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> "Interests" is a technical term in economics which means something different from the common usage. In short, it means things you consciously seek for their o

by defen 12y ago

> "Interests" is a technical term in economics which means something different from the common usage. In short, it means things you consciously seek for their own value. Love, being moral, fulfilling duties; all of these are interests in the sense economists use the term. So what is the "utility" (sorry, I couldn't resist) of this term? It seems to be a tautology - what else could people pursue besides their "interests"? It seems circular - by definition anything people consciously do is an "interest", because humans are rational, because they pursue their interests...

alexbecker 12y ago
Most of my actions do not achieve goals in themselves. Example: I don't work for its own sake, nor do I work for the sake of money. I work because it is one in a chain of actions I take to satisfy my actual values.
tikhonj 12y ago
The core significance "rational interests" is that they are consistent. For example, if you like A more than B and B more than C, you should like A more than C. The important part is the internal consistency, not the actual preferences. You could aim at nothing more than helping your fellow man and behave perfectly rationally, as long as you're consistent about it. It's not a perfect model because people's preferences are not necessarily totally ordered, and people are not always consistent, and preferences change in interesting but sometimes inconsistent (and often predictable) ways. But it's pretty good. I think it's a great way to think about things because it makes no judgements about what your actual goals are. After all, people have different preferences and interests, and that's fine. More importantly, this also means you could reuse the same ideas perfectly happily for corporations, organizations, societies or event AIs and still draw interesting conclusions. It also lets us create systems that can successfully cater to agents with wildly different interests and get them all to cooperate willingly—that's one of the most important features of our market system and capitalism.

by defen 12y ago

alexbecker 12y ago

Most of my actions do not achieve goals in themselves. Example: I don't work for its own sake, nor do I work for the sake of money. I work because it is one in a chain of actions I take to satisfy my actual values.

tikhonj 12y ago

The core significance "rational interests" is that they are consistent. For example, if you like A more than B and B more than C, you should like A more than C. The important part is the internal consistency, not the actual preferences. You could aim at nothing more than helping your fellow man and behave perfectly rationally, as long as you're consistent about it. It's not a perfect model because people's preferences are not necessarily totally ordered, and people are not always consistent, and preferences change in interesting but sometimes inconsistent (and often predictable) ways. But it's pretty good. I think it's a great way to think about things because it makes no judgements about what your actual goals are. After all, people have different preferences and interests, and that's fine. More importantly, this also means you could reuse the same ideas perfectly happily for corporations, organizations, societies or event AIs and still draw interesting conclusions. It also lets us create systems that can successfully cater to agents with wildly different interests and get them all to cooperate willingly—that's one of the most important features of our market system and capitalism.