Carneades

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I feel terrible reviewing this book. I requested it through Early Reviewers because I dug the concept and assumed it was a slim little volume exploring big ideas. And afternoon's intellectual delight, if you will.

Then it arrived. And it's 420 pages written by a pseudonymous YouTuber.

Most of a year has passed and I am forced to admit to myself—and here's what makes me feel bad–that I just do not care what ANY pseudonymous YouTuber says, not enough to read 420 pages. I'm just not gonna do it.

Maybe this book's great. Maybe my bias is keeping me from a profound experience.

Maybe. But I'll never find out for sure. And I'm okay with that.… (mais)

By far the most substantive philosophical text I've read since my days as a philosophy graduate student. It has taken me a while first to get up the courage to approach it, and then to consume it in digestible sections given its wowing blows. But it is written in a very accessible style, so no one should think that because it deals with very serious matters, it cannot be enjoyed by nonspecialists.

The thesis of the work is that cost-benefit analyses used by economists take as the measure of a person's willingness to avoid a risk, for example, to be how much money they're willing to pay to achieve that result. Given that ability to pay is limited by available funds, richer people will have a disproportionate influence on those determinations than do poorer people. Consequently, rich lives wind up being worth more than poor lives, leading to repugnant outcomes such as suggesting that disposal of hazardous chemicals can reasonably happen in poor neighborhoods or countries. Worse, that to do otherwise would be immoral.

He suggests that this outcome can be corrected if, instead of asking how much money a person is willing to pay, we ask how much that offer is relative to the person's total wealth. Now, instead of the 10,000 offered by a millionaire outweighing the 500 offered by a poor person, we see that the first is just 0.01% of the millionaire's money, but the 100 can be as much as 10%, meaning the outcome is more important to the poor person than to the rich.

It's possible the typical reader will find this argument slow and repetitive, but because he's carefully building a logically rigorous demonstration of the point, each step is necessary. This will become especially necessary toward the end of the book when he applies the conclusions to real world examples of impact on Black Americans and responses during the COVID pandemic. Some persons will have knee-jerk reactions to dismiss these observations, but if they've accepted the reasonableness of the foregoing, they really can't dismiss these uses without shedding any pretense of being a rational thinker. I've already purchased extra copies to share with persons like that on my Christmas list, intelligent but ideological, but on whom I haven't completely given up.

I couldn't help but feel that this book (which admittedly could have done with a final editorial proofing for occasional glitches) reminded me of Derek Parfit's classic Reasons and Persons, which, as I recall, deals with themes related to the present volume such as what are our duties to future generations. Thus, while Carneades' problem concerns how standard methodology in economics assumes that rich lives are more valuable than poor ones, Parfit looks as whether future lives are worth less than present lives. I suspect that the latter book can be profitably read by those who found this one engaging and eye-opening.… (mais)

Are All Lives Equal? by Carneades is a text that, in plain language, explores the area where economic theory and philosophy (specifically ethics) intersect. Through thought experiments and basic explanations, the nuance that most people know has to be employed in these areas is covered.

The problem with many ideas is that the core theory is usually without nuance. Utilitarianism, strict utilitarianism as it was first conceived, was strictly a numbers game. It can seem attractive at first glance until someone suggests killing you to harvest your good organs to save multiple people who need them is the ethical thing to do. From there the discussion branches out in several directions. Likewise when economists place a value on human lives. Their numbers are monetary units, and more monetary units are associated with the rich and powerful, thus their lives are worth multiple poor people's lives. Again, we must step away from less nuanced views.

That is my basic takeaway from this book. There isn't a lot of new information or original thinking, but there doesn't need to be. This is looking at what has been and is being done and applying nuance. I know that I am way oversimplifying the book, but the author and web site owner chooses to stay hidden and not take responsibility for his thoughts and not share what, if any, actual training or education they (he, she, it?) has, so I feel comfortable oversimplifying someone else's regurgitation of already well-known ideas and experiments.

I recommend this to those who haven't looked at these ideas before, whether through formal education or informal curiosity. It is a very simple presentation that will be readily accessible to any reader. This isn't deep thought so much as it is thought being held to task for its results. For instructors, you might find some new ways to explain the ideas you've been teaching, so it is well worth your time as well. I probably would have used some phrases and explanations in courses I used to teach.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.… (mais)