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William of Hammock's avatar

What do you think of Sen and Naussbaum's Capabilities approach?

"Well-being" and "satisfaction" tend to measure something other than hedonia, though measuring any such thing is a scattershot scatterplot onto any number of things.

In my mind, the "measure" of a society is that it turns good intentions into good outcomes. The idea wouldn't be to actually measure it and use that number in some calculation, but simply to recognize that it is both a resource to tap and a communal responsibility as much as a social mandate of representatives. Bridging that gap is also related to GDP, satisfaction and capabilities without overcommiting to any one variable or angle.

It's easier to understand than capabilities per se, but similarly hard to measure. However, I'm not sure that's a weakness. Negotiating and debating good intentions and outcomes are part of the process of enacting them and keeping them informed on how to actually bridge the gap.

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Lionel Page's avatar

Hi William, thanks for your feedback. Finding a political philosophy that is consistent and can help guide public policy is difficult. Utilitarianism is intuitive. While I criticise it here, in many cases a utilitarian approach will give conclusions similar to other approaches. Sen's capability approach is an attempt at overcoming utilitarianism's shortcomings. I don't think it works: what are capabilities exactly and how do we measure them? But the intuition makes sense: it aims to give people "real freedom" (to take the book title of Philippe van Parijs). As I indicate in the final footnote, my perspective is contractualist, because I think this is how our psychology works.

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William of Hammock's avatar

A Rawlsian! Excellent. Have you read Sen's Idea of Justice? It primarily seems addressed directly to Rawls.

As for my perspective, the contractualist approach essentially emerges from Sen's capabilities approach as a base level and the pragmatic means of connecting good intentions and good outcomes at a higher level. It would be totally fair to criticize my approach as imprecise if I meant it as a prescription for some top-down policy.

I would, for example, agree that a contractualist approach fits well with and even stabilizes our psychology. However, I think the common, Dawkinsian Tit-for-tat game theoretic accounts misstell the origins of that fit. I won't belabor that point here though.

Instead, I would say the reason to see contractualism as a natural connector is exactly because of the problem you identified with the capabilities approach. What is it in general? The same critique doubly applies to my approach. What are good intentions and good outcomes in general?

But consider that the intuitive-yet-vague landscape is nevertheless tapped when negotiating a contract, and to the degree that capabilities are written larger or smaller, whether good intentions are leveraged more or less, whether the outcomes are narrow or spread, the contract emerges from that negotiation. And the ability to negotiate a contract would be one of Sen's many capabilities as his idea of freedom does stem from economic and social development.

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Lionel Page's avatar

Yes I read Sen and I like it, but (like many theories in political philosophy) it does not hold well when asking foundational questions. My perspective, to be precise, follows Binmore's naturalistic take on contractualism in his book "Natural Justice". I will write about it here at some point. There is a lot to say.

I discussed Binmore's view shortly here:

https://www.optimallyirrational.com/p/social-norms-as-rules-of-social-games

For a quick overview of his take: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/9735FE47D3F55920759732BF171A2E52/S1477175609000025a.pdf/justice_as_a_natural_phenomenon.pdf

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William of Hammock's avatar

Much appreciated!

I may respond to this overall idea in a post on the other side of the holidays, but it seems to be a rather grounded means of identifying equilibria. What I wonder, from afar, is how well it is conducive to insights once given specifics of a certain situation. But that is on me to find out with some more research!

I couldn't access the article, but I saw it mentions Mackie. I will be posting an extension of Mackie's concept of INUS conditions to include AynT conditions (Arbitrary yet non-Trivial). This sounds like it lands solidly in the Nash equilibrium space. However, it is more about negotiations under forward thinking uncertainty than what is available as INUS conditions in hindsight.

For a bird's eye view, we might think of how the actions of a person are increasingly predictable with increases in hunger. However, at some set of INUS conditions free from all such "needs" which explain decisions in retrospect, what might be projected forth is poorly approximated by past-facing inquiry.

In the meantime, if you find yourself so inclined, this post contains part of my argument for why statistics is primarily exploratory, a use which is just as important as predictive and explanatory power, but often results in settling for predictive power only. For example, I do not think game theory explains much, despite its undeniable power for navigation.

https://open.substack.com/pub/williamofhammock/p/vindicating-denis-noble?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3nwud0

For example, imagine if people who are misunderstood become more predictable as a way to attempt to be understood. This would be consistent with Nashville equilibrium, but it would be an explanation of nash equilibrium more than vice versa. This is the part that gets laundered.

Anyway, Happy Holidays, and thank you for the friendly engagement!

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Lionel Page's avatar

Thanks! I am not sure I followed all your arguments. I am bullish on game theory as being useful to explain real behaviour. I believe it is relevant for people who are used to interacting repeatedly in the same type of strategic environment (see this post for instance: https://www.optimallyirrational.com/p/anyone-for-tennis-and-game-theory) and for organisms that have been selected by evolution for interacting with other organisms in specific strategic settings. I hope to further demonstrate this in future posts!

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William of Hammock's avatar

This fantastic article makes for a perfect example. Consider the following:

Your study highlights a clearly non-trivial overlap between distributions of shots and energy expenditure at the top levels of tennis. But what does it mean in this specific case to have "explained" behavior? You have explored and impressively predicted "statistical behavior." I assume this is thought to reinforce the explanatory link that evolution by natural selection converges towards various equilibria, and that among various equilibria, powerful complex systems may converge toward nash equilibria.

But this also raises the question of what can be done with that information if methodical study reveals instinctual behavior converges on complex equilibria. How would one then claim that one should ever be methodical and empirical as opposed to intuitive, instinctual and otherwise non-obstructive? After all, the tennis players achieved nash equilibrium by focusing on the task, not on the maths.

Note that I am not claiming we should reject the empirical for the intuitive, but instead calling attention to what is thought to be "explained" by successful statistical prediction. A statistical link to evolutionary theory can be both compelling and beg the very question being asked. If natural selection explains the simpler set of equilibria, should we then assume it is also necessary and sufficient to explain all other complex equilibria thereafter? Is the "else extinct" clause of genetic competition actually explanatory, or is it jointly sufficient for intellectual equilibria among modern scholars? I suspect the latter, but the burden of proof is on me for such a claim. I will of course have to argue that elsewhere and stop blowing up your comment section.

Cheers!

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