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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Mr. Rational
Message-ID: <1350@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Oct-83 10:54:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1350
Posted: Fri Oct 28 10:54:35 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Oct-83 13:02:51 EDT
References: <414@houca.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 52

I don't know whether my first article got there or not, but here is one
along the same vein. You took the original article and used it to
demonstrate the problem one has with a pwerful state that is given
(or takes) the right to use force to make people acceed to its wishes.

This is not the problem I see. The problems I have are more of the form:
My mother's birthday is coming up, and my brother and I would like to
buy her an expensive present -- a stereo. We want to get really neat
stuff, and we are going to share the costs. Now here is the problem.
I want to buy a Tandberg and my brother wants to buy a Nak.

Okay? Simple problem. I have stated my reasons for wanting brand X and
he has stated his reasons for wanting brand Y. I don't think that his
reasons are sufficient and he doesn't think that mine are. We have
tested them both. We still don't agree. BUT We are going to have
to make a decision soon because we had better have a birthday present
and that date is fixed.

And we are not going to choke, force or kill each other over this either.

But what are we going to do? Some of the subjective reasons for preferring
brand X (but I prefer what you call YUCKY SILVER COLOUR) are not likely
to go down as the most rational of arguments, but I have to make these
sorts of decisions as well. Getting other people's opinions will not
do much good either, i expect, because no matter how many people like
YUCKY SILVER it will still be YUCKY SILVER to me.

Now, we have a way to decide such things. We play one serious game of
something, and winner-take-all. These days it is likely to be pool.
We will play one table of pool, and the winner will select.

This is likely to be too bad for me, because these days Dave is a much
better pool player than I.

Now this is a workable solution. However, I do not think that it is
rational. There is no relationship between pool-playing ability and
tape-deck judging ability as far as either of us know. it is just the
traditional way to settle disputes. it is the traditional way because
it works. No doubt other people have their own traditional ways.
Flipping a coin, or asking your father might work for other people --
all I can say is that it didn't work for us in the past.

So would this solution classify as rational?

Note: DO NOT SEND ME TAPE DECK REVEIWS! This birthday situation is
NOT HAPPENING NOW. I INVENTED IT. (However, we had to settle questions
of a similar sort that way in the past, so this is very plausible.)

And what would be a rational solution, if this is not one?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura