On Mon, 20 Nov 1995, James A. Donald wrote:
Any attempt to discuss and analyze reputations using morally neutral language is bound to wind up as boring long winded meaningless complicated word salad.
At 12:19 AM 11/22/95 -0800, Wei Dai wrote:
I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you give an example to how to discuss reputation (i.e., the concept of reputation, not a particular reputation) using morally non-neutral language?
Under current circumstances, where we have a large oversupply of free government supplied retributive violence, the most important from of reputation is "credit rating", which indicates willingness to pay ones legitimate debts and perform contracts. Willingness to fulfill ones obligations is not at all the same thing as willingness to act in a way that improves other peoples utility. Fulfilling an obligation assumes normative criteria. Any attempt to describe credit worthiness in terms of its effect on the utility of creditors misses the point. Before the nineteenth century, when most governments were reluctant to provide adequate retributive violence, and were more concerned with collecting taxes than upholding law and order, the most important form of reputation was the reputation for being a "gentleman" which encompassed both willingness to pay ones just debts and "gentle" conduct, gentle conduct meaning that you were unlikely to kill or harm people without good reason, but did not require that you went around performing good works. Now if someone has a reputation for good workmanship, this might seem non normative, but such a reputation is a mixture of two components: "X has good quality products" which is not normative and is a fact rather than a reputation, because it does not involve a prediction of future behavior" and "X will fulfill the spirit and intention of a contract" which is a reputation, and is normative. For example although in principle X might have simultaneously have reputation for good workmanship and a reputation for not paying his debts and not delivering on contracts, such a combination would seem unusual and surprising. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com