On the role of self-effacement in ethics and political philosophy
From Ben's Writing
A paper for Philosophy 3411 - Game Theory [Fall 04]
Write a 500-word encyclopaedia article on the role of self-effacement in ethics and political philosophy. End with a comment about whether game-theoretic reductionism is itself self-effacing.
Self-effacement is the act of wiping out or erasing oneself. As Viminitz puts it, it is a mental entity: a belief, a theory, a hope, etc. that behoves us or another agent to remove that belief, theory or hope. There are two levels of self-effacement: strong and weak. The weak form requires only that the holder of the belief, etc. simply set it out of their mind, while the string requires that they belief the complete negation of that belief or "suffer though its frustration."
As for the role of self-effacement in ethics, it can be seen that any straightforwardly maximizing tactic must be self-effacing in that it must constrain itself in order to fully maximize. This is due to the nature of cooperation; an agent would receive no cooperation, if the agent in question were obviously out for himself or herself.
As for the question of whether or not the game-theoretic reduction we explored in class is itself self-effacing, I think it is to general to be answered in its current form. I believe that there are two contexts in which this question can be viewed: in an online context, or an offline one. By online I am referring to a real-time reduction and processing of a given situation using the game-theoretic model. In contrast, offline context refers to a post encounter processing of that very same situation.
I believe that game-theoretic reduction can be thought of as necessarily self-effacing in an online context. The computational costs alone make it an impractical tool for assessing an event in real-time. By the time the computer (read: agent) is done deliberating on the situation in which they find themselves, the situation would be no more. Take for example the case of a punch been thrown at your face. If you decide to solicit the help of the abovementioned reduction to assist in deliberating on whether to duck or block the punch you will find that a shiner will surface before your answer-not exactly practical.
In the context of offline processing, however, I think there would be no need for the reduction to be self-effacing. In fact, it in this context that it becomes most interesting if it is not. In this context, with the help of the reduction, one can help build future intuition. For an example of this, we need look no further than basics of game theory. For those who have had some formal training the obvious tactic in a single round Prisoners Dilemma (PD) is to defect; however, this action to a nonprofessional may seem rather unintuitive, especially considering the expressed friendship between the agents in the original problem. It is not until one explores the payoff matrix of the game that it becomes obvious that defection it the best course of action. This intuition is only acquired by analyzing the payoff structure, a device accessible only through the mechanics of game theory.
On a side note, a more interesting question is: is the knowledge of a self-effacing idea self-effacing? Alternatively, if we know an idea to be self-effacing can it really be said that it is self-effacing, since it would require that the knowledge of it being a self-effacing idea be itself self-effacing, which clearly it is not. I realize I was not supposed to get in to this, but I do not think the concept of self-effacement can be used in a valid argument. Not only because, as stated once in class, it's not falsifiable, but because technically speaking no idea can be self-effacing without it first succeeding in effacing the concept of self-effacement. Clearly, this has not been done. Now I will grant that given an irrational agent it may be the case that the effacement works, but this due only to the ignorance of the agent, not the effectiveness of the effacement. Given a rational agent, an explanation of the concept of self-effacement and an instance of a self-effaceable entity in that agent's lifetime, the agent could be relied upon to see the error or their ways. That is, there is always a trail of breadcrumbs left behind in the process of self-effacement that can be retraced. The only way to rid ourselves of this trail is to efface the concept of self-effacement. However, it is obvious that this has, as we are currently discussing it, so it must be that self-effacement does not work.
