Q&A: Dosages
Dosages
Question
When there is a conflict between two values, sometimes you have to decide, and sometimes you can apportion and balance. A decision—for example, whether to go discover wisdom at Makom Chokhmah or stay and help the poor neighbor in the field—requires a binary choice about which is more important. Apportioning—for example, out of 1,000 shekels available for charity, how much to donate to Makom Chokhmah and how much to the poor neighbor—requires a precise decision about the relative importance. And there are kinds of apportioning that don’t involve values at all but rather a factual question, for example: out of 1,000 shekels available for luxuries, how much to invest in car upholstery and how much in potted plants for the living room, with the aim of maximizing enjoyment.
But on the face of it, even a decision is really a dosage problem (and dosage is a sequence of decisions), because if instead of studying one day at Makom Chokhmah one could help the poor neighbor for X days, then in order to decide one has to weigh the relative importance precisely. I can’t think of any example in which one of the value-poles has such a qualitative gap that it always overrides the other pole regardless of quantity. But even if there is such an example, there certainly still exist poles where the practical decision depends on dosage.
So how does one apportion values (the sacred balance of the enlightened person)? Are there considerations that bear directly on dosage? I understand that there are not. The view each person holds is simply the degree of importance each pole has, and then the dosage follows automatically. Let us assume a simple averaging function in which the ratio of distances is the inverse of the ratio of importance. Then the dosage (the center of mass) is determined automatically by the ratio of importance (the sizes of the masses) of the two poles. [By way of pilpul one could get tangled up with diminishing marginal utility. But it seems that the units of importance inherently depend on the weighting function. So for the sake of simplicity I assume the picture is as I’ve drawn it.]
The meaning is that you can’t really think about the dosage itself. A person who wants to extract from himself the dosage that seems right to him has to focus his thought devotedly on each of the poles, in order to think how important it is. There is neither point nor possibility in trying to think about the dosage “itself,” because it is only a derivative.
And in order to persuade others to change the dosage, what can one do? It seems there is no choice but to gird one’s pen with a great deal of laborious pathos and wax poetic at length about the sun shining on one pole as against the poor little candle burning on the other pole. As you explain regarding rhetoric for persuading someone to change foundational assumptions, but here it seems even harder. Because it’s not enough to bring him to recognize that something is important; you also have to bring him to recognize the degree of its importance.
Is there a way to argue directly about the dosage, or does the way to argue about the dosage always pass through (literary) amplification of the importance of one pole?
Answer
Indeed, it is hard for me to see a way to argue directly about dosages. Perhaps by way of similar examples, and perhaps by moving step by step along some scale toward the case at hand, in order to try to mark out a line.
Discussion on Answer
With God's help, 4 Nisan 5781
To Tolginus — greetings,
If both poles contain positive values, why assume the dosage has to be the same for everyone? It is quite reasonable that there should be different people, each placing the emphasis on a certain aspect. One will develop the intellect, another will cultivate emotion; one will insist on the attribute of strict justice, and another will sweeten it with kindness and mercy, and so on and so on. The fact that each aspect has someone who cultivates it is what creates the blessed balance in the world.
Best regards,
Yaron Fishel Korinaldi
Yaron Fishel,
A. I was speaking, for example, about dividing money among different goals within one person, while you are speaking about dividing people among different goals in the world as a whole. That is exactly the same general problem of dosage. The number of people I would want to place emphasis on a given pole depends on the importance I assign to it. If I see creative work in Torah as having twice the value of creative work in mathematics, and I can direct people to one and to the other, then I will direct twice as many people to Torah study. So then how should I think about the number of people I would direct to each pole (if it were in my hands, etc.)? The dosage is determined as a consequence of the importance of the pole itself.
B. When people face identical decision situations, then certainly reason dictates that if in my view a certain dosage is correct, then it is equally correct for everyone. Why not? For example, if in my opinion it is right to kick one person in order to save the lives of ten, then just as it is right in my opinion that I should kick that one person, so too it is right in my opinion that others in that same situation should kick him, and I ought to persuade them to do so. This kind of dosage of values is exactly like any other value: if in my opinion a certain value is correct, then in my opinion it is equally correct for everyone.
By the way, in one of the most successful sketches of “The Parliament,” one of the characters justified himself by saying that “the problem was in the dosages” (a veterinarian who injected a huge amount of anesthetic into an animal and caused its death). That’s a very sharp observation. Every (or almost every) important problem is a problem of dosage, and it’s a common thing (and stupid and annoying) to think that if the argument is only about the boundary, then it’s somehow a less “principled” argument and less open to discussion and resolution. Highly recommended to watch the clip (less than 6 minutes) https://tinyurl.com/mv7y2ne9
With God's help, 4 Nisan 5781
To Tolginus — greetings,
I did not quite manage to understand your question of how to allocate human resources to every goal. Are you the Director-General of the Employment Service? 🙂
Usually each person finds for himself the dosage that suits him and directs most of his energy according to his inclinations. Someone inclined toward philosophical inquiry will find himself occupied with that, innovate in it, and find the particular audience that listens to him spellbound, while others will yawn with boredom.
And so on. Some are interested in Lithuanian-style learning; some pride themselves on Tunisian-style analysis; some are specifically fired up by drawing practical conclusions in Jewish law; some are Bible people and some are aggadah people, some are grammarians and some are poets. Each person “finds himself” and finds the audience attentive to him in the field his heart desires.
And the sages of economics have already taught us that there is no need to plan the world according to carefully measured “production quotas” handed down from above. On the contrary, the best order is to rely on the “invisible hand,” which lets each person seek his success according to his abilities and inclinations, and “at the end of the day,” after much trial and error, failures and successes—each person peacefully finds his place and contributes his unique part to building and repairing the world.
The Maharal of Prague already taught us that all human beings are stamped with the seal of Adam the first man. And what is “the seal of Adam”? That he was created alone, and therefore all his descendants resemble him in that each one is unique in his character and personality, like their father Adam the first man, and no two people are alike.
And the poet already established: “An invisible hand is extended to you, beloved youth; let each man encamp under his personal banner to broaden it, and together each will complement his brother, and all will shine like the branches of the menorah round about.”
Best regards,
John Adam Smith
A. And is his honored eminence, may he live long, who went on at length detailing the entitlement of Enjoyahanyahu, the President of the Supreme Court or the Attorney General? I appointed myself director-general (that is, if it were in my hands, etc.) in order to present the principled example.
B. The assumption is that the invisible hand will allocate resources more optimally than any centralized director-general, who will always fail from lack of knowledge, and also there is the value of freedom for people. But that is a factual question when the goal function is agreed upon and known (increasing enjoyment and advancing the individual goals of the various people). So that is like the “problem” of dosage—how to divide the money I have available between furniture and gardening. Granted, in factual dosage questions all that is lacking is factual knowledge, and it has nothing to do with the question of making decisions about values. That is why I gave an example of allocating people in a principled question, such as allocation to creative work in different fields of knowledge where there is also engagement for its own sake; there the invisible hand will not help at all to hit the target that is agreed upon by me, but only to hit other hidden targets.
C. I do not know what he is saying when he says that everyone has a unique part in building and repairing the world. Most people are just copies of copies, sprouting like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it grows up, and it is all one to the world whether they exist or not. And of course I say this not only about others but also about myself—that I have no unique part in building and repairing the world. I hoe and weed and sow within the narrow radius around me.
With God's help, 4 Nisan 5781
To Tolginus — greetings,
A person’s greatest calling and uniqueness is in being one who “hoes and weeds” in his own yard. If you do not bring joy to your spouse—who will do it in your place? If you do not nurture and educate your children so that they fulfill their abilities—who will do it for you? Is there any substitute for the love, warmth, and encouragement that a parent gives his children? If you have succeeded in that, happy are you, and it is well with you. Afterward, if you still have free time, let your wellsprings spread outward, and both this and that will endure in your hands!
Best regards,
Yaron Fishel Broka
And from here, a bit of criticism of Netanyahu. He is the last person who could be called “Enjoyahanyahu.” After all, he has neither day nor night. The heavy burden of leading the state falls on him 24/7, without exaggeration. And after all the investment, he is surrounded by unfavorable coverage from every direction. These condemn him for not being right-wing enough, and those attack him for being too right-wing.
Netanyahu’s great “blunder” is that he neglected cultivating his own house. I won’t speak about his private home, but about his political home. A good leader needs to create around himself a team that will function together as a team, out of mutual trust and cooperation, and in that he failed quite badly.
He created a political body wholly dependent on the person standing at its head. A group of aides, each of whom imitates his former leader and dreams of the day when he himself will be the prime minister who saves Israel. Everyone who started out as one of Netanyahu’s aides sets his sights on being “the head”: so Liberman and so Kahlon, so Bennett and so Sa’ar. They all have to be “copies” of Netanyahu—the one and only leader. But what can you do—a creature with ten heads cannot survive 🙂
A bit of awareness that the leader does not need to be “one and none besides him,” but rather first among friends, one who grants his colleagues from his experience and talent, but is also open to receive from their experience and talent, and attentive also to hearing their opinion—that is what can create a team that works in fraternity and mutual trust, and that can, after long years, continue the “founding father” without a traumatic crisis.
And it’s a shame, because the Likud has a good organizational infrastructure for operating as a team. Today it is the only party whose representatives are still chosen democratically by party members, rather than lists dictated by a “sole ruler.” If Netanyahu had invested in fostering good teamwork around him, he could have lived with much greater peace of mind.
True, he isn’t such a great hedonist; I just threw that in under the freedom of blurting things out.
And if the step-by-step technique worked, and the person was persuaded and shifted his dosage a bit to the right, that means that in essence he increased for himself the importance of that pole (or decreased for himself the importance of the second pole), and as a result the dosage shifted? In other words, the step-by-step technique is [only] a technical possible way to amplify the importance of the pole.