Selfishness and Rationality

Andrew Gelman writes, in response to my comments in this post:

Comments on comments on "Voting as a rational decision", by Andrew Gelman:After reading our article, "Voting as a rational decision," Mark Thoma asked,

If helping other people makes me happy, why would caring about other people be contrary to my own self-interest? This is essentially a question about the meaning of the term selfish. I [Mark] assume selfishness means maximizing my utility, which may or may not include the happiness of other people as an argument.

My reply:

The challenge in all such arguments is to avoid circularity. If selfishness means maximizing utility, and we always maximize utility (by definition, otherwise it isn't our utility, right?), then we're always selfish. But then that's like, if everything in the world is the color red, would we have a word for "red" at all? I'm using selfish in the more usual sense of giving instrumental benefits. For example, if I cut in front of someone in line, I'm being selfish. If I don't do it (because I get pleasure from being a nice guy and pain from being a jerk), then that's other-directed. I'm sacrificing something (my own time) in order to help others. Just because something is enjoyable it doesn't have to be selfish, I think.

To put it another way, if "selfish" means utility-maximization, which by definition is always being done (possibly to the extent of being second-order rational by rationally deciding not to spend the time to exactly optimize our utility function), then everything is selfish. Then let's define a new term, "selfish2," to represent behavior that benefits ourselves instrumentally without concern for the happiness of others. Then our point is that rationality is not the same as selfish2.

Also, some of his commenters questioned whether a single vote could be decisive, what with recounts etc. The answer is, yes, it can, because there is ultimately some threshold (even if unobservable) as to whether the recount occurs. And even if this threshold is itself probabilistic, the probabilities can be added. We demonstrate this mathematically in the Appendix to the 2004 Gelman, Katz, and Bafumi article in the British Journal of Political Science; see page 674 here.

My reply to Andrew:

I almost followed up with something similar. My point, which probably wasn't as clear as it could have been, was about rationality not always being the same as selfishness. The utility functions that we use in maximization problems can, and sometimes do, differ from the definition of selfishness as usually defined, e.g. Barro's "Are Bonds Net Wealth" where the parent's utility function has the utility of the children as an argument. Selfishness means, I think, doing what's best for me no matter what (I have no concern for the effects that my actions have on others), and those types of preferences are easy to model. But we also allow for preferences where I care about how my actions affect others so that, in your example, there would be a net benefit from not cutting in line. We don't ask where preferences come from, or why people hold them, whether it's rational in a psychologist's sense to care about others, we just say that if this is what you like, this is how you will act when presented with a particular set of constraints, prices, etc.

In that context, it is not always rational to be selfish. It is rational to maximize utility, and if I am an other-directed person - if helping others makes me happy - then it is perfectly rational to appear to act contrary to my own self-interest (or better, selfish-interest). I suppose it would look particularly irrational to someone with inward-directed preferences, but so long as the choices maximize utility, there wouldn't be anything irrational about it from an economist's perspective.

[I think we are really talking about Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, i.e. the way in which we are endowed with emotions like empathy, sympathy, "fellow-feeling," and so on, that act to redirect our self-interest into what's best for all, i.e. into the maximization of the social interest]

Comments

[dale]

I never know whether to laugh or cry when I read economists' definitions of rationality. At the very least you should put quotation marks around the words "rational" and "rationality", etc. to let us know that you know you are not using rational in the same ways that regular folks do. These sorts of one-sided understandings of rationality can bleed over into the general culture and do harm.

[Lafayette]

Word games

Gelman: If selfishness means maximizing utility, and we always maximize utility (by definition, otherwise it isn't our utility, right?), then we're always selfish.

This is not what is meant by the word selfish. To believe such is to mean that self-interest is commonly selfish because it only improves our own particular condition.

Self-interest has a common value when the interest in question is also communal in nature.

Selfishness, or greed (if you like), is when self-interest results in personal aggrandizement (increase of power, status or wealth). When a utility enhances the benefit of all, then it is not selfish. It is for the common good.

Very early in our nation's establishment, the notion of commonweal was well known and considered, even to the point of the state of Massachusetts having been founded as a "Commonwealth". The commonweal is a notion of public welfare where the collective decides what actions/regulations further a common benefit.

America has come a long way since and its values have muted as well. In America's continual struggle between Individual Interest and the Public Interest, it has come to confuse the two. Values like fads can be cyclical. Perhaps America is traversing a period of enhanced Individual Interest with a sociological propensity for self-gratification (aka self-interest)?

Let's hope so, because the Gini coefficient is a blaring indication of something gone very wrong as regards the distribution and accumulation of the economic wealth generated.

Wealth = the state of being rich. Weal = that which is best for someone. (Note that weal is the root word for wealth.) America does not typify a common wealth, its Gini-coefficient indicates as much. But as a democracy based upon fairness, it should have a well-founded notion of the common weal.

I suggest that America got lost along the way from its original roots ... in the common weal.

[hari]

@ Mark -

Utility function of selfishness and rationality!

On a spring morning like this we don't have to go to church to find out the real personal meaning of above...or do we!

From my seventy years on this crazy planet, all I can say today - and actually condem - is our human *greediness*.

I went back to "Weath and Nations" and mine has an introduction by Samuelson put out by The Eastern Press (1991). Rationality is a difficult word (cf. first comment!). It may be that American insular culture - lead by the media - is a culprit here. How does one overcome insularity, is really a good starting point, me thinks.

I am convinced from life's experience that empathy is maybe more relevant in today's world than *rationality* per se. We need less American greedy behaviour towards hi fi markets or political adversary. There's a need to get into other persons shoes in order to understand what's up. Also to recognize that our actions, no matter how small, can and does affect others - irrespective of good or evil intentions.

You're a good teacher, and I hope you get under the skin of your counterparts by repeating yourself constantly on this theme - on Sundays in particular.

[hari]

Correction - "The Wealth of Nations"

[Dick Harmer]

Economists' persistence in the use of the term "rational" -- when, in fact, what they're talking about is prudence -- is one of the surest signs of their parochialized, inbred irrationality.

You should follow Diedre McClosky's lead and extricate yourself from this sophomoric sinkhole.

[anne]

Me, I like being sophomoric, and have been being sophomoric for years now since the initial attempt went so wonerfully well. So, I will stay sophomoric as long as I wish. Rational enough? Say what? Duh.

[anne]

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Dear-Prudence-lyrics-The-Beatles/316FCB9B2E536B6D48256BC200213818

1995

Dear Prudence
By John Lennon

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won't you come out to play

Dear Prudence open up your eyes
Dear Prudence see the sunny skies
The wind is low the birds will sing
That you are part of everything
Dear Prudence won't you open up your eyes?

Look around round round
Look around round round
Look around round round

Dear Prudence let me see you smile
Dear Prudence like a little child
The clouds will be a daisy chain
So let me see you smile again
Dear Prudence won't you let me see you smile?

[anne]

Hari:

Quoting from Martin Luther King on the Good Samaritan, sort of:

"I am convinced from life's experience that empathy is maybe more relevant in today's world than *rationality* per se."

The Good Samaritan was King's favorite sermon subject.

says...

lafayette said: Let's hope so, because the Gini coefficient is a blaring indication of something gone very wrong as regards the distribution and accumulation of the economic wealth generated.

Here's a stunning video: The L-Curve. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woIkIph5xcU

It gave me a mental understanding of the Gini gap which I hadn't grasped before. Mount Everest and outer space are involved.

Noni

[Alex Tolley]

MT: ...it is not always rational to be selfish. It is rational to maximize utility

While economists like to use the word "utility", it is used in a very malleable way. Essentially you can argue that utility is by definition, the action taken by a reasoning individual. But this is like saying that any event is :God's will". Unfalsifiable.

If you then build your meaning of selfish upon the definition of utility, you are forced to use "selfish" and "selfish2" as being different, depending on the actions taken.

Likewise, "rational" is used in the sense that the action taken should be the one that logically leads to maximizing utility, whilst most people use rational to imply "I've thought about the problem and the course of action taken is
not random and or obviously stupid or detrimental to my situation".

I think much of the problem lies in the math centricity of economics being applied to individual humans. It may be reasonable to model average behavior, but it shouldn't be assumed that individuals are so modeled. This is like trying to describe the velocity of individual models in a gas, using the equations describing the properties of gases in bulk.

[robertdfeinman]

From the dictionary:

selfish: devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.

There is a, well-understood, negative connotation to selfishness, it is not just that one wants to do something for one's own benefit, but that it is expected that this will have a negative impact elsewhere. That's why it is generally associated with greed.

Utility does not necessarily have this implication. I could maximize utility by switching from a hand saw to a power saw and get my job done faster without it having any downside to others. This is true whether I'm doing the task for pay or because I like building furniture as a hobby.

If we are to discuss "utility" then we have to decide if it includes an implicit, religiously inspired, moral aspect as well.

[Bruce Wilder]

I think utilitarianism arose as a logical post-Enlightenment extension of humanism.

If you see utilitarianism as a machine-like caricature of individualism, then it does seem both oddly stilted and problematic.

It is a case of the evolution of ideas in thesis, antithesis, synthesis leading to ridiculousness. But, back up a bit from Bentham into Enlightenment humanism, where the competing notions are unapologetic assertions of authority, and doctrines of the Good, which assign a primacy to reasons of state and God's Will for the soul: the glory of God and the King.

Doctrines of individualism and rational selfishness don't look so odd, when the context is a state pre-occupied with burning witches.

Given that the U.S. has been trying to make its society "safe" by such disparate means as asking grandmothers to take off their shoes at airports, shredding the rule of law, and attacking a weak country for no particular reason, I would say the hope for a "rational" politics is premature.

And, getting hung up on whether rationalism mandates radical individualism is an intellectual anachronism.

[Deepish Thinker]

"To put it another way, if "selfish" means utility-maximization, which by definition is always being done (possibly to the extent of being second-order rational by rationally deciding not to spend the time to exactly optimize our utility function), then everything is selfish. Then let's define a new term, "selfish2," to represent behavior that benefits ourselves instrumentally without concern for the happiness of others. Then our point is that rationality is not the same as selfish2."

- Utility maximization is rational.
- Utility maximization is, by definition, always being done.
- People sometimes act in "selfish2" way.
- Acting in a "selfish2" way is therefore to act in a utility maximizing way, which is rational.

Using the above definition "selfish2" isn't the same as rational, but it is a subset of rational. In other words, "selfish2" acts are perfectly rational, but they are not the only rational acts.

All of which is about as interesting as definitional arguments usually are. It would appear that the distinction between selfish and selfish2 is moral rather than economic, which is of course the way non-economists tend to think about these things.

The question remains, why, in a given situation where there are several rational alternatives, is some people's personal utility function maximized by selecting the "selfish2" option.

My guess is that there is an underlying evolutionary explanation. If this is true utility function is just another term for survival strategy, and is just one of the traits we receive, genetically and/or memetically, from our forebears. The diversity in individual utility functions is just a reflection, like the variation in body types, that no particular mix of self- and other-centeredness has proven overwhelmingly successful over the course of our evolution.

[Alex Tolley]

RDF: "There is a, well-understood, negative connotation to selfishness, it is not just that one wants to do something for one's own benefit, but that it is expected that this will have a negative impact elsewhere. That's why it is generally associated with greed."

This question of definition and meaning is clearly a problem. The common parlance use of "selfish" and "greedy" imply a negative connotation. However, in the Dawkin's sense of "selfish gene", it has no such connotation, just the definition that the gene operates purely to maximally self-replicate.

Likewise with "greedy algorithms", greedy just means to maximize a value function at each evaluation and has no negative implications of rapaciousness.

[NLS]

Note: "Rational" in economics just means preferences are complete and transitive. That's it. It makes the math work.

[Dave Raithel]

Perhaps we could understand a "selfish" act as a demand for more than one's fair share in any enterprise or negotiation, and take something like Nash's Bargaining Solution as the measure? Perhaps "selfish" should be thought of a disposition to make such demands, and depending upon the resiliance of the others, sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds. (But of course, "giving in" to the extraordinary demand might, paradoxically, maximize expected utility for the given in..)I don't mean to endorse all of rational choice theory in suggesting this; only to pose how one might distinguish those acts done to maximize expected utility from selfish acts, without circularity, and inside the theory (writ large) itself....

[btg]

generally speaking, a pschyopath (or sociopath) is a person who has no conception of others - no empathy whatsoever. other people are merely tools to be used, or obstacles to be overcome.

psychopaths are "rational" (as in not delusionsional, logical), and clearly try to maximize their utility, and yet when I read about "homo economicus" type behaviour in economics related materials, I always wonder what economists say about a psychopath's behaviour and that of philanthropist.

[Lafayette]

AT : Essentially you can argue that utility is by definition, the action taken by a reasoning individual.

Make that plural (individuals) and you’ve got it right. Utility is both individual and social, meaning collective.

Reasoning may or may not be involved. On which hot day did you “reason” that a Coke would be a refreshing purchase? Habit is also a part of utility.

Particularly in a social context. For instance: We get used to a standard of living, finding it has both individual and collective utility. We get enthused when politicians promise an enhancement of that standard. We get disappointed when we realize it was all just electioneering smoke and mirrors.

The subject is both broad and interesting, the latter due to the fact that some bright minds have grasped at the philosophy of utility, thereby creating the utilitarian movement of economics. See here.

[Patricia Shannon]

Being "selfish" is counterproductive because it causes an increase in selfishness in society. The selfish depend on the non-selfish. If everybody is selfish, they have no advantage.

I met a nice lady, an fairly intelligent person, who had thought that striving after material goods was non-rational. She was not a selfish person. She gave of her time and effort at our church, where I met her. But she took her ideals to an extreme, making her living as a migrant farm worker, like picking apples. I let her stay at my house while she was in town. She kind of put me down for having a regular job and buying a house, being a wage slave. I nicely pointed out to her that her way of life depended on the people she criticized. If it weren't for people like me, there would be nobody to give her shelter. She stopped making her negative comments, because she was capable of recognizing a rational argument.

In the same way, the selfish are parasites on the non-selfish whom they look down on. If everybody where psychopaths, they would be at a disadvantage. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

[Patricia Shannon]

Patricia Shannon says...

I read a study that examined the relationship of several psychological characteristics of people from poor families, and whether they were related to the probability that the person moved up at least one (maybe it was two) economic classes when they were grown. They found 3 of the characteristics were associated with moving up from the bottom class. One was intellectualization, which does not surprise me. Another was empathy. People who had empathy helped others, which caused others to help them. (I can't remember the 3rd factor).