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I don't think "a system where there is an equal opportunity to develop merit" is defined sufficiently clearly to derive responsibility. What would such a societ

I don't think "a system where there is an equal opportunity to develop merit" is defined sufficiently clearly to derive responsibility. What would such a society look like? How would it differ from ours?

bumby 5y ago
You can define it by what you value as a society. Merit is partly derived from genetic attributes and partly derived from an environment to develop those attributes so it would make sense to ensure the developmental opportunity is not clustered if you truly want the cream to rise to the top. E.g., if society defines merit as the ability to play tennis, it would probably be best served (ha) to ensure everyone has access to a tennis court to develop those valued skills. Otherwise, you won't really get the "best" players you could, you'll essentially commit the equivalent of sampling error. We know training works to improve the measures we use to estimate merit. It's not a coincidence, for example, that those who have resources to dedicate to SAT prep tend to have better SAT scores. I think the argument is this tends to concentrate merit, perhaps under a erroneous notion that merit. E.g., those who have the resources to develop merit tend to get paid more which allows them to invest more in developing merit in themselves and their offspring...rinse and repeat. I would argue merit can be used as a bad-faith argument if there isn't equal opportunity to develop those attributes.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  It seems to boil down to whether maintaining the environmental factors that produce merit are the purview of society to define and enforce or the purview of individuals and households to decide for themselves. Taking your example of SAT score, to which the main contributing factor is clearly time spent studying. If we investigate further, we find that the main factor in determining whether young adults spend time studying isn't economic, but rather cultural. Students who grow up in households that highly prize grades, study and education unsurprisingly spend more time studying, regardless of household wealth. These students also unsurprisingly have much more well-developed skills and habits around study and educational attainment. The question is what would you do about this? Should you do anything? I personally don't think it's any of our collective business how a household chooses to raise their children beyond the extremes of physical abuse and neglect.
  - bumby 5y ago
    >The question is what would you do about this? Should you do anything? I personally don't think it's any of our collective business how a household chooses to raise their children beyond the extremes of physical abuse and neglect. Only speaking for myself, I think society has a role in helping overcoming those disadvantages that aren’t the fault of the child. Otherwise, you are asking them to pay for the sins of their fathers. I also think society as a whole would be better off for it and the overall aptitude would increase by truly seeing who has the most merit, rather than who won the cultural lottery.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      While I appreciate your perspective, I don't think anyone has the moral authority to command that every family raise their children in manner that optimizes for economic outcomes. Some people send their children to Forest School or Yeshiva, where they learn remarkably different things than are taught in public school. Are these children "disadvantaged" from your perspective? Perhaps, but how would you respond to a parent who suggests publicly-schooled children are far more disadvantaged in metrics important to them? From where do you derive the authority to say that "economic achievement" is the supreme value we should optimize for?
      - bumby 5y ago
        >From where do you derive the authority I would say from the social contract of acknowledging that, as a part of a society, I have at least some duty to that society in exchange for what that society provides (whether that is just a functional judiciary, a stable economy, rule of law, infrastructure, collective defense etc). Its not me who has authority in a representative democracy but the people from whom the government derives power. So it’s not really if I think that’s the right metric but rather if society does. To a certain extent, they have already voted on this with the creation of a public school system. And it’s not to say there is a single “supreme value” to optimize for because society is too complex to have a single cost function and dangerous to pretend there is (which I worry your ‘paper clip’ comment alludes to), but we can still acknowledge there is an acceptable base level for specific metrics. I think the libertarian ideal is seductive because if there’s never an authority, you never have to be wrong. In the words of a philosopher, “ Perhaps this is why believing in absolute freedom is so tempting — if we follow that path, we are always “right,” which is easy.”[1] It’s an easy, but overly simplistic, framework. I tend to find the focus is disproportionately on what the government owes us without acknowledging that in exchange we have an obligation to society. I can understand why someone advocates for ultimate freedom because of that seductiveness but I can’t really understand how they can also claim it will create a meritocracy unless you reduce yourself to a myopic view. I can reduce my worldview all the way down to the single room from which I’m typing and proclaim I’m the most meritorious person, but that position gets harder to defend as I acknowledge I am part of a larger society. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/special-series/mike-schur-and-todd-may-what-we-believe-about-freedom.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/special-series/mike-schur...

bumby 5y ago

You can define it by what you value as a society. Merit is partly derived from genetic attributes and partly derived from an environment to develop those attributes so it would make sense to ensure the developmental opportunity is not clustered if you truly want the cream to rise to the top. E.g., if society defines merit as the ability to play tennis, it would probably be best served (ha) to ensure everyone has access to a tennis court to develop those valued skills. Otherwise, you won't really get the "best" players you could, you'll essentially commit the equivalent of sampling error. We know training works to improve the measures we use to estimate merit. It's not a coincidence, for example, that those who have resources to dedicate to SAT prep tend to have better SAT scores. I think the argument is this tends to concentrate merit, perhaps under a erroneous notion that merit. E.g., those who have the resources to develop merit tend to get paid more which allows them to invest more in developing merit in themselves and their offspring...rinse and repeat. I would argue merit can be used as a bad-faith argument if there isn't equal opportunity to develop those attributes.

thegrimmest 5y ago
It seems to boil down to whether maintaining the environmental factors that produce merit are the purview of society to define and enforce or the purview of individuals and households to decide for themselves. Taking your example of SAT score, to which the main contributing factor is clearly time spent studying. If we investigate further, we find that the main factor in determining whether young adults spend time studying isn't economic, but rather cultural. Students who grow up in households that highly prize grades, study and education unsurprisingly spend more time studying, regardless of household wealth. These students also unsurprisingly have much more well-developed skills and habits around study and educational attainment. The question is what would you do about this? Should you do anything? I personally don't think it's any of our collective business how a household chooses to raise their children beyond the extremes of physical abuse and neglect.
- bumby 5y ago
  >The question is what would you do about this? Should you do anything? I personally don't think it's any of our collective business how a household chooses to raise their children beyond the extremes of physical abuse and neglect. Only speaking for myself, I think society has a role in helping overcoming those disadvantages that aren’t the fault of the child. Otherwise, you are asking them to pay for the sins of their fathers. I also think society as a whole would be better off for it and the overall aptitude would increase by truly seeing who has the most merit, rather than who won the cultural lottery.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    While I appreciate your perspective, I don't think anyone has the moral authority to command that every family raise their children in manner that optimizes for economic outcomes. Some people send their children to Forest School or Yeshiva, where they learn remarkably different things than are taught in public school. Are these children "disadvantaged" from your perspective? Perhaps, but how would you respond to a parent who suggests publicly-schooled children are far more disadvantaged in metrics important to them? From where do you derive the authority to say that "economic achievement" is the supreme value we should optimize for?
    - bumby 5y ago
      >From where do you derive the authority I would say from the social contract of acknowledging that, as a part of a society, I have at least some duty to that society in exchange for what that society provides (whether that is just a functional judiciary, a stable economy, rule of law, infrastructure, collective defense etc). Its not me who has authority in a representative democracy but the people from whom the government derives power. So it’s not really if I think that’s the right metric but rather if society does. To a certain extent, they have already voted on this with the creation of a public school system. And it’s not to say there is a single “supreme value” to optimize for because society is too complex to have a single cost function and dangerous to pretend there is (which I worry your ‘paper clip’ comment alludes to), but we can still acknowledge there is an acceptable base level for specific metrics. I think the libertarian ideal is seductive because if there’s never an authority, you never have to be wrong. In the words of a philosopher, “ Perhaps this is why believing in absolute freedom is so tempting — if we follow that path, we are always “right,” which is easy.”[1] It’s an easy, but overly simplistic, framework. I tend to find the focus is disproportionately on what the government owes us without acknowledging that in exchange we have an obligation to society. I can understand why someone advocates for ultimate freedom because of that seductiveness but I can’t really understand how they can also claim it will create a meritocracy unless you reduce yourself to a myopic view. I can reduce my worldview all the way down to the single room from which I’m typing and proclaim I’m the most meritorious person, but that position gets harder to defend as I acknowledge I am part of a larger society. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/special-series/mike-schur-and-todd-may-what-we-believe-about-freedom.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/special-series/mike-schur...