Seth Allot, retired Prof, may be old, but he still has all his marbles. Ghoens? I doubt it, except metaphysically, though he sure can see through a glass darkly.
In response to my report-back on Donny’s plight, he gave us a disquisition, as I (perhaps pompously) termed it, that was quite splendid. In summarising, I hope I do it justice.
I say this sincerely – no false modesty here – as I have begun to wonder about my own mental state. I mean, my mind wanders a trifle – not a lot, mind – and I am beginning to irritate the people around me.
For example, recently I said something – I forget what – to old Whatshername only to be told that I’m being – or was it, have become? – a silly old bat. The offending remark was made in earnest, I promise you. I wish it were one of those affectionate, teasing love-you-lots sallies that grease the wheels of friendship, which are generally fine, but no, this one was a verbal Sam missile aimed straight at the heart.
It struck home. Pained I am, and am resolved to pull up my socks. No more rambling diatribes for me. No more aimless digressions. No more idle musings. No more ponderous pondering. No more comprehensive cogitations. None of the above.
But where was I?
Oh yes, Seth’s disquisition. It arose, you may remember, out of my chat at the bedside of my grandson, Donny. He was complaining that Ronny should not have been given the last mince pie.
I became proper Socratic with him. I was thinking a keen dialectical exchange was the best way to pacify a little boy resolved on the untimely death of his father, brother, and family besides.
This, dear friends, is what Seth had to say. Better put, Thus Spake Zeresethstra.
“Faced with a plea for the last mince pie, reposing forlornly on the plate, Terence had a decision to make. He decided to give the last pie to Ronny.
“He had a range of possible choices. He could have given it to one of the other boys. He could have cut it up, and given each a third. He could have chosen not to distribute it at all, or have given it to someone else entirely. But Ronny was favoured with this fine delicacy.
“Conceptually, what was happening here?
“Decisions, at least rational ones, take a standard form. They have an end in mind and envisage the means by which it will be achieved. End and means, end and means – that’s the pattern in every case in which a decision is not arbitrary or purely emotive.
“The end in mind generally remains right there, secure in the mind. But it will surface when the need to account for it arises, and then we must pertinently determine the nature of the ends being pursued.
“This can be difficult. Since motives are complex and often mixed, the elucidation will seldom be perfect. To the decision-maker himself, they will frequently be opaque, and to the outsider they will be no less so, being determinable only by exercising a judgement based not just on say-so, but also on inference and the probabilities.
“Take the present case. What did Terence seek to achieve in giving the pie to Ronny and to him alone? What end did he have in mind when …?
“In this case, Terence’s end may conceivably have been to feed up Donny, who is looking a bit scrawny; or it may have been to reward him for some act, achievement or other behaviour; or it may have been to gratify him as the boy first asking for the sweetmeat. The possibilities, which are notionally endless, can be limited in part by asking the decision-maker himself.
“‘Terence …?”
“I just wanted to get shot of the silly thing before clearing away the plates. I am the person who does the clearing, you know,” Terence growls.
My goodness, I think, he certainly has become a grouch. I shall have to speak to him.
“Ah, yes, you see,” Seth exclaims, “this demonstrates my point exactly. Terence testifies explicitly to his motive, but the explanation he gives – ‘I wanted to dispose of the pie’ – is, forgive me, half-baked and so only half-helpful.
“We must still find out why he chose to hand it out at all; why he selected the boys as the class from which the recipient should be drawn; why he preferred to give the pie whole rather than distribute it equally among them: why he selected Donny as the recipient; and so on.
“These questions must, absent direct evidence, be answered by inference from all the facts, deploying all facets of wisdom and sagacity.”
“Soccer City?” Sean mumbles. He is totally out of it, I fear.
“Academics, desperate as ever to categorise, create a spectrum of ends a decision-aker will pursue. They include a desire to recompense (1) need; (2) effort; (3) ability; (4) achievement; or (5) success.
“The aim may comprehend none of these ends. It may be simply ‘ascriptive’, by which we denote such factors as class, status or even just the fact of being, of personhood. Bestowing benefits on this basis – per capita, per poll, or by head count – is common. Universal adult franchise is a common example.
“Ends, as ascertained, are not self-evidently right, proper and fair. To determine whether they are, we consult a set of standards that are internal – our conscience, in effect – or external, the product of social norms and legal prescripts. The two can operate in tandem, and cross-pollinate.
“Only if the ends pass muster can they properly be pursued. They must be reasonable in our own eyes and, in the eyes of the law, legitimate.
“How, you ask, are the ends to be pursued? By means, of course, that are appropriately
tailored to attain the ends already embraced ….”
“Ah, embrace! That’s more like it. Embrace is what I want! Fair maid, embrace me now. I am thy lovelorn slave!” Sean cries. Since he is looking at me, I seem to be the object of this expostulation.
I shudder. Visibly.
Seth, consummate teacher that he is, brushes this nonsense aside.
“Appropriately tailored, I say. These are matters of causation, and we have developed formulae by which we evaluate this issue. They encompass ‘narrowly tailored’, the most stringent test, through ‘adequately tailored’, which is less demanding, and culminate in ‘loosely tailored’, which demands only some causal connection between the end and the means in question.
“The formulae, which are elaborate, are esoteric and quite beyond the scope of this discussion. All we need appreciate is that that the level of causative connection is a matter of choice every bit as much as the aim being pursued. The elasticity is well-nigh limitless.
“By this route, obscure but not circuitous, we come to our destination. We set out to understand the implications of the canons Wanda identified in interrogating Donny. She isolated factors such as need, effort, and desert ….”
“Dessert, begorrah. Bring it on. It’s no trifle. Ha! Ha!” Shaun beams. It seems only another potato famine can sort out his erm, hash.
‘Please understand,” says our ever-patient sage, “the distribution of the pie is not the point of my comments. I am concerned with something much loftier, the structures of decision-making generally.”
Seamus, on PC-alert, brusquely says Seth hasn’t got past first base. “Donny said the pie should have been shared equally. To do otherwise was unfair. What have you to say about this?”
“If you ask me,” Sean exclaims (of course, we didn’t), “I say this is much too bloody serious. My end is simple. It is to wish you all a Merry Syphilis and a Happy Gonorrhoea. My means are equally simple: to say as much, at the same time hoping you get your ends away by whatever means you can.”
Oh, hell. I do wish he would behave, but then I suppose that, if he did, we would lose that Irish-eyed twinkle the leprechauns gave him. Yes, I get it now. Those job goblins are plainly responsible for his leprous behaviour and his corny jokes.
Whatever Sean thinks matters not a whit. We want to hear the answer to Seamus’s question. We really do. What about equality?
Distribute the pie equally sounds right to us. Equality, fairness, simple justice. That’s what we aim for, isn’t it. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (provided we are not frog-marched to Madame Guillotine in the process.)
Seth needs the loo, and leaves us, his guests. guessing. Here I shall leave you too. His professorial response will be rehearsed in my column next week. (If there is one – Ed).
In the meantime, I invite you, dear reader, to don the breastplate of righteousness and arm yourself against this evil day. You’ll need all the help you can muster, for you won’t like what Seth said, I’m guessing.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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