I have been thinking recently about economics and the way it relates to philosophy. One interesting conception that has interesting implications in the philosophical realm is that of opportunity costs. In economics an opportunity cost is a cost that arises from the existence of mutually exclusive choices. That is, suppose that you have two choices, either work at a job or think philosophically at home. If you choose to sit at home and think philosophically, there exists a cost to this choice, viz. the wages that you could have earned if you went to work instead. Since you cannot do both, you have to choose between the options and incur the cost of the next best available choice.
This is interesting when you look at philosophy more broadly and its practice or lack thereof in our own day. To practice philosophy requires leisure, or at least time to think, read, reflect, etc. – To some extent I am supposing that you cannot think philosophically while you work or do other things – Having this time to practice philosophy requires you to forgo other activities and opportunities which constitute an opportunity cost to the practice of philosophy. In modern times it seems that the other possible choices that we face when deciding what to do with our time have grown enormously. That is, historically when we were not working we had a more limited choice set. This would imply that there was less of an opportunity cost to practicing philosophy. Today the choices facing us have changed, we can watch tv, go to a movie, shop, and do any number of other things with our leisure time. These various options provide a wider array of costs to practicing philosophy than has existed before. Given the higher opportunity costs it is not surprising that we see fewer individuals practicing philosophy in modernity.
Another application is the opportunity cost of work compared to philosophy. It seems in modern times we have become more productive as workers. That is, we earn higher wages, especially if we are educated – the educated are the ones most likely to practice philosophy. Stated negatively this means that leisure time or the time required to practice philosophy has become more costly. Given the rise in earnings and productivity it is not surprising that we might see the practice of philosophy decline since there seems to be larger costs associated with its practice.
Matt, what is your idea concerning how you would calculate, quantify or qualify, the opportunity-cost incurred by the individual who chooses any random activity over that of philosophy?
ReplyDeleteGenerally, what is the cost of not performing philosophy? How would we begin to calculate this?
Are you assuming that the "practice of philosophy" always results in a positive value?
Is there a positive value practice of philosophy and a negative value practice? How could we make that distinction?
And though I do agree that our expanded choice set, education, wages, etc. tend to indicate a rising opportunity cost for the practice of philosophy . . . this would only be the case if the practice of philosophy were mutually exclusive to all jobs held by high wage earners who also possessed the ability to "do" philosophy.
What types of jobs and/or activities would you say are 100% mutually exclusive to the practice of philosophy? I am having a hard time thinking of a job whose requirements would never allow a single moment where philosophy could be practiced in tandem.
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The choices between two competing options would be made based on a perception of utility. Implicit in this is an assumption about the rationality of actors, insofar as they will choose whatever engenders the most utility. This is indeed hard to quantify, but I think it is easier within an individual context. For example choosing between steak and fish for dinner. I might be able to know that steak would give me more utility that fish because I dislike fish or something. Again this is not perfect and very hard to quantify in rigid terms.
ReplyDeleteAs far as jobs that would offer a mutually exclusive choice to the practice of philosophy, I don't think there exists such a job. Indeed, no matter how taxing a job might be there certainly are times when you can zone out and think about something else, viz. philosophy. However, high paying and productive jobs usually require a lot of attention and dedicated time, I am thinking of doctors and lawyers. While perhaps not strictly mutual exclusive, the practice of philosophy would no doubt suffer due to time constraints. This would probably effect the quality of thought, etc.