16 ideas
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 22717 | Self-interest can fairly divide a cake; first person cuts, second person chooses [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: To fairly divide a cake between two children, the first divides it and the second chooses. …Even division is best, as it anticipates the second child will take the largest piece. Fairness is enforced by the children's self-interests. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 03 'Cake') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is introduced as the basic principle of game theory. There is an online video of two cats sharing a dish of milk; each one drinks a bit, then pushes the dish to the other one. I'm sure two children could manage that. |
| 22718 | Formal game theory is about maximising or minimising numbers in tables [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: At the most abstract level, game theory is about tables with numbers in them - numbers that entities are are efficiently acting to maximise or minimise. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 03 'Curve') | |
| A reaction: A brilliant idea. The question is the extent to which real life conforms to the numberical tables. The assumption that everyone is entirely self-seeking is blatantly false. Numbers like money have diminishing marginal utility. |
| 22719 | The minimax theorem says a perfect game of opposed people always has a rational solution [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: The minimax theorem says that there is always a rational solution to a precisely defined conflict between two people whose interests are completely opposite. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 03 'Minimax') | |
| A reaction: This is Von Neumann's founding theorem of game theory. It concerns maximising minimums, and minimising maximums. Crucially, I would say that it virtually never occurs that two people have completely opposite interests. There is a common good. |
| 22720 | Two prisoners get the best result by being loyal, not by selfish betrayal [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: Prisoners A and B can support or betray one another. If both support, they each get 1 year in prison. If one betrays, the betrayer gets 0 and the betrayed gets 3. If they both betray they get 2 each. The common good is to support each other. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 06 'Tucker's') | |
| A reaction: [by Albert Tucker, highly compressed] The classic Prisoner's Dilemma. It is artificial, but demonstrates that selfish behaviour gets a bad result (total of four years imprisonment), but the common good gets only two years. Every child should study this! |
| 22721 | The tragedy in prisoner's dilemma is when two 'nice' players misread each other [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: The tragedy is when two 'nice' players defect because they misread the other's intentions. The puzzle of the prisoner's dilemma is how such good intentions pave the road to hell. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 11 'Howard's') | |
| A reaction: I really wish these simple ideas were better known. They more or less encapsulate the tragedy of the human race, with its inability to prioritise the common good. |
| 22722 | TIT FOR TAT says cooperate at first, then do what the other player does [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: The successful TIT FOR TAT strategy (for the iterated prisoner's dilemma) says cooperate on the first round, then do whatever the other player did in the previous round. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 12 'TIT') | |
| A reaction: There are also the tougher TWO TITS FOR A TAT, and the more forgiving TIT FOR TWO TATS. The one-for-one seems to be the main winner, and is commonly seen in animal life (apparently). I recommend this to school teachers. |
| 22723 | Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - or else! [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: TIT FOR TAT threatens 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - or else!'. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 12 'TIT') | |
| A reaction: Essentially human happiness arises if we are all nice, but also stand up firmly for ourselves. 'Doormats' (nice all the time) get exploited. TIT FOR TAT is weak, because it doesn't exploit people who don't respond at all. |
| 22809 | The social contract sees society as constituted by and for individuals [Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: The social contract theory …has a vision of society as in some sense constituted by individuals for the fulfilment of ends which are primarily individual. | |
| From: Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.29) | |
| A reaction: It seems to be initiated by individuals who are only motivated by what is in it for them. This presumes self-sufficient adults, rather than children, or parents with children, or dependent people. The epitome of liberalism, perhaps. |
| 22811 | Assigning a right based on a human capacity implies that the capacity should be developed [Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: It would be incomprehensible and incoherent to ascribe rights to human beings in respect of the specifically human capacities (such as the right to beliefs or life-style) while at the same time denying that those capacities ought to be developed. | |
| From: Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.33) | |
| A reaction: Developed by whom? The agent, their family, or the state? At what point has someone got a capacity, with no further requirement to develop it? Taylor pulls rather large rabbits out of small hats. |
| 22815 | If freedom depends on society and culture, the greatest freedom is in shaping them [Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: If realising our freedom partly depends on the society and culture in which we live, then we exercise a fuller freedom if we can help determine the shape of this society and culture. | |
| From: Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.47) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly in response to the critics of communitarianism who say that it is too conservative, because your values are created for you, by your community. |
| 22814 | Our reliance on other people close to us does not imply any political obligations [Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: We must all be nurtures by others as children, and we only flourish as adults in relationship with friends, mates, children and so on. But this has nothing to do with any obligation to belong to political society. | |
| From: Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.42) | |
| A reaction: He is defending community, but not at that minimal human level. Political obligations follows from our need for a wider society, to achieve justice, education, travel, health etc. There are no rights without a society |
| 22812 | For most people the primacy of rights mainly concerns freedom [Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: Most of those who want to affirm the primacy of rights are more interested in asserting the right of freedom, and in a sense which can only be attributed to humans. | |
| From: Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.40) | |
| A reaction: This is probably more pronounced in North America than in Europe. It may be that without freedom a lot of the other rights are impossible. |
| 22810 | A right is not just a rule, but also asserts certain ideas of moral worth [Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: Asserting a right is more than issuing an injunction. It has an essential conceptual background, in some notion of the moral worth of certain properties or capacities, without which it would not make. | |
| From: Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.33) | |
| A reaction: A simple right may arise from a contract, which could be quite trivial, and of no moral importance. The winner of the egg and spoon race has a right to the prize, which is an ice cream. I think he means legal rights in a state. |
| 22813 | Property is not essential for life, but it may be essential for independence [Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: It is standardly said that we need the right to property as an essential underpinning of life, but this is patently not true. …In reality it is actually seen as an essential part of a life of independence. | |
| From: Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979], p.41) | |
| A reaction: Hence it has a high value for liberals, for whom an independent life is the prime social aspiration. The law of trespass will define the degree of independence provided by property. |
| 23417 | If the state is neutral, there won't be sufficient community to support a welfare state [Taylor,C, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Charles Taylor says the neutral [liberal] state undermines the sense of community which is required for citizens to accept the sacrifices demanded by the welfare state. | |
| From: report of Charles Taylor (Atomism [1979]) by Will Kymlicka - Community 'legitimacy' | |
| A reaction: As someone who believes in the welfare state, I think this is correct. Extreme individualistic liberalism is incompatible with a welfare state. A liberal society needs institutions which draw free individuals into the community. |