Enfermedades y plagas

I was almost at the end of a beautiful evening drive. Refreshing cold breeze gently blowing on my face through the car windows. The relatively less traffic on the road was like heaven on earth. Sporting an ear-to-ear smile I felt confident that nothing in the world had the power to take away my inner peace at that moment.

But, as usual, my faithful and ever reliable nemesis, the chaos-monkey, had different plans for me that evening. Just when I was about to take a smooth turn on a closing traffic signal, a taxi cut me off while overtaking my car. The surprising rash maneuver from the taxi called for sudden brakes and by that time signal had turned red. As a result, I missed my turn because of the insensitive driving by the taxi driver.

In the next few seconds, my Buddha smile turned into an angry frown and I was thrown out of my “appreciating the good things in life” mode.

Why did I feel so agitated? Well, for one, I was ahead of the taxi and it was me who was supposed to cross the signal first. I felt as if the taxi guy had brutally robbed off my well-deserved right to take the turn before him. You might find it amusing but the incident costed me a whopping two minutes of extra wait for the traffic signal to turn green again and of course my inner peace.

May be I am exaggerating and unnecessarily using strong words to describe a petty incident. But how could I take it easy? It was absolutely unfair!

Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Sounds familiar? Well I would never have done the same thing (it’s pretty close to encroachment in my dictionary) to anybody else.

Chapter 3 - Kantian Fairness Tendency | Mental Models, Investing, And You

Probably the taxi driver didn’t really think it was unfair. Perhaps he’d been at the receiving end of the same treatment many times in the past that he now considered it fair to pass the buck. Or maybe he was just too busy marveling at his own driving skills. Who knows what he was thinking!

Well, before you lose interest and stop reading, let me put an end to my rant about traffic etiquettes and being a victim of unfair treatment. Let me ask you this. Have you ever experienced this feeling of being treated unfairly? May be in some small way like when one of your utterly undeserving colleague got promoted before you. Ouch, I’ve been there!

Kantian Fairness Tendency

Why is the human psyche so obsessed with the idea of fairness? Actually, it’s not just humans. Even monkey business (literally) isn’t immune to this tendency. Watch this video, which proves that the tendency to seek fairness in all transactions is not an invention of modern man, but the behaviour has been tattooed at a much deeper level by evolutionary process.

Chapter 3 - Kantian Fairness Tendency | Mental Models, Investing, And You

The theory about human rationality takes the view that people would accept any offer made to them as long as they were better off. But we know that humans are anything but rational and many studieshave shown that people will reject offers they view as unfair. Our ape just validated this hypothesis in the video.

This is the matter of discussion in this chapter. Exploring the idea of what Charlie Munger calls Kantian Fairness Tendency. Although we’ve put this mental model under Psychology, it’s one of the big ideas from Philosophy.

Let’s define fairness first. The basic idea is that we have devised certain rules that, when followed by everyone, result in a pretty smooth life for all involved. The key is that everyone needs to follow along. This unsaid understanding about ‘following along’ few ‘socially acceptable guidelines for conduct’ is what constructs the framework for fairness.

When a behaviour doesn’t fall (or doesn’t seem to fall) in this framework, we label it as unfair. From Charlie’s talk, it’s not entirely clear why he has used the word Kantian but let me still take a stab at it. The word refers to the philosophical framework created by eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Kant’s ethics are founded on his view of rationality as the ultimate good and his belief that all people are fundamentally rational beings. (Source: Wikipedia)

According to Kant, an individual’s rights and duties are the foundation for defining morality and fairness. Passing a judgment on ‘what is fair’ seems pretty simple when you are the subject matter i.e., when you are evaluating the fairness in matters involving you.

What about the case when you have to take a decision about ‘what is fair’ for a third person?

Chapter 3 - Kantian Fairness Tendency | Mental Models, Investing, And You

Image Source: Imgur.

I have borrowed a lot of ideas in this chapter from Prof. Sanjay Bakshi’s blog poston this topic. His discussion about ‘the law of higher good’ is another mental model that you need to be aware of.