I think it is an important fact about how humans work that reinforcing the schilling fences and following them does in fact reinforce the values involved, whereas ignoring the fences does weaken them. Virtues and habits are something you cultivate through repeated action. This isn’t simple signaling of values, it impacts those values for real.
I agree, it’s just not a primary thing that’s happening, the coercion of the discipline (conflict between values and behavior) is more prominent than reinforcement of values where the discipline becomes necessary (partially by definition, since if it works well, the discipline is not necessary after all). For this reason, it’s misleading to characterise the effect of this policy as reinforcement of current values, though that probably happens as well. Not sure how that’s balanced by rebellious urges.
(I disagree with my statements above in the thread in the context where preventing value drift is much more important than preventing suffering from coercion of behavior to unaligned values.)
I think it is an important fact about how humans work that reinforcing the schilling fences and following them does in fact reinforce the values involved, whereas ignoring the fences does weaken them. Virtues and habits are something you cultivate through repeated action. This isn’t simple signaling of values, it impacts those values for real.
I agree, it’s just not a primary thing that’s happening, the coercion of the discipline (conflict between values and behavior) is more prominent than reinforcement of values where the discipline becomes necessary (partially by definition, since if it works well, the discipline is not necessary after all). For this reason, it’s misleading to characterise the effect of this policy as reinforcement of current values, though that probably happens as well. Not sure how that’s balanced by rebellious urges.
(I disagree with my statements above in the thread in the context where preventing value drift is much more important than preventing suffering from coercion of behavior to unaligned values.)