The Potential Danger of Rational Self-Identification

Anderson would be a firm support of Professor Hurley’s Beyond Consequentialism, at least based on my speculation of the content of the book. But definitely, Anderson disapproves act-consequentialism. Her collectivism is definitely a creative solution to the criticality of prisoner dilemma – “it is the fact that any single person’s action, considered in isolation, has an expected marginal payoff of zero, or close to zero, with respect to the socially desirable outcome” – that she points out (25-6). Act collectively, the problem of utility maximization theory is ruled out because now groups look at scenarios like voting from a macro level instead of micro level. Then it is not rational for people to consider their individual utility. As a creative solution, it also rules out the problem of defecting because what I deem right is also deemed right by everyone else in the group. In reality, however, people do not work collectively all the time. Then government, like a forced group, in that sense, is the remedy for the lack of collectivity in the society.

Everything seems alright until Anderson raises the idea of the priority of identity. the idea is raised reasonable because people need to know what groups they are in, and that is based on people’s identities. The problem, however, shows up, when people chooses their identity, as Anderson points out, that “we need further principles of rational self-identification” (31). Self-identification is a micro problem that is not avoidable by her theory and needed to be solved. But her principles – “common knowledge of everyone’s rational conditional willingness” and “trust” – does not yield a better answer than nothing (32). Of course, people choose identity based on what they know about themselves. So common knowledge really doesn’t tell us anything. So does trust. I am even more worried about trust because people may not always know what are the best identity for themselves, like those uneducated Asian women Sen described. Without an underlying guiding principle, self-identification could be very much problematic, which will ruin Anderson’s model. Men, Jake-like person, may identify more based on self-interest. Women, may identifies more like Amy. Those are certainly not desirable.

Given the unavoidable micro level problem, I believe that the promotion of education would to some extent ameliorate the puzzle. Take the Asian women example discussed in the paper. Education, first, can increase the bargaining power of women by learning some skills, and thus creating a leverage and functioning as a threat. Second, education helps both men and women to better understand the needs of each other, and the unequal social burdens that are put on women. As a result, both exogenous threat and endogenous understanding will lead to a more equal society, and therefore, give rise to a more similar background knowledge when people self-identify. Maybe with certain education, Anderson’s trust could be trusted a little more.