Rational agent. Self Interest.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
Wtf !

Fear is not the same thing as rationally avoiding pain. Fear has a physiological effect on the brain which tends to cause it to react without reason.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kidicious
This is dependent on culture I think.

In 1979, President Carter faced an economy on the verge of hyperinflation. His solution was to get on tv and talk the American people into saving money. He told us that it was up to us to solve this problem. The way the people took it was to mean that the govt was not going to do anything about the problem. No one believe that the other agents would do the socially responsible thing and that if they did they would pay a heavy price for nothing. People spent their dollars faster than they did before the Carter speech.

Interesting example.

Though that "US population" is not really the sort of closely knitted units that are studied by Group Dynamics.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
"A group tends to act irrationally more often than any rational individual"

I think now someone has to link to the Prisoner's Dilemma.

As BeBro turned out, the Prisoner's Dilemma is related more to Games Theory than to Group Dynamics.

An example of such group behaviour is the Central Park (NYC) "wilding" of a bunch of teenagers in 1995 (IIRC). A young women was assulted, gang raped, and sodomised by a number of teens who, individually, were characterised to be "nice and quiet."

[Agathon]

Basically I'm saying that I don't think your preference is satisfied if you don't know it is.

That's question begging.

It's like saying "you got the utility of eating strawberries, but you don't know you ate them": it just doesn't make sense.

It's not like saying that at all. All it is, is a test to see whether people do in fact rank their preferences according to subjective reward. That is required for the selfishness thesis to go through.

For example, say you make a will to provide for your kids after you die. The the following situations are the possible outcomes.

(a) Your wishes will be followed, and the evidence suggests that they will be.

(b) Your wishes will in fact be followed, but the evidence suggests they won't be.

(c) Your wishes will not in fact be followed, but the evidence suggests they will be.

(d) Your wishes will not in fact be followed, and the evidence suggests they won't be.

Everyone can agree that (a) is most preferable, and (d) is least preferable.

But there will be disagreement over the ordering of (b) and (c). People who care more about feeling good about providing for their kids will rank (c) over (b), but people who care more about actually providing for their kids will rank (b) over (c).

If it was true that people's preferences are always for subjective reward (the enjoyment of personal utility, or whatever you want to call it), then it would be impossible for anyone to rank (b) over (c). But many people including myself would do just that.

Hence the existence of wills and people's actual preferences towards the possible outcomes of their making a will are a clear counterexample to the thesis that everyone acts selfishly or has preferences which are directed to benefit themselves in some way.

[Solly]

Actually Agathon, I don't think you would know which of b or c you would prefer, if you were inside that situation. It's just a mind****.

[Agathon]

More in a minute. I had to edit this one, I did it around the wrong way

OK....

It's not a mind**** the question asks for your ranked preferences. You don't have to be "inside" that situation at all, you just make a decision based on which you think is preferable. Compare this case in which self interest operates:

(a) Your wife is not cheating on you, and you know she isn't

(b) Your wife is not cheating on you, but you think she is.

(c) Your wife is cheating on you and you find out.

(d) Your wife is cheating on you, but you don't know this.

Most people would probably plump for this ordering because they think that the fact of the cheating matters most.

If I really cared about my own sense of whether things were going well instead of whether they really were, I would order

(a)
(d)
(b)
(c)