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army1987 comments on Rationality Quotes February 2014 - Less Wrong
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The difference between monogamy and vegetarianism here is that monogamy requires a binding commitment from another person. Thus, the inability to make a binding contract is a problem for monogamy but not vegetarianism.
Why?
Because monogamy relies on your spouse also being monogamous.
And playing chess relies on your opponent also following the rules of chess, so aren't we free to play chess either? (Or will the police arrest me if I castle while my king is in check?)
Chess can rely on reputation since games are short and someone who refuses to play by the rules will find no one to play against (also the stakes are small). (And in high states games, e.g., tournaments you will at least be escorted out for refusing to play by the rules.) Note, that since monogamy assumes someone will only have one spouse ever, reputation is less useful.
A better example is, are we free to engage in commerce if the police refuse to enforce either non-payment or non-delivery? (Especially if they do enforce anti-violence and anti-theft laws against people attempting to take matters into their own hands in cases of non-payment or non-delivery). Another example, would you say companies are free to provide employee pensions if the law says that companies can cancel pensions anytime (even after retirement) and employees (or former employees) have no recourse if a company does cancel it?
There are many cases where the law doesn't require specific performance. If you hire someone to work for you, they can refuse to come to work. You can fire them, but you can't force them to work for you. If you offer to fix someone's sink in exchange for them fixing your car, one of you could fail to do the work. The other could sue and get paid some money, but the law won't enforce specific performance and you can't actually force another person to fix a sink or a car.
By your reasoning we are not "free to hire someone to do work" or "free to exchange sink fixing for car fixing".
And even in the chess example, you can't force someone to play chess, and if you exclude them from playing because of their reputation, they still are not playing chess with you. Soi by your reasoning, we are not free to "play chess with person X", even if you argue that we are free to play chess provided we aren't picky about partners.
It's true that someone cannot gain a reputation for being honest in monogamy, but they can get a reputation for cheating. It only requires the "can have a reputation for cheating" half in order for reputation to be useful. It still lets them cheat the first time, but they can always cheat the first time in a chess game as well.
Could whoever modded me down please explain why they modded me down? I must have lost around 20 karma in the past few days because I am getting constantly modded down for almost anything I post.
Abuse of the karma system is a well-known problem on LessWrong, <strike>which the admins appear to have decided not to do anything about.</strike>
Update: actually, it appears Eliezer has looked into this and not been able to find any evidence of mass-downvoting.
It's happened to me again. At one point I lost about 20 karma in a few hours. Now it seems everything I post gets voted down. At an estimated loss of 30 karma per week, I'll end up being forced off the site by August.
Hmmm. Your past 30 days karma is positive. Either you're saying it was formerly a lot more positive, or any downvoting isn't having nearly the effect you suggest.
I occasionally downvote a few (3-5) of your comments in a row, based on merits, not anything else, but I haven't done it recently, so someone else might be expecting you to post low-quality comments and, after stumbling over one, goes through a bunch. I wouldn't sweat it, though. I think I dropped 10-12 karma in the last couple hours, probably for similar reasons. Just do your best to make useful and measured comments and the forum readers will appreciate it.
As Salemicus mentioned in the other thread, the in the analogous case with marriage, the law won't even do that.
We are indeed. One will just have to handle counterparty risk by other means, such as only dealing with people you know well, private enforcement, meeting for simultaneous performance, etc. This is readily observable in the real world everywhere that the legal system is weak, corrupt, or absent.
BTW, and this is just a nitpick, in Western countries where the legal system is reliable, the police do indeed refuse to enforce contracts, because it isn't part of their job. Instead, it is up to a wronged party to bring a civil action to the courts. The police have no role in the matter. Contract rights are not property rights.
As another has already pointed out, the enforcement carried out by the courts almost invariably consists of awarding monetary compensation, not specific performance, which happens only in certain exceptional cases. In the UK, these exceptional cases do not include personal services.
You are trying to put your conclusion into the premise of an absurd hypothetical of Cloud Cuckoo Land. A pension contract that was terminable at will by the pension provider is a pension contract no-one would sign up to. A law saying that all pension arrangements are terminable at will is not going to be passed; if passed, people would find ways to structure their retirement plans that avoid whatever legal definition of "pension contract" was present in such an absurd law. Hey, suppose there was a law that when you buy something online, the supplier has no obligation to supply what you ordered? Well, go ahead and suppose it.
You are presumably trying to draw an analogy with the current state of marriage law. It would be more productive to talk about marriage law directly. Adultery is usually grounds for divorce. That looks like contract enforcement to me -- the sort of enforcement that contracts are subject to in the real world, rather than the fantasy S&M version in which the police drag the disobedient partner back in handcuffs. Time was when the guilty party would be sent away from the severed marriage without a penny (at least, if the guilty party was the woman), but that generally does not happen today. If you think the courts should regard adultery more sternly when deciding the division of the common property, go ahead and argue that, rather than claiming that no-one can be monogamous these days because the police won't "enforce" the marriage contract.
If I make a contract with Amazon, you're right that I can't make them deliver the goods. But I can get damages for their failure to do so, that would put me in the same position as if they had in fact delivered the TV (of course I have to mitigate my loss, etc). I am glad to hear that you think that general contractual concepts should apply to marriage contracts, but you are surely aware that they do not, and this is exactly what is being complained of.
You do not (at least in the UK) get damages for breach of a marriage contract. This strikes me as extremely unfair. Adultery is a fundamental breach of the marriage contract, so yes this is grounds for termination of the contract, but the innocent party doesn't get any proper remedy. No-one is saying that people have to be dragged back in handcuffs. But it is not just or equitable that, to continue your analogy to contract law, a breach of the contract by one party leads to a kind of rescission, rather than damages payable.
What would you or Eugine Nier consider a proper remedy? For better or worse, adultery is generally looked on more lightly nowadays than it was in times past. The courts practice accordingly when ruling on a contested divorce. The guilty party is no longer cut off without a penny, still less forced to wear a scarlet letter, horsewhipped or stoned. If that is a problem, it is not a problem with the law, but of those general attitudes. O tempora! O mores!
Those who prefer a different standard are as free as they always have been to find like-minded partners, arrange things between themselves, keep their own agreements, and find their own social support for them, just as those who would engage in trade in the absence of reliable contract law must create their own arrangements.
I can't speak for Eugine, but I already told you the remedy I think appropriate - ordinary contractual damages. And this would be true not only for adultery, but for any fundamental breach. Of course, parties should be able to specify their own terms as needed in these cases (e.g. liquidated damages). And this needn't even be the default; but the key thing is that at present, if parties want their marriage contract to be meaningful, they are unable to make it so, as the courts will simply disregard any such terms as contrary to public policy. Fortunately the wind is blowing in the right direction (prenuptial agreements) but much too slowly.
You are right that people are able to trade in the absence of government. But government sometimes helps! Despite this, people like yourself have reduced marriage to a kind of Somalia, where people are unable to form enforceable contracts. People who prefer a different standard as you so strangely put it, should be free to form their own contracts.
However,
I am disinclined to continue a conversation with someone as lacking in basic manners as you.
Prenups as currently practiced are mostly concerned with how to arrange matters if and when the marriage breaks down, not how the marriage itself shall be conducted. This is hardly a support for the institution of marriage.
I don't know what you mean by that. I didn't draw up any of these laws, neither have I agitated for them. But nor have I agitated against them -- are you counting all who do not actively evangelise for your views as your enemy?
Huh? It's up to you (and your future spouse) to define a marriage contract -- they are commonly called pre-nups.
If you want to enter a marriage under conditions that adultery leads to remedies like money paid, sure, just write up such a contract and get it signed. However I see no reasons to impose such a contract on everyone.
Traditionally, of course, a marriage is not a contract at all.
As solipsist notes, pre-nuptial agreements are not binding in the UK, although the courts can take them into account. I referred to this in my post above. However, their scope is much less than what you suggest. A pre-nuptial agreement that specified damages to be paid in the event of fundamental breach would be void as contrary to public policy, at least in the UK. I believe the same is true in most US states, but obviously, marriage laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
To be clear:
Not exactly. You want people to be able to irrevocably bind their future selves. That is rarely a good idea.
I am also curious whether your fundamental view of marriage is one of a contract between two parties. If so, well, that leads to interesting consequences. If not so, why do you want to treat marriage as a contract?
This is generally currently possible subject to the normal limits on contracts that the society imposes. There are a lot of those (e.g. you can't contract to be a slave) and I don't see what makes marriage special.
I would like to see some supporting evidence for that claim.
Again, this reasoning would equally suggest that I am not free to hire you to work for me, since you can stop working (stop being monogamous) and I have no recourse other than to fire you (terminate the marriage).
You aren't permitted to bind yourself to work for someone in the future either.
Wikipedia article on prenups:
On the other hand, pre-nups are enforceable in the US and most of continental Europe.
And if you're afraid the court won't enforce your pre-nup you can put assets in escrow, for example :-)
In any case, I'm not sure what the underlying argument is. I tend to see it as expressing the wish that the society enforce a very particular notion of marriage on everyone regardless of what they think about it.
Informally, a marriage contract can be seen as a type of contract (hence the name), but legally it generally has a rather different nature, with some similarities and some differences to ordinary contracts. For example, the state decrees what does and what does not constitute a marriage in the eyes of the law. In contrast, Amazon declares its own terms and conditions. When a marriage is recognised, that has various implications for taxation of the partners, rights in a deceased partner's estate, etc. that would not be present in ordinary contracts. It is called a marriage contract, but that does not imply that all of ordinary contract law does, can, or should apply.
Considered as a contract, what are its terms? It is not drawn up by the parties to it, but lies scattered across the books of the law. As those laws change, so the contract changes.
Is the complaint that the courts are no longer enforcing its terms, or is the reality that the terms themselves have changed? Time was when conjugal rights were a thing, a legal thing. The time has changed, and now, rape within marriage is a thing, a criminal thing, however objectionable the likes of James A. Donald may find that, and however much he may pontificate that when rape within marriage is a thing, marriage is no longer a thing.
If you were drawing up an actual contract of marriage, a uniform contract to define what marriage shall be throughout a state, what would it say?
That's not what I meant by monogamy -- I wouldn't call my relationship non-monogamous just because my girlfriend had sex with someone else years before I even met her, any more than I would call someone who used to eat meat but no longer does a non-vegetarian.
I agree that monogamy in your sense of the word would depend on something guaranteeing that enough people stay virgin until old enough to find a lifetime partner.
(I'm assuming you're not talking about contraband, since police will not only refuse to enforce non-payment or non-delivery but also bust your balls if they catch you in a complete transaction.) Reputation can work for commerce too -- ever looked at the feedback on eBay sellers or at TripAdvisor reviews of restaurants?
I don't know whether I'd call it a pension, but I'd say you're certainly free to give me a given amount of money every month as long as you feel like it and then stop. (Of course it'd be foolish for me to rely on that money alone for their maintenance, but that's another issue.)
That's my point.
This, however, makes it harder for me to promise you a pension as part of employment negotiations.
So what?