MICHAEL McPHERSON
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"micro" decisions will be coordinated effortlessly by the market into a
desired "macro" correspondence. Yet, as Schelling points out, the
reach of the market in coordinating such decisions is far from un–
limited: what the individual wishes for himself, in the aggregate
often becomes a nightmare .
Schelling's shrewd and patient reflections on examples like
these have deepened our understanding of the rules and conventions
we rely on to coordinate (or fail to coordinate) our activities and
manage our conflicts. Indeed, Schelling's pathbreaking work has
given rise to a substantial philosophical and sociological literature on
the rational analysis of norms and conventions. (Two important books
a re David K . Lewis's ,
Convention,
and Edna Ullman-Margalit's ,
The
Emergence oj Norms . )
The latest turn in Schelling's thought has been toward the pro–
vocative idea that these phenomena of strategic interaction are im–
portant not only
between
but
within
persons. Schelling suggests we
should for some purposes see the person as the locus of a temporal
sequence of conflicting selves, rather than as the seamless, consistent
chooser of neoclassical economics. Lionel Trilling, in
Sincerity and
Authenticity,
his important book on the evolution of modern notions
of selfbood, quoted a Victorian critic who saw Jane Austen's concep–
tion of the self as "a battlefield where contending hosts are mar–
shalled and where victory inclines now to one side and now to an–
other." It is this image that Schelling proposes we take seriously.
The examples of intrapersonal conflict - what Schelling calls
the examples of "self-command" - that come to mind are intimate,
and often seem whimsical or trivial : the struggling dieter, the reluc–
tant runner, the compulsive TV watcher. But in fact such conflicts
are not trivial either in human or financial terms. Schelling
calculates convincingly that we would collectively pay in the billions
to be, painlessly, free of the desire to smoke. (Most smokers, surveys
show, wish they didn't want to - a different proposition from, want–
ing to, not smoking, and different again from embarking on a pain–
ful regimen aimed at extinguishing the desire.) Sometimes the con–
flicts reach tragic proportions: the painfully ill person who
sometimes
wants to die; the sometimes loving parents who sometimes beat their
children ; the compulsive gamblers or drug addicts.
Schelling's strategic perspective casts light on the attempts we
make, with varying success, to control those other selves within us
who scheme to get around our constraints.
It
is hard for the person
