:19.930 Next lecture we'll talk a lot about how to reconcile 18:19.930 --> 18:24.180 intuitions about particular cases with more general 18:24.180 --> 18:26.280 principled commitment. 18:26.280 --> 18:31.160 But what I want to do now is just, by way of answering a 18:31.160 --> 18:36.070 couple of questions, point out to you three different ways 18:36.070 --> 18:38.780 that one might respond to what's 18:38.780 --> 18:42.680 going on in this asymmetry. 18:42.680 --> 18:48.480 One might, making use of the vocabulary that Sunstein just 18:48.480 --> 18:53.920 introduced, say that what's going on in the case of fat 18:53.920 --> 19:00.060 man is a case where one's being asked to accept a cost. 19:00.060 --> 19:05.200 Accept the cost of having one die in order to save five. 19:05.200 --> 19:10.220 Whereas what's going on in the case of the switch is that 19:10.220 --> 19:13.850 one's being asked to pay a cost -- something that wasn't 19:13.850 --> 19:16.860 part of the calculus to begin with -- 19:16.860 --> 19:20.900 pay a cost of having one die to save five. 19:20.900 --> 19:27.410 And we know as a matter of general theory, 19:27.410 --> 19:28.960 that the way human-- 19:28.960 --> 19:30.840 and perhaps even non-human -- 19:30.840 --> 19:41.270 primate accounting works, that that the cost of accepting 19:41.270 --> 19:46.880 something feels higher to us than the cost of paying. 19:46.880 --> 19:52.530 So perhaps what's going on in the trolley cases is that we 19:52.530 --> 19:57.320 are assimilating them, by means of a heuristic mechanism 19:57.320 --> 20:02.700 that we often use, to a familiar kind of reasoning 20:02.700 --> 20:08.180 process, one that may or may not be tracking our moral 20:08.180 --> 20:10.090 commitments. 20:10.090 --> 20:14.410 Or perhaps as the cases were originally suggested to show, 20:14.410 --> 20:18.650 what we're tracking here in our different responses is a 20:18.645 --> 20:25.055 deep and profound morally real distinction between violating 20:25.060 --> 20:31.590 rights and considering utility, where in cases that 20:31.590 --> 20:36.910 violating rights comes into play, letting one die or 20:36.910 --> 20:41.450 killing one in order to save five is morally wrong. 20:41.450 --> 20:46.090 Whereas in cases where rights don't come into play, letting 20:46.090 --> 20:51.830 one die or killing one to save five is morally acceptable. 20:51.830 --> 20:57.280 Or perhaps what's going on in this case is, as Josh Greene 20:57.280 --> 21:01.240 suggests on the basis of his neuroimaging work, that in one 21:01.240 --> 21:05.390 of the cases we're responding emotionally and in the other 21:05.390 --> 21:10.250 case we're responding rationally. 21:10.250 --> 21:16.000 What the first and the third, but not the second, response 21:16.000 --> 21:17.470 have in common -- 21:17.470 --> 21:21.380 that is, what the two responses that suggest we 21:21.380 --> 21:26.440 should take as differentially informative our responses to 21:26.440 --> 21:30.360 the fat man case and our responses to the bystander 21:30.360 --> 21:32.600 case suggest -- 21:32.600 --> 21:37.510 is that in thinking about these cases we are thinking 21:37.510 --> 21:42.810 about one of them primarily with one mode of thought and 21:42.810 --> 21:48.380 the other primarily with another mode of thought. 21:48.380 --> 21:54.500 And throughout the course, we have been introduced to the 21:54.500 --> 22:00.880 fact that in every intellectual tradition there 22:00.880 --> 22:07.410 has been a suggestion that human understanding of the 22:07.410 --> 22:12.990 world proceeds in multiple ways. 22:12.990 --> 22:18.420 The contemporary scientific vernacular of this makes use 22:18.420 --> 22:22.050 of the notion of dual processing. 22:22.050 --> 22:25.650 It suggests that there are two systems: System 22:25.650 --> 22:28.830 one and system two. 22:28.830 --> 22:32.810 Where system one is evolutionarily primitive and 22:32.810 --> 22:37.250 shared with non-human animals, whereas system two is 22:37.250 --> 22:42.010 evolutionarily recent and shared, if with any animals at 22:42.010 --> 22:47.350 all, only with those closest to us in the 22:47.350 --> 22:49.750 evolutionary tree. 22:49.750 --> 22:53.560 System one is unconscious or preconscious whereas system 22:53.560 --> 22:55.680 two is conscious. 22:55.680 --> 22:58.520 System one is automatic whereas system two is 22:58.520 --> 22:59.660 controlled. 22:59.660 --> 23:01.430 System one is effortless whereas 23:01.430 --> 23:03.790 system two is effortful. 23:03.790 --> 23:07.210 System one is fast whereas system two is slow. 23:07.210 --> 23:11.690 System one is associative whereas system two is 23:11.690 --> 23:13.410 rule-based. 23:13.410 --> 23:16.740 Now one of the things that we've done throughout the 23:16.740 --> 23:24.720 course is to look at various ways of getting at the 23:24.720 --> 23:29.740 distinction that this particular version gets at 23:29.740 --> 23:35.690 without trying to decide which of these frameworks is the one 23:35.690 --> 23:38.610 that's most useful in all contexts. 23:38.610 --> 23:42.750 But rather, by recognizing that in certain domains it may 23:42.750 --> 23:47.260 be useful to speak, as Plato does, of spirit and appetite 23:47.260 --> 23:51.350 pulling in one direction and reason pulling in another. 23:51.350 --> 23:56.010 That it might be useful in some contexts to speak as I do 23:56.010 --> 24:01.480 of alief causing certain kinds of nonreflective behaviors 24:01.480 --> 24:06.050 while belief causes certain kinds of reflective ones. 24:06.050 --> 24:10.070 That it might be useful in some contexts to speak of 24:10.070 --> 24:15.000 heuristics as causing us to respond in one sort of way and 24:15.000 --> 24:16.140 full cognition-- 24:16.140 --> 24:17.000 or reflection -- 24:17.000 --> 24:21.180 in causing us to respond in another. 24:21.180 --> 24:25.010 But it's important to know that in picking out those 24:25.010 --> 24:29.840 three particular ways that we looked at this overarching 24:29.840 --> 24:36.400 distinction, that we neglected to look at the many, many 24:36.400 --> 24:40.340 other sorts of dual processing accounts. 24:40.340 --> 24:45.020 Here are 15 or so taken from the Evans article that we read 24:45.020 --> 24:46.640 in mid-January. 24:46.640 --> 24:51.800 And that for the purposes of our discussion in this course, 24:51.800 --> 24:57.830 the similarities among these views are more relevant than 24:57.830 --> 24:59.980 the differences. 24:59.980 --> 25:06.950 If however, you are intrigued by the set of questions, which 25:06.950 --> 25:12.180 I've just quickly run through, there are numerous 25:12.180 --> 25:15.670 places to go next. 25:15.670 --> 25:20.900 Most of the courses offered by the cognitive science program 25:20.900 --> 25:25.400 look at the sorts of issues that I've just been 25:25.400 --> 25:26.870 discussing. 25:26.870 --> 25:30.940 How is human reasoning affected by structural 25:30.940 --> 25:33.620 features of the brain? 25:33.620 --> 25:37.700 To what extent can we systematize the sorts of 25:37.700 --> 25:41.440 errors that human beings seem to make in reasoning? 25:41.440 --> 25:45.390 To what extent are those sorts of errors-- or 25:45.390 --> 25:47.160 what we call errors-- 25:47.160 --> 25:52.490 actually effective means for navigating various sorts of 25:52.490 --> 25:54.230 environments? 25:54.230 --> 25:56.720 You can also look at these sorts of questions in the 25:56.720 --> 26:00.090 context of social psychology, cognitive psychology, 26:00.090 --> 26:03.580 developmental psychology, and there will be numerous courses 26:03.580 --> 26:07.460 offered in psychology next year that will go in much more 26:07.460 --> 26:11.310 depth into the questions that I've just been mentioning. 26:11.310 --> 26:14.350 The School of Management offers courses in behavioral 26:14.350 --> 26:18.400 economics, which are open to undergraduates who have the 26:18.400 --> 26:19.870 requisite background. 26:19.870 --> 26:24.750 And in the context of the philosophy department, there 26:24.750 --> 26:30.350 are historical courses that look seriously and in depth at 26:30.350 --> 26:31.520 Plato alone. 26:31.520 --> 26:35.050 Indeed there's a course this semester that just reads 26:35.050 --> 26:36.990 Plato's Republic. 26:36.990 --> 26:39.260 There are courses that at Aristotle 26:39.260 --> 26:40.690 or Aristotle's ethics. 26:40.690 --> 26:45.440 Courses that look at each of the authors that we've been 26:45.440 --> 26:46.860 considering. 26:46.860 --> 26:49.780 So intrigued by what we've just talked about, 26:49.780 --> 26:54.130 many places to go. 26:54.130 --> 26:58.330 Second big cluster of topics that I want to address 26:58.330 --> 27:00.840 questions with regard to. 27:00.840 --> 27:02.120 I was asked-- 27:02.120 --> 27:04.970 perhaps because they came so recently-- 27:04.970 --> 27:10.130 by almost a third of the questions, to discuss again 27:10.130 --> 27:14.510 the relation between Nozick and Rawls and to say 27:14.510 --> 27:19.560 something, perhaps, about how that fits together with Hobbes 27:19.560 --> 27:21.980 and the social contract theory. 27:21.980 --> 27:27.110 So borrowing from my colleague Thomas Pogge, here's a helpful 27:27.110 --> 27:30.490 way for thinking about the difference among 27:30.490 --> 27:31.860 the three of them. 27:31.860 --> 27:35.450 And I'll give you first an overview of the difference and 27:35.450 --> 27:41.500 then try to present you with a systematic explanation of just 27:41.500 --> 27:47.110 where Hobbes, Rawls and Nozick are similar and different. 27:47.110 --> 27:52.660 So all three of them are working in what is known as 27:52.660 --> 27:55.360 the social contract tradition. 27:55.360 --> 28:00.670 All three of them are making the contention that it is in a 28:00.670 --> 28:05.470 certain kind of interest on the part of human beings to 28:05.470 --> 28:11.960 contract into a certain sort of social structure even if in 28:11.960 --> 28:18.430 so doing they give up some of their freedom. 28:18.430 --> 28:25.540 Hobbes argues that it is of prudential utility for us to 28:25.540 --> 28:29.190 engage in a social contract. 28:29.190 --> 28:36.260 We are better off than we would have been had we not 28:36.260 --> 28:39.550 been part of a state. 28:39.550 --> 28:44.880 But the state of nature to which Hobbes appeals is a 28:44.880 --> 28:47.370 purely imaginary one. 28:47.370 --> 28:53.050 It is a hypothetical contract, whose value to us is 28:53.050 --> 28:55.310 prudential. 28:55.310 --> 29:03.510 Rawls suggests that it is of moral utility for us to engage 29:03.510 --> 29:08.490 in the sort of social contract that the Rawlsian state 29:08.490 --> 29:10.070 represents. 29:10.070 --> 29:13.990 We imaginarily go into the original position behind the 29:13.990 --> 29:15.250 veil of ignorance. 29:15.250 --> 29:20.900 And in so doing come up with something morally worthy. 29:20.900 --> 29:31.150 Nozick, in contrast, to Rawls is concerned with how things 29:31.150 --> 29:34.640 actually came into being. 29:34.640 --> 29:40.540 But like Rawls is interested in what sort of moral 29:40.540 --> 29:44.300 justification that provides. 29:44.300 --> 29:47.460 So whereas Hobbes is interested in what a 29:47.460 --> 29:51.790 hypothetical contract tells us about what's prudential for 29:51.790 --> 29:55.820 us, Rawls is interested in what a hypothetical contract 29:55.820 --> 30:00.010 tells us about what's moral and Nozick is interested in 30:00.010 --> 30:06.830 what a certain historical set of events, where that stands 30:06.830 --> 30:10.240 with respect to morality. 30:10.240 --> 30:14.520 So let's start by looking at Hobbes' argument. 30:14.520 --> 30:20.720 Hobbes presents us, in Leviathan with what he calls 30:20.720 --> 30:23.520 the state of nature. 30:23.520 --> 30:27.680 An imaginary situation, what the "manner of life there 30:27.680 --> 30:31.570 would be with no common power to fear." Where life is 30:31.570 --> 30:37.090 "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." And he 30:37.090 --> 30:43.620 suggests that our prudential aim, that which is of use to 30:43.620 --> 30:47.410 us, is to escape the state of nature. 30:47.410 --> 30:48.990 Why? 30:48.990 --> 30:54.010 Because all of us have a "fear of death, the desire for 30:54.010 --> 30:58.860 commodious living, and the hope that by our industry we 30:58.860 --> 31:07.300 might obtain it." But, says Hobbes, that gives rise, if we 31:07.302 --> 31:11.092 think about the fact that being in the state of nature 31:11.090 --> 31:17.360 is bad for us, to a number of rationally mandated 31:17.360 --> 31:22.010 conclusions, of which we examined three. 31:22.010 --> 31:25.120 These are what Hobbes calls the laws of nature. 31:25.120 --> 31:30.450 The things, which we realize rationality demands of us if 31:30.450 --> 31:35.410 we have the prudential aim of commodious living. 31:35.410 --> 31:39.030 In particular, we need to seek peace if there's a chance of 31:39.030 --> 31:42.210 obtaining peace and if not reserve for ourselves the 31:42.210 --> 31:43.210 right of war. 31:43.210 --> 31:44.890 First law of nature. 31:44.890 --> 31:48.130 We need to lay down our rights to the extent that others are 31:48.130 --> 31:49.390 willing to do the same. 31:49.390 --> 31:51.090 Second law of nature. 31:51.090 --> 31:55.310 And we need to perform our covenants, that is keep our 31:55.310 --> 32:00.090 promises, assuming that others are willing to do the same. 32:00.090 --> 32:07.980 But there is a structural problem with our doing so. 32:07.980 --> 32:11.900 The structural problem is the one articulated by the 32:11.900 --> 32:13.940 Prisoners' Dilemma. 32:13.940 --> 32:20.230 And because of that, says Hobbes, the only way that we 32:20.230 --> 32:24.680 can do what rationality demands of us: seek peace, lay 32:24.680 --> 32:29.100 down our rights and perform our covenants, thereby acting 32:29.100 --> 32:32.910 on the first half of each of these clauses, is if we 32:32.910 --> 32:36.210 institute an authoritarian government. 32:36.210 --> 32:41.510 A civil power sufficient to compel non-defection in a 32:41.510 --> 32:43.540 prisoners' dilemma. 32:43.540 --> 32:45.580 So note the four key steps. 32:45.580 --> 32:48.110 Because I'm going to go through these next with Rawls 32:48.110 --> 32:49.710 and next with Nozick. 32:49.710 --> 32:54.720 We're interested in a situation, a rationally 32:54.720 --> 32:56.700 mandated conclusion and a 32:56.700 --> 32:59.640 structurally mandated mechanism. 32:59.640 --> 33:02.650 So how does it go for Rawls? 33:02.650 --> 33:04.440 Rawls says, look. 33:04.440 --> 33:08.480 Let's consider the following hypothetical situation. 33:08.480 --> 33:12.470 The original position, where we sit behind the veil of 33:12.470 --> 33:17.760 ignorance, not knowing who we will be in society, and choose 33:17.760 --> 33:23.470 the basic structures by which our society will be governed. 33:23.470 --> 33:29.720 The aim that we engage in this activity with is the aim of 33:29.719 --> 33:32.569 articulating the conditions of a just society. 33:32.570 --> 33:33.530 Why? 33:33.530 --> 33:37.640 Because "justice is the first virtue of social institutions 33:37.639 --> 33:42.559 just as truth is the first virtue of theoretical 33:42.560 --> 33:47.480 systems." It is the aim of articulating a political 33:47.480 --> 33:52.990 philosophy to come up with one that respects our moral norms. 33:52.989 --> 33:57.519 Just as it is Hobbes's aim in articulating the constraints 33:57.520 --> 34:01.190 that govern a legitimate political society to identify 34:01.190 --> 34:04.900 one that respects our prudential norms. 34:04.900 --> 34:10.260 What then is the rationally mandated conclusion of taking 34:10.260 --> 34:15.080 this hypothetical situation and this particular aim? 34:15.080 --> 34:19.480 Well, says Rawls, just as Hobbes thought, thinking about 34:19.480 --> 34:23.810 the structure of the state of nature gives us, through 34:23.810 --> 34:26.560 rationality, the three laws of nature. 34:26.560 --> 34:31.150 So too does Rawls think, thinking about the structure 34:31.150 --> 34:35.110 of the original position with the aim of developing a moral 34:35.110 --> 34:39.230 society, give us the principles of justice. 34:39.230 --> 34:43.730 In particular, the first equal liberty principle: that in no 34:43.730 --> 34:48.040 circumstances are the fundamental rights of the one 34:48.040 --> 34:52.030 to be sacrificed for the utility of the many. 34:52.030 --> 34:56.250 And second, that to the extent that there are inequalities in 34:56.250 --> 34:59.250 the society, those are to be associated with positions 34:59.250 --> 35:03.620 fairly open to all and in such a way that they are 35:03.620 --> 35:07.580 advantageous to the least well off. 35:07.580 --> 35:12.270 Moreover, Rawls thinks not just about a hypothetical 35:12.270 --> 35:15.520 situation and the moral aim and the rationally mandated 35:15.520 --> 35:20.110 conclusion that we can draw from that, but also about what 35:20.110 --> 35:25.040 sort of mechanism, what sort of structure that tells us 35:25.040 --> 35:29.750 society needs to have. And his suggestion is that it becomes 35:29.750 --> 35:34.730 roughly one with equality and basic rights and duties. 35:34.730 --> 35:37.510 Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of 35:37.510 --> 35:40.300 thought, an equal responsibility to make a 35:40.300 --> 35:44.550 contribution to the upkeep of the community as a whole. 35:44.550 --> 35:51.380 And because of facts about efficiency, Rawls is ready to, 35:51.380 --> 35:56.300 at least tentatively, endorse, as one effective mechanism 35:56.300 --> 36:01.630 towards this, a market economy with some tendency towards 36:01.630 --> 36:03.790 redistribution. 36:03.790 --> 36:10.010 So notice that it is an argument almost parallel to 36:10.010 --> 36:12.340 the one that Hobbes makes. 36:12.340 --> 36:15.170 We take a hypothetical situation. 36:15.170 --> 36:16.720 We have an aim. 36:16.720 --> 36:20.760 We reason our way through the situation and determine 36:20.760 --> 36:23.110 certain sorts of constraints. 36:23.110 --> 36:25.720 And then we identify what kind of social 36:25.720 --> 36:28.630 structure that gives us. 36:28.630 --> 36:31.450 Let's look next at what that gives us in 36:31.450 --> 36:34.390 the context of Nozick. 36:34.390 --> 36:38.490 Nozick's interested, not in a hypothetical situation, but in 36:38.490 --> 36:40.040 a historical situation. 36:40.040 --> 36:45.260 In particular, he's interested in what we should do about the 36:45.260 --> 36:49.900 fact that a particular distribution of resources has 36:49.900 --> 36:54.540 resulted from a series of just transfers. 36:54.540 --> 37:00.120 A series of transfers where property was acquired in a 37:00.120 --> 37:04.970 legitimate way and transferred in a legitimate way regardless 37:04.970 --> 37:10.180 of what that pattern produced. 37:10.180 --> 37:15.610 Notice that although we read only Nozick's discussion of 37:15.610 --> 37:19.280 justice in holding and consequently we looked at a 37:19.280 --> 37:23.530 rather narrow question of under what conditions it is 37:23.530 --> 37:28.040 legitimate to own property, that Nozick's argument with 37:28.040 --> 37:32.630 respect to holdings can be generalized with respect to 37:32.630 --> 37:36.170 any sort of decision that people make. 37:36.170 --> 37:40.340 What makes holdings legitimate on Nozick's picture is that 37:40.340 --> 37:44.060 they are the result of a legitimate process. 37:44.060 --> 37:49.620 And as a consequence, any sort of contract that we enter into 37:49.620 --> 37:54.990 in a way that Nozick will call free will end up being in the 37:54.990 --> 37:57.350 same historical category. 37:57.350 --> 38:02.090 So what Nozick is interested in is the question: given that 38:02.090 --> 38:05.620 things as a matter of historical contingency happen 38:05.620 --> 38:09.070 to end up the way they are in terms of the distribution of 38:09.070 --> 38:14.550 goods and in terms of the distribution of contracts, 38:14.550 --> 38:20.300 what sort of moral force does that have? 38:20.300 --> 38:23.020 Nozick's goal is to determine whether this 38:23.020 --> 38:24.620 distribution of holdings-- 38:24.620 --> 38:25.790 that is property-- 38:25.790 --> 38:26.950 and contracts-- 38:26.950 --> 38:28.350 that is commitment-- 38:28.350 --> 38:30.840 is a legitimate one. 38:30.840 --> 38:34.480 And his suggestion is that as long as property is justly 38:34.480 --> 38:37.720 acquired and justly transferred, then whatever 38:37.720 --> 38:42.430 distribution results from that is a just distribution. 38:42.430 --> 38:45.740 And you'll recall that we looked in some detail at 38:45.740 --> 38:48.990 Nozick's idea of just acquisition, where he 38:48.990 --> 38:53.970 basically says, an object is legitimately held if it was 38:53.970 --> 39:00.280 acquired in a way where the value that you add to the 39:00.280 --> 39:06.820 object makes your possession of it leave others no worse 39:06.820 --> 39:10.720 off than they would be had you not acquired the object. 39:10.720 --> 39:17.000 And where just transfers are any that are engaged in 39:17.000 --> 39:18.760 voluntarily. 39:18.760 --> 39:22.630 One result of that, as we know from the Wilt Chamberlain 39:22.630 --> 39:27.680 example, is that even if we begin with a perfectly even 39:27.680 --> 39:32.960 distribution of goods across individuals, it's almost 39:32.960 --> 39:38.170 guaranteed that we will end up with an unequal one. 39:38.170 --> 39:41.450 And notice that exactly the same sort of argument that can 39:41.450 --> 39:46.020 be raised for distribution of property can be raised for the 39:46.020 --> 39:48.860 distribution of obligations. 39:48.862 --> 39:52.042 So Nozick's interested in historical situation. 39:52.040 --> 39:54.330 He has a moral aim, namely determining whether the 39:54.330 --> 40:00.180 distribution is just. And the conclusion that he draws, as a 40:00.180 --> 40:04.580 result of thinking about that structure, is that any 40:04.580 --> 40:09.450 intervention into justly generated distribution of 40:09.450 --> 40:14.750 holdings or contracts is a violation of rights. 40:14.750 --> 40:18.360 After all, the only things that matter to whether 40:18.360 --> 40:22.870 holdings are just, on Nozick's picture, is whether they were 40:22.870 --> 40:25.390 justly acquired of justly transferred. 40:25.390 --> 40:30.790 And the fact that, as a matter of coordination problems of 40:30.785 --> 40:33.815 the kind that we face in the problem of the commons, the 40:33.820 --> 40:37.430 fact that that will inevitably result in distributions that 40:37.430 --> 40:43.980 are unequal is of no concern to the sort of historical 40:43.980 --> 40:46.400 picture that Nozick has. 40:46.400 --> 40:49.520 Likewise, the fact that as a result of historical 40:49.520 --> 40:54.020 contingency, I may end up contracted in a way that 40:54.020 --> 40:58.650 leaves me subordinate to you is, according to Nozick, in no 40:58.650 --> 41:03.690 way unjust because no intervention into a justly 41:03.690 --> 41:07.060 generated process can be performed 41:07.060 --> 41:09.090 without violating rights. 41:09.090 --> 41:14.070 So the structurally mandated mechanism which Nozick ends up 41:14.070 --> 41:19.130 advocating is that of the minimal state. 41:19.130 --> 41:24.470 So what's the picture among our political philosophers? 41:24.470 --> 41:26.570 The idea is this. 41:26.570 --> 41:29.130 Hobbes is interested in thinking about what a 41:29.130 --> 41:33.380 hypothetical state of nature, considered from the 41:33.380 --> 41:39.270 perspective of prudence, tells us is rational. 41:39.270 --> 41:44.200 What it tells us is rational are certain laws of nature, 41:44.200 --> 41:48.520 the enforcement of which is possible only through the 41:48.520 --> 41:53.170 introduction of an authoritarian state. 41:53.170 --> 41:56.720 Rawls asks us to think hypothetically from the 41:56.720 --> 42:01.250 position of the veil of ignorance, what it would take 42:01.250 --> 42:05.490 for us to have a moral society, concludes that it 42:05.490 --> 42:09.040 would be governed by the principles of justice, and 42:09.040 --> 42:13.250 identifies as a mechanism what I've called, because there 42:13.250 --> 42:17.600 wasn't much room here, "Sweden." 42:17.600 --> 42:23.670 And Nozick asks what we can do given that an actual 42:23.670 --> 42:27.830 distribution arose as the result of a bunch fair 42:27.830 --> 42:32.740 transfers and concludes that if our goal is to respect 42:32.740 --> 42:39.400 rights, then the only state which is legitimate is the 42:39.400 --> 42:42.180 minimal state. 42:42.180 --> 42:46.650 So we spent roughly four classes on political 42:46.650 --> 42:48.040 philosophy. 42:48.040 --> 42:51.940 Where to go if you want more? 42:51.940 --> 42:55.310 The Philosophy department offers political philosophy 42:55.310 --> 42:59.070 courses, both survey courses and courses on each of the 42:59.070 --> 43:00.960 individuals that we've read. 43:00.960 --> 43:04.530 You can take a course surveying political philosophy 43:04.530 --> 43:07.170 from Plato past Nozick. 43:07.170 --> 43:10.560 You can take a course on any one of the individual authors. 43:10.560 --> 43:13.510 The Political Science department, likewise, offers 43:13.510 --> 43:16.700 historically structured courses and courses on our 43:16.700 --> 43:18.540 individual authors. 43:18.540 --> 43:22.480 Nearly every course listed in the Ethics, Politics and 43:22.480 --> 43:27.000 Economics department is a course that will address the 43:27.000 --> 43:30.800 kinds of questions that I just mentioned in this chart. 43:30.800 --> 43:34.460 And in the context of the Economics department and 43:34.460 --> 43:38.310 indeed in three or four other departments, you can think 43:38.310 --> 43:42.680 about game theory as a way of representing these structures 43:42.680 --> 43:46.380 or think about policy in the context 43:46.380 --> 43:49.830 of an economic framework. 43:49.830 --> 43:51.710 It's 11:19. 43:51.710 --> 43:55.550 I will integrate the discussion of morality and the 43:55.550 --> 43:57.850 answers to those questions into our 43:57.850 --> 44:00.100 final lecture on Thursday. 44:00.100 --> 44:04.200 But it's my hope that even if I didn't answer all 500 of the 44:04.200 --> 44:07.920 questions that I was asked for today that the lecture gave 44:07.920 --> 44:11.540 you some sense of how some of the pieces fit together. 44:11.540 --> 44:14.060 And we'll continue on Thursday.