Socratic Puzzles

"Socratic Puzzles" is a collection of essays by libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick. It was published in 1997 by Harvard University Press.

ynopsis

Introduction

Nozick disclaims the title "political philosopher" and characterizes his "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" as "an accident" that came about because he was "getting nowhere" working on the problem of free will. He discusses his reverence for Socrates, and his intellectual debts to Sidney Morgenbesser and Carl Hempel. At "the most consequential party I ever attended," someone told him about a problem posed by a physicist in California, William Newcomb. Nozick brought this problem into the literature of decision theory ("rational choice theory"). He describes the influence of decision theory on "Anarchy, State, and Utopia"'s derivation of the state from individuals' actions, and its game-theoretic analysis of utopia; and especially in "The Nature of Rationality", where he proposed a "decision value" alternative to maximizing expected utility and also extended decision theory to issues about rational belief.

He concludes the introduction by talking about philosophy as a way of life. Although "being philosophical" in the ordinary sense wasn't his motivation for entering philosophy, he found himself being philosophical when diagnosed with stomach cancer and informed about the dire statistics, adding parenthetically an anecdote about the operation in which much of his stomach was removed,

I maintain it was not a complaint when the first words I said to the surgeons upon coming up from anaesthesia after seven hours were, "I hope we don't have to do this again. I don't have the stomach for it."

Nietzsche's demand, that you should lead a life you would be willing to repeat infinitely often, seems "a bit stringent" but philosophy constitutes a way of life worth continuing to its end. He did exactly that, according to his friend Alan Dershowitz. [http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/01.17/99-nozick.html]

Coercion

Nozick's interest in libertarianism derives from an antecedent interest in coercion. This essay offers an alternative to H.L.A. Hart's account of coercion. A distinction between offers and threats is central. A "Rational Man" would welcome the former but not the latter. He introduces the "science fiction" notion of being "n/m" coerced, where "n" is the part of one's total reason that is the threat and "n/m" is any fraction between 0-coerced and 1-coerced, though "in the absence of precise weights" one would speak of being partially coerced, slightly coerced, almost fully coerced, etc.

Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice

This essay marks a stage of progression toward the "decision value" approach to Newcomb's problem in Nozick's "The Nature of Rationality". The problem is whether to take one opaque box or both it and atransparent box containing one thousand dollars, where youhave very good reason to believe that someone has put one milliondollars into the opaque box if he predicts you will take onlyit, and that he will have put nothing in the opaque box if hepredicts you will take both.

The essay reviews decision theory's Expected--Utility Principle (oneshould perform that action which has maximal expected utility) andthe Dominance Principle (if action A weakly dominates action B, thenA should be performed rather than B). Action A weaklydominates action B for person P iff, for each state of the world,P either prefers the consequences of A to the consequences of B, oris indifferent between the two consequences, and for some state ofthe world, P prefers the consequence of A to the consequence of B.

Newcomb's Problem is a problem because these two principlescan diverge. Nozick runs through examples suggesting that one shouldnot apply the dominance principle to situations where the outcomesare not probabilistically independent of the actions, maximizingexpected utility instead and understanding expected utility asderived from conditional probabilities of the outcomes given thatthe action is done. (Such examples support taking only the opaquebox.) He then runs through examples in which your action doesn't"make" an outcome more or less likely, and the conditionsaffecting the probabilities are already fixed and determined. (Suchexamples support taking both boxes.) He considers further examplesthat lead him to suggest that "the crucial fact is "not"whether the states are already fixed and determined but whether theactions "influence" or "affect" which state obtains." He concludes that one should take what is in both boxes. This is significantly different from his position in "The Nature of Rationality", which takes into consideration "how much" is in the transparent box. This position involves breaking the frame of the problem, imagining cases in which the transparentbox contains one cent or $M minus one cent, as well as the case in which it contains $1K. (He considers the related frame--breaking of reducing the probability of the predictor's being correct.)

Reflections on Newcomb's Problem

In this essay Nozick comments on letters sent to Martin Gardner in response to his column in"Scientific American" on Newcomb's Problem.

Interpersonal Utility Theory

In this essay Nozick addresses the question, "How might the topic of interpersonal comparisons of utility be brought within the domain of positive economic science aspart of a testable and disconfirmable empirical theory?" Heproposes that different procedures for making interpersonalcomparisons, each with its own virtues, be triangulated. One looksfor convergence among plausible and independently motivatedprocedures. Then it will be "rational to believe that there is areal phenomenon `out there' they are delineating anddemarcating."

On Austrian Methodology

Nozick draws on the Austrian tradition in economic theory (Carl Menger, Friedrich von Wieser, Ludwig von Mises, Frederick Hayek) in focusing on "the most fundamental features of this framework," namely, the principle of methodogical individualism and the claim that economics is an "a priori" science of human action; and focusing as well on two issues at the foundation of Austrian theory within this framework, namely, the nature of preference and its relationship to action, and the basis of time--preference.

Socratic Puzzles

Nozick takes up here what Gregory Vlastos has called "Socrates' central paradox," his profession of ignorance despite his doctrines, such as its being better to suffer injustice than to do it, etc. He distinguishes such doctrines from answers to "What is F?" questions, which he does not have - and his superior wisdom resides in his knowing that he doesn't know them. He concludes that in addition to his method of "elenchus", Socrates has an additional way of teaching, which Nozick calls "the method of embodiment", as in the way he faced death.

Experience, Theory, and Language

This is a self--consciously ambivalent essay about some of Quine's themes. He characterizes Quine as "the theorist of slack" (data undermines theory, theory underdetermines world [ontological relativity] , etc.).

Simplicity as Fall--Out

If an indefinite number of hypotheses fit the data, why believe the simplest? Nozick offers an answer involving "fall--out" and induction based on it: "Since the past exhibits a correlation between the simplicity and the success of a hypothesis, a modest induction --- to be sure, a simple one, but that's how we tend to think --- leads us to conclude that these do go together, and hence, to rely on simplicity." He recommends this explanation as "simple, elegant, forceful, and lovely. More so, surely, than the reigning hypothesis of a real connection between simplicity and truth."

Invisible-Hand Explanations

In this essay Nozick explores some invisible-hand issues raised by his earlier work.

Moral Complications and Moral Structures

Nozick considers two types of moral view, the maximization structure (e.g., utilitarianism) and the deductive structure (where impermissibility, say, of act A follows from A's having such--and--such features and the proposition that any act with such features is impermissible). Nozick presents a "relatively simple structure" that is in harmony with recent writings on "prima facie" duties and rights, as in W.D. Ross's work.

On the Randian Argument

Nozick attempts to formulate a deductive argument that reconstructs and regiments an argument that is implicit in Ayn Rand's work, especially "Atlas Shrugged" and the essay "The Objectivist Ethics" in her collection "The Virtue of Selfishness". He concludes that in her published work she doesn't objectively establish her conclusions.

Weighted Voting and "One-Man, One-Vote"

Assuming that each person is eligible to participate in choosing a given legislator and has equal power in determining that choice, one wants to equalize, for each "i",

:::::Power of legislator L_i
:::——————
Number of persons eligible to participate in choosing legislator L_i

Nozick discusses some of the factors that make this ratio problematic.

Goodman, Nelson, on Merit, Aesthetic

Nozick discusses Goodman's view that a work has aesthetic merit if it is an aesthetic object and if it significantly changes the way we view the world or conceptually organize the world, performing various cognitive functions.

Who Would Choose Socialism?

Nozick arrives at the figure "about six percent" in answer to the question, "Approximately how many people would choose, under highly conducive conditions, to live under socialism?" He bases the figure on the percentage of people in Israel who have chosen to live in a kibbutz. This implies dim prospects for "socialism's coming anywhere voluntarily".

Why do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?

Nozick explores the experience of intellectuals who do well in school and enjoy high status there, and resent the fact that the market doesn't echo that experience.

The Characteristic Features of Extremism

Nozick lists eight features of extremism.

War, Terrorism, Reprisals ---Drawing Some Moral lines

Nozick reviews Michael Walzer's "Just and Unjust Wars".

Do Animals Have Rights?

Nozick reviews Tom Regan's "A Case for Animal Rights".

Fiction

A playful piece that begins, ``I am a fictional character."

R.S .V.P.

About extraterrestrial intelligence, and whether to broadcast to it, in response to their broadcast, their civilization threatened with doom.

Testament

An essay that begins, "Once upon a time I decided to make a person." It leads to a new perspective on Descartes' "cogito".

Teleology

He considers God's seeking meaning in his life by creating the universe, and being led to contemplate suicide.

ee also

* Libertarianism