A related thought about the act of revealing your beliefs: what expected utility would you assign to shouting “The Emperor has no clothes!” when the Emperor, indeed, has no clothes?
If you’re selfish, you would probably refrain from it under fear of punishment.
But even if you care about the overall utility of the society rather than your personal utility, revealing the truth about the Emperor’s clothes could cause rebellions and anarchy, or collapse of whole markets and fields of discourse centered about His Majesty’s supposed sophisticated attire.
Does this mean that we can’t factor politics completely out of rationality discussions, even when dealing with facts that are objectively and unambiguously true? In “Three Worlds Collide”, for example, there is a backstory element where scientists chose to suppress a scientific discovery in the fear of disastrous social effects if it was made public.
A related thought about the act of revealing your beliefs: what expected utility would you assign to shouting “The Emperor has no clothes!” when the Emperor, indeed, has no clothes?
Maybe I’m big on virtue ethics and consider always striving to speak truth virtuous. What if I think me or society “living a lie” is something bad? People have been willing to die painfully and ferment social unrest because of what they consider truth since … forever, so I’m not even sure its that exotic a mindset.
A related thought about the act of revealing your beliefs: what expected utility would you assign to shouting “The Emperor has no clothes!” when the Emperor, indeed, has no clothes?
If you’re selfish, you would probably refrain from it under fear of punishment.
But even if you care about the overall utility of the society rather than your personal utility, revealing the truth about the Emperor’s clothes could cause rebellions and anarchy, or collapse of whole markets and fields of discourse centered about His Majesty’s supposed sophisticated attire.
Does this mean that we can’t factor politics completely out of rationality discussions, even when dealing with facts that are objectively and unambiguously true? In “Three Worlds Collide”, for example, there is a backstory element where scientists chose to suppress a scientific discovery in the fear of disastrous social effects if it was made public.
Maybe I’m big on virtue ethics and consider always striving to speak truth virtuous. What if I think me or society “living a lie” is something bad? People have been willing to die painfully and ferment social unrest because of what they consider truth since … forever, so I’m not even sure its that exotic a mindset.