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Second-order desire

שו”תCategory: philosophySecond-order desire
asked 3 years ago

In your book, ‘The Sciences of Freedom,’ you presented the problem of weakness of will as one that stems from the degree of the will to will. “That is, when a person chooses, he acts on two levels, and each of them is important for the success of his action: 1. He decides what is proper, and hence what he wants; and 2. He decides how much force to exert in order to realize his decision. The second level is nothing more than a choice to choose.” But in a footnote you added that “this is not a complete solution to the problem, since now a similar question can be raised regarding the choice to choose. If the person wanted to exert enough force, then why didn’t he exert it? And if he didn’t want to exert enough force, then it’s no wonder he failed. Here it’s easier to find a solution, but I won’t continue to discuss the issue for fear of infinite regression.” Can the rabbi explain what solution he meant and how he really deals with the infinite regression that this type of confrontation creates?

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מיכי Staff answered 3 years ago

See columns 172-173.

אנונימי replied 3 years ago

This proposal reminds me of Omen's argument against behavioral economics, when, as Professor Avi Diskin describes it, "Behavioral economists criticize classical and neoclassical economics on the grounds that it is based on the assumption of the rationality of actions — that is, that in any given situation, decision-makers choose actions that achieve the greatest possible benefit in that situation. This assumption is challenged by the findings of behavioral economists, who demonstrate through surveys and experiments that decision-makers do not make utility calculations, but rather act according to rules of thumb — "biases" or "heuristics" as they call them — which sometimes lead to clearly bad results." But Aumann argues that even though decision-makers act according to rules of thumb, rather than utility calculations, these rules almost always lead to desirable outcomes. The exceptions arise from uncommon or artificial scenarios. In other words, the rules are rational, although they can, rarely, lead to irrational actions. Hence the term “rationality of rules,” which embodies the synthesis that Aumann proposes. For example, breaking off negotiations in the face of a humiliating ultimatum is a perfectly rational action, even though it yields an immediate loss of utility. It is rational because it deters other people from humiliating behavior in the future, and therefore it maximizes utility over time. It is true that the breaking off does not come from a conscious intention to deter, but from insult, revenge, self-respect, etc. But these emotions, which can seemingly be described as irrational, lead to action according to the rule of thumb "Don't let others humiliate you", and this rule is almost always beneficial in the long run. In his article, Israel Oman reviews several classic experiments in behavioral economics, in which the subjects appeared to act irrationally, and shows that in all of these experiments the environment was artificial and the subjects behaved according to a rational rule. The explanation that Oman offers is that the rules of behavior did not appear out of thin air. Similar to physiological traits, the rules of behavior are also the result of evolutionary, biological or social development. Evolution is based on the principle of "survival of the fittest", where the adaptation is in the real world, which is not reflected in artificial or unusual scenarios. Aumann's basic conclusion is that the claim of behavioral economists that people act according to rules of behavior and do not calculate which action will bring about the greatest benefit is a correct claim. But usually, these rules do indeed bring about the greatest benefit. Therefore, practical behavior is usually rational - exactly in accordance with the basic premise of traditional economics” (Life as a Game, pp. 173-175). But while the excuse seems plausible with respect to the use of economic models, with respect to what you discuss in the column, the question that naturally arises is then why the regret and you answer that ”I did prefer not to choose, but not at any cost. The results were not in front of my eyes. If they were there, I would not have decided not to choose. But I myself hid them from my eyes and therefore I do not regret it”. But according to this, the question arises as to why I used the rule of thumb of using rules of thumb (or following the topography) in the first place. And here it's not clear to me whether there really is an intermediate category between willful misconduct and rape (although the division is very intuitively understandable, so I guess I'm missing something here)

מיכי Staff replied 3 years ago

I didn't understand the question, and in particular I didn't understand what it had to do with Omen's claim.

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