Scores and the Meaning of Life

C. Thi Nguyen (University of Utah)

Umeå University

THE BURMAN LECTURES IN PHILOSOPHY 2024

Scores and the Meaning of Life

C. Thi Nguyen, University of Utah

Lecture 1: Value Capture

Monday October 14, 13:15-15:00, Hörsal HUM.D.220

Abstract: Value capture is the phenomenon where individuals, and small-scale communities, adopt institutional metrics and measures as their guiding values. We go on social media for connection, but get captured by Likes and Follows. We go to school for education, but get captured by grades and university rankings. We exercise for health, but get captured by weight loss. But what might be wrong with value capture? We are social animals, and often acquire our values from our communities and culture. But there is a distinctive feature to institutional metrics and measures, that makes them particularly harmful to internalize. They are engineered to fit the demands of large-scale institutions: in particular, to fit the demand for cross-contextual portability. They resist localized tailoring and adjustment. 

Lecture 2: Mechanical Scoring Systems and Human Values

Tuesday October 15, 13:15-15:00, Hörsal HUM.D.220

Abstract: Games and institutions often use mechanical scoring systems. A game tells us exactly what gets us points; a bureaucracy tells us exactly how our productivity will be measured. Strangely, these mechanical scoring systems often inspire fun and free play in games – but in institutional life, they drain the life out of everything. Why? I offer a theory of the mechanical. A mechanical procedure is one where the procedures and criteria have been designed so as to be usable by anybody, to yield consistent results. Mechanical scoring systems perform a valuable social function: they guarantee convergence of evaluations, from those who have accepted the scoring system. To do this, however, such scoring systems need to strictly limit the kinds of criteria they can target. In games, this helps us be more fluid. But mechanical scoring systems perform a different function in institutions. Mechanical scoring systems are often used to make workers more replaceable. This deeply shapes the kinds of targets and goals that can be enshrined in institutions. And this process opens the door to the possibility of a kind of social selection process, whereby those agents who are willing to sacrifice all else, in the pursuit of higher mechanical scores, are rewarded with greater social power. 

Lecture 3: Bureaucratic Meanings and Semantic Self-Determination  

Wednesday October 16, 13:15-15:00, Hörsal HUM.D.220

Abstract: If the meanings of some terms are socially determined, and those meanings have social and political consequences, then we should engineer our terms in the light of those consequences. But this conceptual engineering shouldn’t simply be in the hands of some elite class. Rather, basic considerations of democratic inclusiveness suggest that all relevant stakeholders be involved, somehow, in the process of conceptual engineering. This is the thesis of semantic self-determination. I offer a case study: the attempt by autism advocates to intervene into the medical definition of “autism”. Meaning-determination should arise through an inclusive democratic procedure, as with any other form of self-governance. The opposite process would be one in which terms are engineered from the top-down, and imposed through a non-inclusive process. And this form of semantic authoritarianism is already occurring. It often takes the form of bureaucratic institutions and technical experts setting the meanings of official terms. Many institutional metrics turn out to be exercises of semantic authoritarianism, imposing a conception of what counts as health, well-being, value or success. And many of our folk concepts turn out to be post-bureaucratic – having already been transformed to be more amenable to large-scale institutional methodologies. What would a more democratized and localized process of meaning-setting and value-determination look like?

All interested are welcome to these lectures!