Is there a name for this "logic"

Factual Questions
1

I do it all the time and have been trying to think how to describe it for the last week so here are two examples that happenned recently…

  1. I’m leaving the house this morning and there are a bunch of lights on. The cleaning lady is supposed to come today and should arrive 10-15 minutes before I leave. The first thing she does is turn all the lights on so she can see all the dirt. I could turn off the ligts and save a few cents. The weather is bad so she may not come… if she doesn’t come, leaving the lights on all day may cost a buck but I’ll save alot more by not paying the cleaning lady. I leave the lights on.

  2. My buddies and I are having coffee before we start work on Saturday. I know that another guy who they haven’t seen in a while is in town and there is a remote chance he may show up. I could keep my mouth shut and if he does it’s a big surprise. I decide to blow the possible surprise… if he doesn’t show up I didn’t really blow anything… if he does, the very fact that he came is a bigger upside than the loss of the surprise.

2

Cost-benefit analysis?

3

I have no name for this bit of practical reasoning, but I can describe it abstractly for you. (You mentioned you were having a hard time describing it.) (On edit: Thudlow Boink is right, this is a bit of cost-benifit analysis. I think you were asking about the specific line of reasoning you described, though, not just the general kind of reasoning involved. In other words, I think you were looking for something like the name of a fallacy or type of argument.)

In both cases, you have a choice between doing something (call it X) which guarantees an acceptable payout, or refraining from X. Refraining from X will always cause a lower payout than doing X would have. But there is an event (call it P) which is such that if you refrain from X and P occurs, the lowered payout resulting from your refraining from X is small enough to be insignificant to you, while if you refrain from X and P doesn’t occur, then the lowered payout resulting from X is overwhelmed by the positive payout resulting from P’s not having occured.

Here’s a payout matrix:

…P…not-P

X…0…+15

not-X…-1…+14

X == You turn off the lights/You keep the secret
P == The cleaning lady comes/Your friend arrives

Doing X both maximizes your possible payout and maximizes your actual payout no matter whether P obtains. (In other words, doing X makes it possible to get the payout of 15, and also, should P obtain, X gives you the larger payout, namely zero, while should P not obtain, X gives you the larger payout, namely 15.) This means X is the better choice all around. Your deciding not to do X shows (apparently) that there is some payoff associated with the X in each case which is not captured above. For some reason, you value not keeping the secret, and for some reason, you value not turning off the lights. (Or you’re just irrational, which we all are. But one charitably attempts to assume otherwise. :stuck_out_tongue: )

Part of your reasoning in the first case (the light/lady case) seems to be “It hardly matters whether I do X or not, and refraining from doing X is the default that requires the least effort, so I will refrain.” This seems sound to me. You find the effort involved to be worth less than the money you would save. But parallel reasoning does not make as much sense in the second case. Telling the secret does not seem to me to be any more “natural” or “default” than keeping the secret, and would require more effort, not less–namely, the effort involved in opening your mouth and formulating the story you want to tell.

Perhaps it requires more “mental” effort (or something) to keep a secret than to refrain from keeping the secret, in which case we can make sense of your practical reasoning (but we might also think you ought to put more of a premium on the keeping of secrets like this one). Alternatively, perhaps you feel that openness is more valuable than secrecy in general–that the “default” is that you tell people everything they would find relevant to their own present situations. This also makes sense of your reasoning, though again, we might think that in a case like this, more of a premium should be put on the pleasure your friends would derive from pleasant acts of concealment like the one you were considering.

That’s all I got.

-FrL-

4

Correction: P should be “Your friend does not arrive”, not “Your friend arrives”.

-Kris

5

I would say it’s sort of like Hedging. You (I assume) get a benefit from your choice, which has the risk of turning into a loss. That loss, however, would always be offset by a gain that’s triggered by the situation that causes the original loss.

6

I’d say it’s close to hedging, too – you won’t get the optimal result from either outcome, but you won’t get the worst result, either.

7

The way the OP described the situation, by leaving the lights on he made it possible to suffer the worst outcome (the extra cost of the electricity should the cleaning lady come) and impossible to enjoy the best outcome (the cleaning lady doesn’t come and the lights aren’t using up power).

Similarly, by telling the secret, he made it possible to suffer the worst outcome (the slight disappointment his buddies would feel should the friend not in fact come) and impossible to enjoy the best outcome (he keeps the secret, and his friend does come).

-FrL-

8

Cost benefit analysis? Sound? Hedging? You’re kidding, right?

This is magical thinking, at least in case 1…

[ed: to add link and ref to case 1]

9

I am not immediately seeing the connection between the OP and the link you provided.

Can you elaborate? How does the reasoning described in the OP rely on an error about the nature or epistemology of causation?

-Kris

10

I think he’s trying to say it’s irrational at best – a pale rationalization – but he’s being polite and assuming you think there is a connection between A and B (though you clearly don’t)

In case 1, if I turn off the lights
Maid comes: I save a few cents, but pay the maid (who I’d pay anyway) – I benefit
Maid doesn’t come: I save a buck and the maid’s fee (which I’d save anyway) – I benefit

If I leave the lights on:
Maid comes: I pay a few cents and the maid (who I’d pay anyway) – I lose a few cents
Maid doesn’t come: I pay a buck and the maid’s fee (which I’d save anyway) – I lose $1

Note the “anyway” in ALL cases. The maid and my electric bill are independent, and I know it, By mixing the issues, I’m just kidding myself. Rather than the maid’s absence “making up for” the extra electricity, that’s actually the worst scenario, where I lose the most compared to turning the light off. Rather than suffering any loss if the maid arrives and I’ve turned off the lights, I still come out ahead if I turn them off and behind if I don’t

What do you want, to justify turning the lights off? An ambassadorial appointment to the Island of Lusty Nymphos, Leave the lights on, and you lose – just as Daddy bellowed when you were five and left them on. Every. Freaking. Day. You only pretend there’s an issue, if you don’t want to turn off the lights anyway.

You can call it “conflating two issues” or “assuming a (magical) relation”, but it’s just plain laziness. Turn the light off, you bum! Walk to the switch and flick it! If grandpa saw you whining over it, he’d kick you right in your lap of luxury. maybe you’d feel differently if you made the candles from beeswax in your own hives, and wasting meant you has to sit in the dark all March and April. If you think “I’d have to walk ALL around the house” <moan> you probably need the exercise. Seriously. Decisions like that don’t occur in isolation.

Ditto the second example: Don’t blab secrets, you bum! What can you gain but a tiny “I knew something you didn’t” big shot moment. But apparently you want to do it, and that’s all that matters to you. Your friend could get the cold shoulder from your other friends (He was in town, but couldn’t be bothered to drop in and say ‘hi’?), but who cares about that. Not you. You can claim it’s really his fault for not showing up. And maybe it would be – but what does that have to do with your choices, you energy-wasting, friend betraying bum? What does it cost you to do the right thing? Don’t answer now – save it to recite to your lonely self when all your friends ditch you for betraying them all in turn

Folks do this all the time – unpleasant folks (which is all of us, at times, I guess) In case 1, you can only lose, in case 2, your friend can only lose. There’s no question here that a first grader couldn’t answer with a mouthful of peanut butter, but it’s not what you WANT, so you put a teddy on the sheep and say you’re warming it up in case Hal Briston comes over.

Who cares if he’d rather warm up his own sheep?

11

I think **KP ** nails why **Hawthorne ** is right in his first four paragraphs (before he goes off on a Grumpy Old Man tangent :))

12

Quite.

In case 1, What the … !!! is trying to get the maid to come by considerately leaving the lights on (or trying to get her not to come by offering a sacrifice - it’s not quite clear). But leaving the lights on or not cannot affect whether the cleaner comes or not.

In case 2, he’s trying to make the friend come by spoiling the surprise.

For an interesting discussion of the application of this sort of rationalisation to social behaviour, see this excerpt from Elster’s The Cement of Society (read the linked page and on to about p 202).

13

There’s nothing whatsoever in the OP to indicate such an intention.

Ditto.

I should provide evidence for my claims, I know, but in this case, the best I can do is say, “Well, just read the thing.” What you say is there is not there. If you think it is, can you show it to me?

-FrL-

14

That link is quite interesting, by the way. Thanks for it.

But everyday Kantianism is not a form of magical thinking. The everyday Kantian only “expects” others to cooperate in the moral sense, not in any causal sense.

You (and the author of that book) are right that some people apply magical thinking to Newcomb’s paradox. Not all one boxers do so, however.

Anyway, the OP in this thread has not given evidence that he is engaged in magical thinking.

15

Perhaps that’s a matter for another thread, or a least later.

I stand by my interpretation, but how about we wait for What the … !!! to clarify?

16

Yeah, I’ve been wondering if s/he’s going to follow up here…

FrL-

17

it sounds like prospect theory to me: Prospect theory - Wikipedia

18

I don’t get it. The OP’s conclusions don’t make sense.

19

You’re right, but see my post number 3 for an explanation as to why they don’t make sense, and for an attempt to make sense out of them.

-Kris

20

First chance to follow up. I knew I’d get some good feedback… I just wish I could understand them all. :confused:

What can I clarify? In both cases I fully realize there is no cause/effect between my actions and the ultimate result… either the folks involved are going to come or not.