Nicely summed up by DeLong — about Krugman – on balancing the roles of market and government: “Paul Krugman loves the market more than any other economist I know–in a “tough love” sense. That is, he’s not one of those on the right who thinks that market failures don’t exist, pretends that every market everywhere functions perfectly, and doesn’t care much about how markets really work. He’s not one of those on the left who thinks that market failures are unfixable, and that command-and-control is nearly always and everywhere a better alternative.
“He’s one who believes that market failures are dangerous things that can be neutralized: smart reorganizations of property rights, or small steps that put the government’s thumb on the scale to improve incentives, or tweaks to the legal structure that rule certain kinds of contracts out and other kinds of contracts in will, he thinks, almost always turn the market into an effective and efficient social planning and organization mechanisms that everyone can love. His is a “tough love” approach to markets–and it is a sign that he cares and that he has great faith in Adam Smith.“
ariapn Economics
Of course, I’m no expert in the matter of (Ushul) Fiqh, so CMIIW.
I was reading the fundamental principles of Fiqh, and saw that there are three principles where utility theory might come into play. First, “select the higher of the two benefits, or incur the lesser of the two harms when faced with them both.” Now, to do that, you certainly have to be able to order your preferences for the choices you have. If your set of preferences are already in the rulings derived from the well established sources, your (dis)utility is set.
If not, your ordering must be based on other principles, and require extensive knowledge not only on the rules of law but also about the subject of your choices. Usually this kind of ruling involves experts from various fields.
This principle is often misused by ignoring other principles, especially what comes right after it, “repelling harm takes precedence over procuring benefits.” You have to be aware of the consequences (to others) of your maximizing your own utility based on your own preferences. You have to minimize the disutility, and make that your top priority.
[Utilitarianism (Bentham, J.S. Mill) also wants to maximize utility, with no mention of minimizing disutility as the top priority. Some say utilitarianism is the superset of consequentialism. Without the latter, the former can lead to hedonism.]
The other principle of interest is, “certainty is not invalidated by doubt.” OK, you find your best option, but it doesn’t always give you the utility you were estimating when you ranked your preferences. The probability is not 1. Does this mean you should eliminate this option? What happens if none of the options are certain to give you the calculated utility? Do you have to rank them by their probabilities? Or do you use expected utility?
ariapn Personal
Maddux excelled beyond the physical: “We were playing the Astros in the middle of the season and Jeff Bagwell was coming up, and Doggie had told me before the game, ‘We’re not going to pitch this guy inside. We’re going to stay away. He’s pulling everything, and if we go in he’ll hit it out.’
So it’s late in the game, we’re up something like 8-0, and Bagwell is batting with a runner on. All of a sudden, Doggie wants to go inside. ‘What?’ He nods that’s what he wants to do. So he throws it in, and Bagwell hits a bomb. We still won the game, but I was mad. ‘Why did you do that? I wanted you to pitch a complete-game shutout.’
He said, ‘You know what? Two months from now we’re going to meet these guys in the playoffs, and he’s going to be up there with runners on and he’s going to be looking for that pitch, and we’re never going to throw it.’
I said, ‘Whatever, dude. I wanted the shutout.’
Sure enough, two months later and Bagwell is hitting. They’ve got two men on and Doggie strikes him out. He says, ‘Do you remember two months ago?’ I had already forgotten about it. He said, ‘You got mad because we went inside and he took us deep, but he was looking for that pitch today, and we won the game because of that.’
No other pitcher can do that. No one can get away with that kind of stuff. It’s almost illogical. You don’t throw inside changeups to major league hitters. He’ll hang a slider on purpose. He wants people to get hits because everything he does is setting up the hitter for a situation later on.”
ariapn Personal