Risk, Damage and Fairness: who pays the costs?

edited 11/6/20

"You don't just start off using statistics. It all depends on the assumptions you can live with. If you can live with my assumptions as a statistician, I can use my statistics on your problems." -- John Flueck, Ph. D., Chairman, Dept. of Statistics (1972), Temple University. (In conversation. -- EGR)

Hazard & Harm: focussing on "externalities." Who is to determine the balance between the rights of those who "practice moral hazard" (put others at risk) and those who suffer from it? How can we weigh the value of the free expression of an individual's even risky behavior against the possibly heavy costs it may inflict on those otherwise non-involved? (See Buffering: Enhancing Moral Hazard in Decision-Making?) Who can be relied on to make such a judgment a fair one?

For example, how does a situation such as the Dec 14, 2012 elementary-school killings in Newtown, Connecticut come to be? From a gun-user, we are told. But, is it only an aberration? Or, to judge from the more than sixty mass killings in the United States since 1982, does there lurk a strong probability for repeats of the same?

Some suggest that more gun-control is the answer. Is it? How much gun-control? Are there no other influences that carry much of the responsibility? And more practically, what would-be "cure" is politically possible? (See Gun Fun or Safe Citizens? Must We Make Tradeoffs?)

Maybe there are other approaches we might explore besides gun-control. Perhaps we should "look at the stats."

What Are You Taking for Granted? Don't ignore important presuppositions by hastily suggesting the following:

a. Identify the risky behavior and the undesirable outcome each as members of different event-sets.
b. Assign the individual event-instances a probability-value.
c. Assign each event-instance a "market"-value.
d. Use the formula for expected value, EP: EP = probability value times "market"value.
e. Compare the EP's and and give preference to the event with the larger EP.

(For more on assumptions, see Getting Down to Facts: can we avoid making assumptions?)

It's a sad fact that even rather elementary mathematics tends to intimidate too many "educated" US citizens. Otherwise they might recognize that the significant problem here is that the mathematics may only generate and obscure important assumptions. These assumptions, among others are:

1. Event-type Specification: How do we define the event-membership? (This is not a matter of pure mathematics!)
2. Causes-Effects Confusions Avoided: Are the two sets, the causes and effects, the "same kind" of event -- or events, at all? (An attitude is not the same thing as a rock!)
3. Non-Controversial Prioritizations Possible: How shall we measure event-importance? On what basis do we prioritized outcomes? (This, too, goes beyond mathematics.)

If we insist on avoiding any issues that make our mathematics foggy, we will likely encounter -- in today's US of A -- little consensus on how we should identify events and how we should value their importance.

Answers might be looked for in what we, as Americans, believe are reasonable and fair trade-offs in dealing with social risk in the pursuit of optimizing personal freedoms. But whose estimations of value and possibility can we trust to be fair?

What is Fairness? A Simple Conception Let's think of it this way: every transaction among people comprises a wager. Every social exchange you participate in involves a bet that you'll end up as well or better off than you would be by refusing the exchange. One way to attack this potentially complex tangle of considerations is to examine what "fairness" seems to mean to many people.

There is a long-standing concern that comes up whenever the issue arises of paying for public expenditures, in the US, for example, public schools: "Is it fair to compel individuals to pay for things they won't use?" This question is sometimes generalized to "Why do we have to pay any taxes? Why not leave the issue to markets to decide?"

However, if we examine the notion of fairness operating behind such complaints we discover it overlooks some important concerns of even those complaining. The rules for fairness that seem to be at work here is a reciprocity of costs and benefits in a simple exchange: you pay for what you get; you get what you pay for. That is what fairness is often claimed to be. (Overlooked here is how the "price" should be set.)

We should expect, then, that in a fair situation, those who pay to defray costs of some expenditure either willingly donate to it or receive imminent benefits from it. On the other hand, we would expect that in a fair situation, those who receive benefits either or accept them as charity, or pay to defray costs to some lesser extent, e.g. if only to indicate a willingness to be sociable.)

What About Wagers? But this all-too-simple model fails to consider to important aspects of cost and benefit:

1. people often wager their well-being, their fortune -- they call it "an investment" -- to support values they pursue, whether imminent or, often, quite remote.
2. people often receive benefits as investments made by others to be husbanded toward those values, as when they accept a scholarship to study medicine; or buy bombs to serve a cause. Or they accept benefits as entitlements.

Education is a good example here of such a value. But, so too is military service. Or running an honest business. But don't overlook less comfortable examples of people in pursuit of establishing racism, preparing for an apocalypse, or ushering in utopias. Examples abound of ideologically-based paranoias, or of crusading zealotry that promotes attempts to restructure society, either for the "common good," or for the sake of an overlordship.

So a more complete model of fair exchange is this. Those who pay to defray costs of an expenditure either:

a. willingly donate;
b. contribute to moral debts, e.g. veteran disability payments.
c. make a wager, e.g. invest to defend or pursue their own valued ends, whether imminent or remote; or,
d. receive imminent benefits

But, if we recognize that even what appears to be an imminent benefit, say, a new car, can turn out to be a lemon, then "imminent benefits" can be included among "risky bets" where the payer believes the risk to be minimal. Moral debt contributions, e.g. taxes, can be subsumed under "risky bets," also. (Think of them as contributions to avoid penalties for non-payment of varying size or probability of infliction.)

These considerations let us reconstruct the "Payer's Model of Expenditure" to being either those who incur payments greater than benefits received are making:

a. a free donation; or,
b. a (more or less risky) wager.

On the other side, however, those who receive the greater benefits than what they pay out are

a. accepting charity,
b. receiving entitlements;
c. husbanding the investments, the wagers, of others; or
d. paying to defray costs or engaging in symbolic participation rituals.

We rely on "communities of hope" to flesh out this model through their actions.

What are Communities of Hope? They are virtuous, or not, depending on one's perspectives. They are comprised of people who risk their well-being or time or wealth in order to gain what they believe are future benefits for themselves or others, or to forestall what they believe are future evils.

They are often little more than skeletal patterns of interaction or organizational structures that support, whether consciously or not, common goals. Note well: one community of hope may not be recognized by others as either desirable or benevolent. What makes such a group, e.g. alCaida, a community of hope is that its members see each other as contributing to an "improved" world by their efforts.

Common examples of communities of hope are:

• Well known charitable organizations, religious or secular.

• Those who choose to have children or to teach and care for them.

• Educators or trainers of adults, for whatever end.

• Pessimists who nevertheless refrain from suicide.

• Optimists who imagine that their suicides will contribute to desired goals.

• Those who argue that there are better ways to do things.

• Those who dare publicly express disapproval or support of the status quo

It's that thought that counts. Don't let examples of corruption or incompetence becloud the realization that without the implicit hope, fairness would be a pointless concern.

Will Altruism Bring Trust and Fairness? It seems that what the various Communities of Hope listed above have in common is an altruistic outlook. But this does not help us with our search for someone to trust to be fair in evaluating and apportioning the costs and benefits of individual actions, even morally hazardous ones, against those of the recipients of the consequences of such actions.

Hope is apparently still, as the ancient Greeks perceived it, not so much a defense against the evils loosed by Pandora on the world; but, an evil in and of itself, duping mankind, toys of the gods, into putting up an entertainingly pointless resistance to those evils. Any act, perceived as altruistic by some may be perceived by others as pathological altruism.

Pathological altruism is any practice or action, performed for altruistic reasons, that nonetheless tends to produce harmful results, either to its practitioners or to the targets of the altruism. See Pathological Altruism Barbara Oakley, et al (2012) Oxford University Press

An interesting example is Gandhi's prioritization of truth over non-violence: see Was Non-Violence Gandhi's Ultimate Goal? Gandhi saw non-violence as a generally useful, but not absolutely necessary means to the pursuit of truth.

A Broadly Contrarian Approach? Maybe we ought to back off trying to dupe, persuade or coerce people into some kind of common ethos, a mind-meld, that will enable sufficient similarity of value prioritization so that we can trust them to be fair by a common standard. (See Fair Share vs. Fair Play).

Let us -- Hear! Hear! -- disregard the cants and dogmas, the failed formulae of traditional Conservatisms and Liberalisms. Let a "natural" selfishness reign, constrained only by laws that protect an effectively productive society that provides each person with the real opportunity to obtain a modicum of creature comforts and freedom to pursue intellectual and artistic interests. (See Believer vs Atheist, Conservative vs Liberal, and other distracting frauds.)

Methinks someone might have thought of this ere now. (See Bestowing Trust)

Cordially
--- EGR

Affirmative Action: Who Deserves Special Consideration? by Gary K. Clabaugh

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Affirmative action is intended to compensate for past and/or present bias, maltreatment or exploitation. Typically, however, this remedy is misapplied because policy makers fail to recognize numerous classes of victims.

What kinds of people are clear-cut victims of bias, but never included in affirmative action plans? Here is a sample:

The Physically Unattractive. Social psychology researchers have repeatedly documented the physical-attractiveness stereotype. Namely, the tendency to think that physically attractive people possess a greater number of positive traits such as: confidence, strength, assertiveness, candor, warmth, honesty, kindness, friendliness, sensitivity, poise and sociability.
Logically, then, physically unattractive people must be stereotyped as: more insecure, weaker, less assertive, more deceptive, meaner, more introverted, less sensitive, less poised and less sociable. Does that seem like a bias to you?

The Obese. Obesity is another, often overlooked, physical characteristic associated with discrimination and unfair treatment. Social psychological research on attitudes toward overweight people has shown they are often perceived as lazy, unintelligent, slovenly, and unattractive. Moreover, several studies have demonstrated that such negative attitudes toward obese individuals may contribute to discrimination in the work place. Why are the obese not included in affirmative action plans — particularly if obesity is less an achieved characteristic than an acquired one?

Short Statured Males. Height, particularly in men, is another physical attribute associated with negative stereotypes and discrimination. Short men are often judged inferior to tall men in several personal attributes. People tend to judge taller men as more socially attractive, higher in professional status, more masculine, more athletically inclined, and more physically attractive than short men. Moreover, short men experience discrimination in the workplace. For example, short job applicants are not hired as often as taller applicants, short men earn less on average than taller employees and short political candidates lose elections more often than taller candidates.
Looks like a significant handicap to me. Why aren’t they entitled to affirmative action?

Some Other Factors. The various groups who experience discrimination are extensive. For instance, people with red hair color are stereotyped as "clownish" and "weird" And negative stereotyping is also based on language and dialect. For example an African-American dialect or a Southern accent both trigger negative stereotypes accompanied by discrimination.

Negative stereotyping and discrimination victimize numerous classes of people. But what does all this have to do with affirmative action? The answer is, "everything." To avoid violating their own cardinal principle, affirmative action advocates must be prepared to apply compensatory measures to everyone victimized by prejudice? But this is not now the case. Currently, some people profit from affirmative action only because their particular group has sufficient muscle to be so qualified. Other groups are similarly disadvantaged, but their plight is completely ignored.

How About This? Here is an interesting way to put all of this together. Whom do you think would most likely land a well-paying executive position?
• An intelligent, well qualified, handsome, slim, tall African American male with cultivated speech, or
• An equally intelligent, well-qualified, but unattractive, obese, short Caucasian male with red hair and a thick Southern accent?

O.K., now which one of them is legally entitled to affirmative action?

Conclusion. The fact is there are many classes of people who are unfairly stereotyped and discriminated against. But it is practically impossible to grant them all compensatory treatment. What is more, since individuals differ, often very significantly, within groups, we risk injustice whenever, whether for good or ill, we shoe horn them into groups.

Admittedly, some individuals do deserve special consideration. Those who are physically and/or mentally handicapped are the clearest example. The limiting effects of things like brain trauma, cerebral palsy, blindness, and the like, can be so dramatic that it is perfectly reasonable to grant victims extraordinary considerations. Even here, though, individual differences matter.

I recall one of my college students who was severely disabled by cerebral palsy. This was before the Americans With Disabilities Act so he was not guaranteed any special accommodations. He was unable to print, much less write, so he asked to tape-record our classes. He also requested oral exams. I agreed. Nevertheless, I still required him to do all of the work at the same level of mastery as his classmates. To lower learning standards solely he was physically handicapped was unfair to them and to him.

He turned out to be one of my best students ever. He went on to law school and ultimately became my lawyer and friend. The individual differences that distinguished him, cerebral palsy notwithstanding, were that he was smart, hard working and courageous.

When all is said and done, there is only one fair, if far more complicated, course of action. Reject labels and rely on individual differences. This is far fairer than cramming people into carelessly considered categories then granting some special consideration while entirely overlooking others who merit the same special treatment.

For the original article, complete with references, see What's Fair? Equity in Educational Practice..

-- GKC

P.S. See also "Fair Share or Fair Play?"

Is Special Education Fair?

The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people's children. -- Marian Wright Edelman

Most people try to do what they are aiming for at the minimal cost to their own energies and resources. To expend time and energy pointlessly is thought to be inefficient, certainly no virtue.
Teachers -- though they dislike the simile -- are like battlefield surgeons. They have limited supplies, time, and energy, and demands greater than they can handle. Thus, if they want to be efficient, they divide their potential patients into three groups:

1) the Gifted: those they can neglect because they will get well (learn) anyway -- they don't need it, whereas others do;

2) the Subnormal: those they should neglect because all (or an unfair proportion) of their resources will not help anyway, the resources available are insufficient to help them and would be wasted;

3) the Normal: the group that will show maximum improvement (learning) for the resources used. Allotting resources to this group optimizes their effect. 
 


This is called triage in medicine. In education it is called teaching to the middle. A common Principle of Equity, Fair Share, requires that no one receive more of a scarce resource than any other -- all things being equal.

Special education identifies both the Gifted and the Subnormal as Special Students, exempting them not only from the particular rules that support triage, but also from the Fair Share principle. This invariably shortchanges the normal student.

Should we give up on efficiency? When resources are scarce, which kids should we deprive?

To examine these issues further, see, The Ethics of Educational Triage

Cordially

--- EGR