Economics Questions

Re: Delineating the axioms and principles of methodological individualism. Does this follow?

whakaheke — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:19:25 GMT

Right, I think I'm basically saying the same thing as Mises. The individual is primary and thus should be the basic unit of analysis.

This was my response:

[edit: IF YOU CLICK ON THE TEXT IT LOOKS NORMAL]

II. The individual is the basic unit of society and of analysis.

The second principle, that individuals are the basic unit of human society is disputable. Why choose individuals? Why not genes? Why not ideas? Why not families? Nations? Cultures? Professions?

We are talking about social science, not natural science. Yes, you could hypothetically choose genes, but that would be going in the opposite direction to collectivism and individuals would still be the basic unit of society even if individual choices were merely an expression of gene pools whose basic unit was the gene. Epistemologically we cannot do that right now (replace all social science with natural science) as our scientific knowledge of how these more basic units (genes, cells, atoms, quarks, etc.) work and in turn affect human decision-making is comparatively extremely limited.

Sociobiology and neuroeconomics are steps in this direction, but it’s got a long way to go. On the other hand, we do have a large amount of information regarding individuals not least because we are individuals and have direct access to the workings of our own individual intellects via induction and deductive logic.

“Ideas” qua ideas don’t do anything. That’s just what we call conscious products of our individual mind. We obviously talk about them (eg. memetics, ideology, economics, etc.) and they’re central to everything we talk about, but they’re not the basic unit of analysis in themselves as they’re simply a way we talk about what comes from individuals. You can’t talk about ideas existing sans individuals, but you can talk about individuals existing sans the ideas they have.

Cultures, nations, etc. are collectives that we either recognize as primarily emergent from individuals (culture, language, etc) or are our own conceptual aggregation of individuals (nation-state, society, etc).

To the extent that we are shaped and defined by our culture, are we truly separable from it?

No, you’re missing the point. It’s not to separate ourselves from culture, but to recognize which is primary. Culture is not made irrelevant, however the individual is primary. Methodological individualism is not methodological atomism. You cannot describe culture without referring to its revelation of culture via individual action/interaction. Try to do so.

Can you describe individual choices without some explicit or implicit to genetic predispositions?

Yes, we described individual choices thousands of years before we knew genes existed.

To cultural influences?

Yes, see the child growing up alone in a garden dome, or a deaf-blind person who never has any communication with other human beings, or a hermit, etc. We can describe their choice to eat rather than starve, their choices revealing personal preference without cultural influence, and interaction upon introduction of other individuals and so on. We also have completely distinct cultures across different populations of individuals. Look at that previous sentence again.

I think your second principle makes a decent definition—but it’s not axiomatic.

You have not yet been able to coherently dispute it, so for the time being it stands as self-evident and axiomatic. Individuals are the basic unit of human society.

III. The axiom of conscious decision-making and purposive action

Plenty of conscious actions have no purpose. Chewing on pens, for example, is quite common, is entirely conscious, and doesn’t advance any subjective end.

Yes, it does. If a person consciously decides (as opposed to without consciously deciding to do so) to chew on a pen, it is for the fulfillment of some subjective end (which could be anything, likely the sensation of chewing the pen itself) which is therefore ordinally preferred by that individual momentarily over inaction and all other potential actions not chosen.

Alternatively, if you say, “He chose to chew on a pen in order to chew on a pen,” you’ve stated a tautology.

No, if he consciously decides to put a pen in his mouth and repeatedly bite it, he is doing so for the fulfillment of a subjective end, whether it be the satisfaction he gets from the physical sensation of chewing on the pen or from seeing his teeth marks on it or whatever. He is not chewing the pen to be chewing on the pen, but for the subjective end of eg. the physical sensation. If he is chewing on the pen “just because he consciously wants to be chewing on a pen regardless of sensations or anything else” then that is not tautology but simply his means being immediately fulfilled as his subjective ends.

And he would still have to consciously set the pen in his mouth and move his jaw, which according to your articulation was not his end. So his conscious action of closing his jaw on the pen repeatedly was the means to his subjective ends of “I just wanna be chewing on a pen right now.” (an odd case)

Again, you have not actually disputed the axiom and it stands.

IV. Value is subjective

It’s entirely plausible that somebody else with a broad enough perspective and enough information might be able to predict your actions under certain circumstances better than you could.

This is not about “predicting actions,” but what is revealed by action itself. Say a person may not be able to predict their future actions while you could (not really, due to the dynamism of life and you’re ignoring the free will questions) but even so you would not know what they value better than they know what they value as that is momentarily revealed by action, ie. by that person’s decision-making. When it is revealed by action it is revealed only marginallyand ordinally, as in over inaction and all other immediately potential actions at that moment, which is obviously dynamic. You may be able to make a good guess as to their values, but not to the point where you can logically knowbetter than them as they reveal by their voluntary choice in real-time.

but is certainly plausible.

Not really.

advertisers make their livings doing that sort of thing. They may get it wrong in individual cases—but across broad demographics, they can be uncannily good.

Advertisers use tools (eg. focus groups) to find people’s different people’srevealed values in very specific contexts and then they try to cater to those revealed values in those contexts. They are not predicting action in the way you’re talking about, nor can they logically know what you value better than you know what you value. They statistically cater to revealed values or what they believe are revealed values. That’s it.

Is society created by individuals or does that society create the individuals?

Individuals created society as the individual can exist without society whereas society is impossible without individuals. Easy peasy. Society certainly affects and shapes individuals, it’s a feedback mechanism, but again the point is that the individual is primary.

Or does something outside shape both?

Like what?

But you also seem to be insisting that this is indisputable. It’s not.

You have not yet disputed it. So far, it stands.

Re: Delineating the axioms and principles of methodological individualism. Does this follow?

scineram — Tue, 11 May 2010 02:26:16 GMT

It is usually handy but not the end of the world.

Re: Delineating the axioms and principles of methodological individualism. Does this follow?

soe — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:34:44 GMT

Why choose individuals as "basic units"? My answer is this: because every human has free will. Everyone is influenced by society, but society itself doesn't have 'will'. It does not act. Let me quote Mises:

"First we must realize that all actions are performed by individuals. A collective operates always through the intermediary of one or several individuals whose actions are related to the collective as the secondary source." (Human Action, Chapter II)

And when I said that everyone is influenced by society, it means that everyone is influenced by actions of other members of society.

In point 4, you say that value is subjective, and that we cannot know a priori what others think. The response to this point says that with knowledge of circumstances, you can have good sense of what others value. That is correct, but it isn't a response to your argument.

Re: Delineating the axioms and principles of methodological individualism. Does this follow?

whakaheke — Mon, 10 May 2010 03:05:02 GMT

Yeah, I was basically paraphrasing Mises there. I'll try to restate that.

This was the response I got, which I'll try to respond to.

I. I’ll give you the first principle. Disputing non-contradiction would be a serious drag.

II. The second principle, that individuals are the basic unit of human society is disputable. Why choose individuals? Why not genes? Why not ideas? Why not families? Nations? Cultures? Professions? To the extent that we are shaped and defined by our culture, are we truly separable from it? We can define our base unit as individuals—but we could also fruitfully study any number of other things, some bigger than the individual and some smaller. Can you describe individual choices without some explicit or implicit to genetic predispositions? To cultural influences? I think your second principle makes a decent definition—but it’s not axiomatic.

III. I think your third action is either wrong our tautological. Plenty of conscious actions have no purpose. Chewing on pens, for example, is quite common, is entirely conscious, and doesn’t advance any subjective end. Alternatively, if you say, “He chose to chew on a pen in order to chew on a pen,” you’ve stated a tautology. “He intended the thing he intended.” So, while I made a conscious decision to dispute your axiom, intending to dispute your axiom, I also made a conscious decision to chew on one of my favorite pens while typing it, risking the senseless destruction of the pen clip. But, to the extent that you mean conscious decisions are sometimes made with purpose, I don’t disagree.

IV. Your fourth axiom is that I am not a mind-reader. Fine. I’ll give you that one. But it’s not entirely clear that I can’t have a very good sense of what they value by observing their circumstances. If I could know things like diet, culture, recent experiences, and so on, I could do even better. It’s entirely plausible that somebody else with a broad enough perspective and enough information might be able to predict your actions under certain circumstances better than you could. That would be pretty creepy—but is certainly plausible. And advertisers make their livings doing that sort of thing. They may get it wrong in individual cases—but across broad demographics, they can be uncannily good.

V. You ultimately end up with a chicken or egg problem. Is society created by individuals or does that society create the individuals? Or does something outside shape both? You seem to be planting a flag in the sand, insisting that the individual is primary. That’s fine. But you also seem to be insisting that this is indisputable. It’s not.

Re: Delineating the axioms and principles of methodological individualism. Does this follow?

Jeremiah Dyke — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:56:19 GMT

“If you make the conscious decision to take the action of disputing this axiom, you are contradicting yourself since such a denial would demonstrate purposive action.”

Is this a valuable claim? It seems like word play similar to ‘are you skeptical about your own skepticism’ or ‘is it true that there is no such thing as truth’. It just seems like a smoke screen or a way of claiming a non-falsifiable position without actually demonstrating it. Maybe I’m wrong, but something seems lacking in this claim.

Delineating the axioms and principles of methodological individualism. Does this follow?

whakaheke — Mon, 10 May 2010 00:39:41 GMT

Someone asked me in a debate to delineate the axioms of methodological individualism when I stated that the individual should be the basic unit of analysis for social science.

Does this look about right and follow? :

Axioms / Principles of Methodological Individualism

1. The first principles of logic (A=A, the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, etc) are valid. You cannot dispute them without presupposing their validity in the articulation of your dispute.

2. Individuals are the basic unit of human society. You can have humans without collectives (eg. state of nature, a hermit, etc.) but you cannot talk about collectives outside of what you know of them from individual action and interaction. Collectives are conceptual aggregations of / emergent from individuals. To dispute this, you would have to describe collectives without some explicit or implicit referential basis to them in terms of individuals.

3. When acting on any conscious decision, individuals act purposively. (Non-purposive behavior includes things like unconscious body movement and dreaming.) In other words, in choosing to act, they seek some means to some subjective end. (That end can be absolutely anything, including the action itself.) Thus an individual action is a manifestation of intentionality in choosing X action over inaction and all other potential actions. If you make the conscious decision to take the action of disputing this axiom, you are contradicting yourself since such a denial would demonstrate purposive action.

4. You are not a mind-reader. You cannot know a priori what someone else values are (we do assume basic physiological needs, though people eg. suicidals or masochists may not value them), or the relative values they have for different things, or some cardinal level of value they project onto different options. Value is subjective. (Note this is not a claim about value formation. Subjective value may be formed completely by social norms or genetics or whatever. It is about how you can know about someone else’s values.)

5. Thus, subjective value is revealed marginally by (#2) individual human action, ie. (#3) the purposive actions taken reveal the conscious decision-making of the individuals, and thus their (#4) subjective value. However you only know their values insofar as they are revealed, and you only know them marginally, that is you only know they ordinally value X action over inaction and other potential actions. You do not know the cardinal proportion of value they gave to each of those options (and neither do they ie. "I value X 50%, Y 20%, etc.").

This does not mean you can’t talk about collectives. You obviously can. However, the individual is the primary unit. Individual values may be formed by collective variables, but those collective variables are not the primary unit. We talk about collective variables (language, culture, market prices, community, society, law, etc.) by first acknowledging that they emerge from individual action and interaction, even if we cannot precisely describe the process of their emergence.