Why Business Ethics Matters, AKA Value Competition

The Four Temperaments and Political Ambivalence

Below are imagined introspective inquiries by a middle-aged white man who is for Trump and a middle-aged white woman who is for Clinton:

Elrod: Why am I for Trump?   Yes, I'm mad.   I'm sick of a privileged elite of women and minorities like Obama and Hillary who think they're better than the rest of us.   The kind of sexism and racism you can get away with nowadays is all against men and against whites, and it's garbage.  Trump!   And he's fun, too.  There's always a twinkle in his eye--I bet I could have a great time with him. Yes, I admit I've got some reservations.  I think Hillary gets politics and how things work, and Trump doesn't.  And does Donald have any shame, I wonder.  Hey, I do.  I know I treated Vera wrong with all my drinking and my catting around.  But Donald--I wonder if he ever has felt ashamed about anything.  And I worry about that.

Vera: Why am I for Hillary?   God, I'm so happy that there finally is going to be a woman president!  So happy I can cry.  And yes, I'm mad.  I look at Trump and I see all the male garbage that I and every woman has had to put up with for fifty thousand years, big as a giant dump truck on an Imax screen.  I see Elrod and his lawyer, asking for alimony from me because Elrod drank his life away and couldn't hold a job. Hillary!  I'm with her!!!  And yes, though...yes, I worry.  Partly for practical reasons--I think Trump and the Republicans get business and how the economy works in a way that Hillary and the Democrats don't.  And part of it's emotional.  I'm huge on taking responsibility, I told our children all the time that life is about what you can do, not blaming other people...and I worry that Hillary and the Democrats encourage people to do that.   

In both Elrod and Vera, their active, or yang temperaments--the angry/choleric and happy/sanguine--tilt them toward their preferred candidates, while their passive, or yin temperaments--the ashamed/melancholic and the calm/phlegmatic tilt them in the other direction.  

A few potential research questions: How could one measure political ambivalence based on temperaments?  What proportion of us have temperament-related political ambivalence?  Is it the case, as the example above implies, that the more active temperaments usually prevail over the quieter ones?   

 

 

Moral emotions and intellectual acuity

Competitiveness and fairness/"trickiness" as factors in solving math problems—compare Cosmides and Tooby on Wason tests and cheater detection

Condition A:

New York Times NUMBERPLAY column

"Tricky Dice"

By GARY ANTONICK

 APRIL 21, 2014

 You and an opponent are to play a game with three dice. Your opponent starts by choosing one of the three dice, and then you choose one of the two dice that remain. You both then roll your chosen die, and whoever rolls the highest number wins. Our challenge is the following: design three dice (each with three distinct numbers between one and nine, with opposing faces identical) so that no matter which die your opponent chooses, you’ll always be able to choose a better die. That is, you’ll always be able to choose a die that will beat your opponent’s die on average. What set of three tricky dice will do this?

 Condition B:

From the numbers 1 through 9, pick three sets A, B, and C that satisfy the following properties:

1. Each set is made up of three of the nine numbers;
2. All nine numbers are used, with each number used only once;
3. The probability that a randomly selected number from set A will exceed a randomly selected number from set B is greater than one half;
4. The probability that a randomly selected number from set B will exceed a randomly selected number from set C is greater than one half;
5. The probability that a randomly selected number from set C will exceed a randomly selected number from set A is greater than one half.

 Hypothesis: Solving times and accuracy will be significantly better for condition A than for condition B.

Respecting the Other Side

What follows is a statement that one kind of political advocate would be happy to have an advocate for the other side make.  After that is a nearly identical statement that an advocate for the second side would be happy to have an advocate for the first side make.

        The first statement--

"Some of us in our community are on our side.  Others are on the other side.  Most people in the community are persuadable and aren't really committed to either side.  

Now who are we and they, anyway?  We could talk of politics and policies, of course.  But if we're going to understand what's really going on and how we could all do better, we also need to talk about psychology.

In my judgment, there are some typical differences in temperament between people on our side and people on their side.  These aren't invariable differences at all.  Individuals are individuals and there is a great range among our side people, their side people, and persuadables.  But there are some regularities, I believe.

What are these patterns in temperament?

Human nature being what it is, the first idea about the temperaments associated with the sides is likely to be biased in favor of our side.

Here's one such biased statement: Compared to us, they are angry and despairing.  

I believe there is some truth in that biased statement.

But I also believe there is some truth in a self-critical statement: Compared to them, we are guilty and unhappy.

Now, let's turn to positive traits.

We can make a biased statement in favor of our side: Compared to them, we are compassionate and hopeful.  

Again, I think there's some truth in that.

But I also think there's some truth in a positive statement about them: Compared to us, they are happy and appreciative.

So where does this leave us?

By all means, let's fight the good fight for what we believe in.  Let's be proud of our side and our values.

At the same time, let's not commit the error of thinking that we are better people than they are.  We aren't."

            The second, nearly identical statement--

"Some of us in our community are on our side.  Others are on the other side.  Most people in the community are persuadable and aren't really committed to either side.  

Now who are we and they, anyway?  We could talk of politics and policies, of course.  But if we're going to understand what's really going on and how we could all do better, we also need to talk about psychology.

In my judgment, there are some typical differences in temperament between people on our side and people on their side.  These aren't invariable differences at all.  Individuals are individuals and there is a great range among our side people, their side people, and persuadables.  But there are some regularities, I believe.

What are these patterns in temperament?

Human nature being what it is, the first idea about the temperaments associated with the sides is likely to be biased in favor of our side.

Here's one such biased statement: Compared to us, they are unhappy and guilty.  

I believe there is some truth in that biased statement.

But I also believe there is some truth in a self-critical statement: Compared to them, we're angry and despairing.

Now, let's turn to positive traits.

We can make a biased statement in favor of our side: Compared to them, we're happy and appreciative.

Again, I think there's some truth in that.

But I also think there's some truth in a positive statement about them: Compared to us, they're hopeful and compassionate'

So where does this leave us?

By all means, let's fight the good fight for what we believe in.  Let's be proud of our side and of our values.

At the same time, let's not commit the error of thinking that we are better people than they.  We aren't."

A political community in which the advocates for side 1 and side 2 could agree on publishing both statements side by side would be a fortunate one.

 

 

 

Negative Motivation in Political Believers

One must be for something.  But perhaps what one really is as a political believer is against something.

The hypotheses:

1)  The emotional guts of liberalism and leftism is a matter of opposition to a conservative status quo: We are so made that we accept what is, including most especially the routine hierarchies and indignities of what is...and we ought not to!!!

This hypothesis amounts to Jost/SJT stood on its head...an emotional relationship to the status quo is a central driver of political belief, just as Jost/SJT posit...but in the flipped version here the real driver of political belief is liberal and left negativity about the SQ and our acceptance of it, not conservative or right desire to uphold the SQ as in Jost/SJT...

2) The emotional guts of conservatism, Fascism, and anti-liberalism a la Nietzsche is a matter of opposition to an anti-status quo intellectual status quo: Those who feel themselves to be more penetrating in their understanding of the world than their peers are so made that they look down on the SQ and their peers...and they/we ought not to!!!

This hypothesis is consistent w/ parts of Haidt/MFT...Durkheimian utilitarianism as advanced by Haidt can be understood as an effort to channel the extremely powerful negative emotions of opposition to a liberal or left intellectual status quo into an affirmative agenda for respecting the communitarian conventions of the status quo as a matter of practicality.

 

Lost fone, Bayesian priors

Waiting here at the Passion Puddle on the Douglass Cook campus for the REXL bus...got on the bus about 15 minutes ago and fished around for my fone and realized I didn't have it.  Decided I mighta pulled it outta my pocket while waiting for the bus and left it on the trash can where I was balancing my laptop...got outta the bus at the college center and walked back here to the trash can.

Now, the academic point...was thinkin' while walkin' on the v. pleasant path through the woods about what the odds were my fone would be on the trash can.  Decided 50-50 was the right estimate...ruminated a bit on how it's uncomfortable to assign either a high prob (why be overconfident when I'm either gonna find it in a minute or not?!) or a low one (why did I get off the bus?!)...in my usual academic overgeneralizing fashion, had an aha sense that this is part of the story of people's resistance to calculative rationality.

Well...no fone here.  Now I'm thinkin' it's somewhere under the seat on the bus I got off of.  Semi-academically and semi-emotionally, I'm reproving my self of a few minutes ago for being unwilling to stand up for a Bayesian p above .5...after all, if my p were lower, why had I gotten off the bus in the first place?!

More academically and System 2-ishly, I'm now wondering whether in fact getting off the bus might have been a maximizing response even if the p I'd left the fone at the trash can was considerably lower than .5...seems like there are further Bayesian issues as to my beliefs about the likelihood of honest behavior if someone sees my lost fone on a trash can vs. seeing it on the bus...if the p of honesty is a good bit higher on the bus, maximizing could call for going back to check the trash can pronto even if the p it's there is considerably less than .5.

Phew, I feel better about my rationality.  Now, if only I weren't such a moron.

Now an aha moment!!  Maybe I left it in the car when I parked after dropping my wife off at the conference she's attending today at the college center.  Hope springs eternal!  Will wait a few minutes for my bus to return...Mark is the driver per Ezra the driver of another REXL bus.  Then  if no luck I can check the car...then if no luck there I can go to public safety where a third driver tells me lost fones go.  It wouldn't get to the police though until the driver ends his shift sometime this evening...he tells me I can check back tomorrow.  Ugh.  Not good for a faculty member who leaves a fair ways from New Brunswick and whose wife wants him to check in w/ her.  

Academic point...given that there are typically more possibilities than one thinks of, I have another rationale for my reluctance to assign a p over .5 to the chance the fone was at the trash can...

One additional point...there's somewhat higher utility than usual for me at work in having my cell in that I've promised my wife I'll be in touch w/ her via text on our meeting when her conference is over.  Behaviorally, that helps explain my jumpiness in fleeing bus 1.  Does it justify it in System 2 terms?  Kinda...makes more sense to go the extra mile given one's screw-up even if one's responses aren't necessarily maximizing in isolation cuz ya gotta consider the long-term relationship factors....we're in the usual terrain here of how maximizing long-term is not the same as maximizing the one-shot payoff.

Also, same point as before on the possible latent rationality of my dumb focus on the bus and the trash can and neglecting the kinda obvious possibility unitl just now that I'd left it in the car...if I've done that, it ain't goin' anywhere and no quick action is called for in a way it is for the other possibilities.

Ok, think this is the bus I was on originally...driver is talkin' on his cell so I can't interrupt him w/o bein rude.  Look under chair I was sittin' in...nothin'...darn...off to check car.

Yep, it's right there on the passenger seat.  All good.

Now I'm waiting for another REXL, about an hour after this little drama began...

 

 

 

Mutual Respect

The reflections here stem out of a conversation several days with a person whose opinion I value.  At the time it felt like kind of a nitty back-and-forth.  We advanced different positions on economic inequality, with the initiator of the conversation concerned about its growth and favoritism toward the rich, the respondent taking a MIckey Kaus End of Equality line (without crediting Mickey) that money inequality isn't a big deal though social equality is and that social equality is not promoted by compelling economic equality through making markets illegal, the initiator noting that we weren't talking about communism, and so on. I won't say who I was though I'm guessing anyone who's reading this who knows me well can guess :)

What I want to reflect on here is the way in which protagonists of the "we should be worried about economic inequality" position and the "it's not such a big deal" position can respect the other side even while advancing their own positions on tax policy (marginal tax rates, capital gains rates, etc.), unionism (a desirable force for equality?), and other political issues.

Three thoughts.  One possible route to mutual respect is the "My values are good and so are the differing values of the other side" idea.  Dynamism good, likewise security.  Individual responsibility good, likewise compassion.  That's perfectly fine.  Am doubtful that it works too well, though, when we extend it to value systems.  "The right good, the left good, the center good!" is all very well, and those of us with Daoist inclinations may yearn for more of us and in the end all of us to embrace an "it's all good" ethos.  But good luck to us in that pursuit.  It is a difficult one, not least because we neo-Daoists very readily fall into our own industrial-strength moralism against ideological moralism.   

A second thought is to employ the social equality frame that the respondent in the conversation used in an adversarial way--"Economic egalitarianism is connected to highly hierarchical societies like Russia 1917 and China 1949 and quite hierarchical ones like the UK 1957 that miss the point and compound their fundamental problem of social inequality by going against capitalism as in the USSR and China or by taxing capital income at 98% as in the UK!"   The economic egalitarian can, if not hammered by the skeptic, perhaps empathize with the other side if he/she gets that a person who dislikes high marginal tax rates and unions can be seen not as a greednik or a captive of purportedly pro-market but actually pro-rich folks ideology but as someone who has a sincere if possibly empirically wrong in a given case concern about social equality.  Likewise, the pro-market person not concerned about money inequality can perhaps empathize with the other side if he/she gets that the economic egalitarian can be understood as one with a sincere if possibly confused in a particular case concern with advancing the fundamental moral and social equality of human beings.

A third thought for promoting mutual respect is to find common ground between the economic egalitarian and the market outcomes supporter in the form of a controversial value they but not all on their respective sides share.  To turn back to the conversation: Both the other person in the conversation and I are supporters of Freud's "Love and Work" framework for understanding a life well lived, even as we would both acknowedge that that framework has a tilt toward achievement-oriented, driven individuals, social groups, and cultures, and would further acknowledge that there are other legitimate frameworks to understand a life well lived for less driven people, groups, and cultures.  Given that, we are in a position to respect the other's stance if not necessarily to agree on policy.  In particular, the one of us who is more pro-market and more skeptical of economic egalitarianism is in a position to understand that the other is not inattentive to values of individual responsibility and character, but in fact is profoundly devoted to them. 

Real time CBE, part 1

Blogging while proctoring an exam...just got a stack of responses to a pre-test w/ my MBA students...let's take a look...the idea is to do live critical business ethics, with part 1 as the science, part 2 as the normative stories, and part 3 as the appreciation...ok, here goes...

First, the relevant questions:

1.  You want to see a movie that costs $10.  As you are in line to get your ticket, you realize that you have lost $10 you had in your wallet.  Do you still pay $10 for the ticket? ____

2.  You have already bought a $10 ticket for a movie you want to see.  As you are in line to get into the theater, you realize you've lost your ticket.  Do you pay $10 for a new ticket?  ____

3.  You are an owner of a movie theater who is planning to spend $10 at the hardware store for light bulbs for the theater after depositing the receipts at the bank.  You realize that you have lost $10.  Do you buy the light bulbs? ____

4.  You are an owner of a movie theater who has spent $10 for light bulbs for the theater at the hardware store.  You realize you have lost the bulbs.  Do you pay $10 for new bulbs? ____ 

My basic hypothesis/conjecture is that more people will say yes on Q3 and 4 than on Q1 and Q2.  I would especially expect more yeses in comparing the lost light bulb scenario Q4 to the lost ticket scenario Q2.  More in the normative stories part on why…here, I’ll keep it simple.

The results:

Y and N on Q1 (pay $10 for ticket when you’ve lost $10): 40Y, 6N

Y and N on Q2 (buy new $10 ticket you’ve lost): 25Y, 21N

Y and N on Q3 (pay $10 for business when you’ve lost $10): 43Y, 3N

Y and N on Q4 (buy new $10 item for business when you’ve lost item): 42Y, 4N

Bingo with respect to the difference between Q2 and Q4…is it significant?…looks like it…anyway, we don’t need no stinkin’ significance tests here in the insta-science blogosphere…

So…lotsa people said no to buying a new ticket they’d lost for whatever reason (asking for a break from the cashier was mentioned by some folks in the optional explanation section), while hardly any people said no to getting new business supplies they’d lost (and nobody said they would ask the person at the hardware store for a break on the item they’d lost).

Another way to slice the results is in terms of people who maintained the same pattern of responses whether they assumed the roles of consumer or owner versus those who changed their pattern of responses with their role.  (Everyone responding was asked all four questions: I suppose that could lead to consistency/rationality pressures to maintain the same pattern, or alternatively to “mix it up/keep it interesting” pressures to change one’s answers).

People who followed what one could call a “punish oneself for losses” or “punish oneself for a lost item” approach more on the movie customer scenarios than on the business owner scenarios: 18

People who acted the same regardless of consumer or business role: 28.

People who always bought/replaced: 24.

People who consistently punished themselves for a lost item but not for a loss of money: 2

People who consistently punished themselves for any loss: 2

Now, onto the normative...

Weber rules--Self-correction #909

Thinking the focus of the eventual book is on the centrality of an internalized culture of work to modernity and its driven regime of high economic and cultural productivity.  Thinking Weber had it basically right in TPEATSOC...the rest is noise, albeit often interesting and pretty noise.  Think that a book on that "work uber alles" theme can be appropriately ambivalent toward modernity and the non-modern parts of ourselves and others.  Also believe it may help reconcile the opposites within myself more effectively than other framings...if I am to get something long and good done it will in some way I suspect involve a mediation between a youthful self angry at work in a Wall Street law firm and externalizing that anger into a negative line on the work system and a middle-aged self agitated by the excesses of moralistic reaction to the condescension of the internally driven to those less driven.

Perspectives on Cultural Difference: Tight vs. Loose

One psychologically-oriented, metaphorical way to categorize the difference between Sweden and Bolivia, middle class people and working class people, moderns and traditionals, the superego and the id, etc.: The former things (cultures, groups, entities, social constructs, concepts, whatever we want to call them) are wound up tight, while the latter ones are loose.  

Rational Irrationality: A Critical Humanist Prospectus for beep [or maybe something else]

The latest thoughts on a title and an abstract for my long article on social preferences are above and below...wrote this after I took the train to M by mistake this morning and had to cool heels in station there...then a nice ride in to Newark talking with an old book group friend I'd lost touch w/ over the years our children grew up...

Abstract

Currently, behavioral economics and evolutionary psychology are heterodox though dynamic subfields.  Their heterodoxy is connected to the currently prevailing anti-modeling stance of the former, which is mainstream within psychology but not within economics, and to the currently prevailing “pro-modeling with egoism assumed” stance of the latter, which is mainstream within economics but not within psychology.  This paper suggests that the subfields could fruitfully modify their approaches and join forces in a combined field of behavioral economics-evolutionary psychology (beep).   The approach for beep advocated here involves modeling that incorporates social preferences, notably shame, altruism, and competitiveness, along with egoism.   I will claim that interesting, if also highly tentative and debatable, results with implications for understanding social interaction, the governance of the self, modernity, and ideology can be obtained from simple models of evolutionarily stable social preferences in simple one-shot assurance, trust, and leadership games.   I will suggest that beep if it were to come to pass would arguably allow for more potent defenses of status quos in regard to human nature and culture than mainstream economics and psychology do now.  At the same time, I will suggest that beep would also be conducive to alternative stories that would arguably challenge status quos in regard to social interaction, self-governance, modern and traditional cultures, and ideology more effectively than current versions of critical humanism do.

[Ed:  Re-reading this post a couple days later...]

[Rational irrationality is nice as a phrase, but it'd be good to also include the emotional social preference side of things in the title.  Having done that, maybe it'd then be right to explain the main title in the subtitle rather than to refer to a passel of academic movements.  The paper is in fair part about acadmeic movements, to be sure, but maybe none of that goes in the title...]

[another title then could be "Egoistic Altruism and Rational Irrationality: Ambivalence and Contradiction in Evolving Human Nature"...or could flip the order of the phrases]

[hat tip to Boehm and his "Ambivalence and Compromise in Human Nature" for this possible title...not sure about "evolving human nature" but I like it at this moment...the idea is to use the powerful "human nature" trope but to combine it with "evolving" rather than "evolved" to indicate that cultural and for that matter biological evolution is ongoing rather than done...could always just drop "evolving" and create a more powerful ring a la Boehm.  And/or one could use "human character" instead of "human nature" for an original (I think) ethics-y phrase that might interest people and that implies more mutability than "human nature" does...]