I have met the enemy, and he is me

[faendryl]

For the politics of empire course, I read a (small part of) a book about Indian nationalism. This in turn contained some of Gandhi's thought, including a section which quoted him as believing that intellectual labor should not be considered labor at all. Rather, we should only be paid for physical work; things of the mind are for enjoyment.

Comments

[stolen_tea]

Yeah, pretty much... :(

Although this seems like one of those utilitarian questions - how should my personal utility be balanced with the utility of society in general?

[faendryl]

Hey John! True, there is the utilitarian approach, but there's also the less consequentialist approach, looking at it as not as whether the results are right but whether your personal interactions are morally correct, society be damned. I don't think Gandhi would have even agreed with Rawls' approach, where it's okay for some people to make out like bandits if as a result the poor suckers at the bottom get to have better lives - he'd put the CEOs to pumping well water too.

[stolen_tea]

Well, yes, but in that case, surely the CEOs have something more useful to do with their money than spend it on themselves. Even if the system as a whole generates better utility than otherwise, those people are not themselves maximizing utility. After all, what if the CEOs really enjoyed their jobs, and gave all their salaries (except what's necessary to survive) to various utility-maximizing charities?

I'm not so much interested in the question of monetary rewards. It's more about a particular job being a trade-off between social benefit and personal pleasure. What's the right spot? How do we find it?

[faendryl]

Well, according to Peter Singer, the right trade-off between social benefit and personal pleasure (not directly job related) is where the marginal benefits even out, across the world! Which I find at least a little difficult to avoid, from a utilitarian perspective. Although rather than looking at it as a matter of the social benefit/personal pleasure trade-off, I'm (at least at the moment) concerned with looking at it from the perspective of personal virtue, in the Christian sweat-of-the-brow sense (unless that's not Christian?), regardless of societal effect.