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Thought Experiment 94: The Sorites Tax

5/22/2017

5 Comments

 
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How many grains of sand can be removed before this stops being a dune?
One by one I've been writing little posts about these thought experiments for quite a while now. It sure didn't feel like any single post changed my view of philosophy. And yet...

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A Political Broadcast by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Sorites

     These are taxing times for our country. The last government left us with run-down public finances and the need to raise extra revenue. But you, the people, do not want to have to foot the bill. So how can we raise the money we need without making you feel pain?
     The answer is simple. Focus groups, opinion polls, and economists have shown that charging an extra 0.01 percent tax has a negligible effect on personal income. No one who is comfortably off is made to struggle, no one rich is made poor, no one already struggling is made to struggle more, by paying 0.01 percent extra on their tax bill.
     So today we are raising income tax by 0.01 percent. And logically, since this small amount makes as little difference to the person who earns 0.01 percent less than you as it does to you, we can repeat the step tomorrow, when you are in the position of that insignificantly poorer person. And so the next day, and the next, for the next 300 days.
     Each time we raise taxes, we do so in a way that makes no difference to your quality of life. And so your quality of life will not be affected. Yet, miraculously, the net effect of these measures will be a large increase in government revenue, which we intend to use to cut the national debt and still have enough change left to buy everyone in the country a drink. We hope you will use it to toast to our ingenuity.

Source: The ancient Sorites paradox, attributed to Eubulides of Miletus, 4th century BCE.

Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 280.
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What do you think? When exactly do incremental changes make a big difference? I'll be back on Friday with a quick answer to this one. In the meantime, please leave your thoughts on this in the comment section below. It may not seem worth it to you, but collectively your ideas have really added up.
5 Comments
Tina link
5/22/2017 07:30:38 pm

The incremental changes might not make such a big difference in perception if they were paid little by little, but of course, taxes are due all at once. Maybe there should be a payment plan, like those you see for charitable donations? "For just $1 a day, you can save this kid's life!" Of course, some will still insist the taxes are too high. Maybe it's simply a fact of human nature that we hate to pay taxes—this problem is hinted at in the above: we want to see where our money's going and what it's doing, to make sure it isn't being squandered.

Reply
Ed Gibney link
5/23/2017 08:08:34 am

Thanks for the comment Tina! I think you're on to something with your point about the different units of time for analysis. At the end of the day it's still a 3% tax raise over the course of a year, which is when we actually pay the taxes. So the question then I guess is why does one year matter a lot when one day doesn't matter at all. When exactly does it change? And this paradox can be used for lots of incremental changes so I don't think taxes are unique here, but I can't argue with your point about them!

Reply
Tina link
5/27/2017 09:29:15 pm

I think one year matters in the case of taxes because we just hate to pay lump sums, even if we'll probably squander that much over the course of a year on things we don't care about and won't remember. In this, it's all about perception. What counts is the lump sum, and the meaning of taxes ("Oh no! The government's taking my money!")

As for the paradox, I guess it depends on the case. Abortion is similar in my mind (although I see this being a grey area, since some people don't think of it the way I do). At what point does a fetus become life? I don't have the answer, but I'm not quite willing to say the moment after conception is life (in the sense of deserving rights), nor am I willing to say a moment before birth is not life. In this case, I'd be willing to arbitrarily pick some time in-between as acceptable, as a sort of stipulative definition of life for the purpose of determining when abortion ought to be allowed.

And I imagine that the paradox would seem less paradoxical in some cases, more paradoxical in others, depending on what's being discussed.

Ed Gibney link
5/29/2017 09:59:42 am

Abortion is an excellent example of how this paradox is paradoxical. I wish I had thought of that for my post on Friday! The inability to find *one specific day* where an embryo becomes a human has indeed led many to conclude that life begins at conception. This is very much like the logic that says one grain of sand is a heap. Although, to be fair, that grain of sand will not grow into a heap if left on its own, whereas an embryo will develop under normal circumstances. The difficulty in defining this is exactly what leads to the difficulty in creating laws banning or allowing abortions before or after some number of weeks of pregnancy. Thinking of it this way makes me doubt we could ever come up with an acceptable rule that is hard and fast.

Reply
Tina link
6/16/2017 05:04:00 pm

I agree that it would be hard to find a hard and fast rule, or even a practical solution. I'm afraid that the matter of abortion is wrought with emotion on both sides and so it would be difficult to come up with a pragmatic solution or a compromise to the problem. I've heard that some religious people wouldn't be averse to such a compromise—just picking a certain time when abortion isn't allowed—but conservative politicians aren't eager to stick their necks out and many liberals aren't willing to concede the argument that women might not have a right to choose in every single instance and circumstance.

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