Conflict of values: a decision view.

TLDR: The view that the real meaning of compelling values and norms, which might override the simple tastes of everyday life, arises in the context of society is advanced.

Abstract: I want to address myself to some aspects of the foundations of the nature of value conflicts, questions whose answers have very real consequences. We do make far-sighted decisions, decisions whose consequences run into the very distant future. A current example is the issue of climate change and appropriate policy responses. We are engaged; we have to think ahead and imagine what the human world will be like a hundred years from now and five hundred years from now, and how we are going to make the appropriate decisions today and anticipate those to be made in the future.There are two themes dominating these discussions. One is that the application of norms or values (I take these words as synonyms) and the conflicts arise in a social context, in interpersonal relationships. There is a strong tendency to talk about what's moral or what's appropriate for me. I think that is missing most of the issue.There is a second point, one I am going to mention only briefly. If we have a decision that resolves some conflict of norms, that decision has to be executed (as I will explain). Any serious decision is a complex plan. This means that it will have to be implemented in various circumstances, the implementation being frequently the responsibility of individual agents. Once it is understood that the information needed to carry out the decision depends on information that is dispersed and also that individual agents are different, we find that the possibilities of compromise are restricted, and therefore, irreconcilable situations are created, which might not appear in an ideal world.I am speaking as the representative of economics on this panel. As we see it, a choice is not something you do today in isolation; it is part of a plan that includes some choices to be made in the future. Even if one considers a single point of time, a choice is a vector. I can buy so much bread and so many shirts and choose a place to live. These choices are constrained in some way. If I consider the choice between going to the opera and going to a movie, I am constrained because I have time to do only one. In the full context, the fact that I am going to the opera next week may weigh in this decision. In general, any one component of the decision is conditional on the possibilities in other dimensions; if I am going to buy bread, I might want some butter or the modern healthier equivalent thereof.Hence, even in the most ordinary economic or other daily decisions, there are conflicts. Time available sets limits; so does income. The usual economic view is that these choices are mediated by some consistent underlying relationship among the alternatives. There is some comprehensive good that aggregates all the dimensions of the choices, which may be called "utility," or "well-being." It is a measure the individual seeks to increase to the extent possible within the constraints.Even within this individualistic context, there are some goals that are frequently regarded as higher. One might say that I "should" be concerned about my health, and therefore, I should be restrained from eating the chocolate cakes I love. Are these "norms"? Or merely a kind of "taste"?I want to advance the view that the real meaning of compelling values and norms, which might override the simple tastes of everyday life, arises in the context of society. We are engaged in relations with others. Partly, they are necessary relations; our well-being, however conceptualized, depends on others. A market, the economists' preferred mode of social interaction, is still a social organization, requiring social interaction. Cooperation takes many other forms, be it an irrigation system, or barn-raising, or a government. Perhaps the most important form of cooperation in human history has been the making of wars, from those between Neolithic villages to those on a world scale. Of course, war shows the moral ambiguity of norms.Norms thus exist and govern our behavior, though they might conflict with other criteria, other norms. …