First, let’s look at what the classical economic response would be to gift cards. First, by ‘classical economic’ I just mean using standard economic methodological assumptions. Those would be a preference-satisfaction view of value, and an assumption of basic rationality. The latter goes along with the former, I think, because given a preference-satisfaction view, the agent is in by far the best epistemic situation for determining what would be most valuable for her, because she has direct access to her preferences, or at least the best access to her preferences, if we want to claim the psychological picture is more complicated than that.

I’m not saying these assumptions are obviously true or indefeasible, but I am saying that they are prima facie plausible, and you’d best address them if you intend to deny them.

On these assumptions, gift cards are at least value-neutral for the following reason: no one is required to buy gift cards. They are an additional option for someone who wishes to give a gift and no more. If this is true, then on our assumptions, the people who have preferences that would be best satisfied by giving gift cards will buy (and give) gift cards, and no one else will. Those people would not have their preferences best satisfied in a world where there were no gift cards, and therefore such a world would be inferior to a world where they are available. The limit case is that of a world where no one has preferences that would be best satisfied by giving gift cards, which is identical value-wise to a world where gift cards are not an option, on our assumptions.

The argument that the value inherent in the JJ-unit has not changed post-gifting seems to include the assumption that value is exhausted by the dollar value of the objects that JJ collectively have, which seems to be a weird assumption for a socialist to make. There’s a serious question about why Jim and Jane are participating in the practice of gift-giving if they are not made better off (possibly in some very abstract way) by so participating. I think this coheres with our common experience as well. I enjoy watching people open gifts I have given them at least as much as I look forward to opening my own gifts, and this is because I get value from both of those experiences, value which would be denied me if I did not take part in gift-giving, and moreover, value that would be much reduced if all I gave was cash. While gift cards are not as good as a really individualized gift, as least gift cards make reference to some shared experience between the receiver and giver of the gift.

So on the standard economic model, the thought is that people get value from giving gifts as well as receiving gifts, which is why they give gifts. In some cases, they get the most value from giving gift cards, and therefore that option is a benefit to them. This is, to some extent, a rephrasing of your argument for gift cards, but I think it’s a useful one, that might make the force of the argument clearer.

But as some of my argument may have alluded to, I don’t think it’s really best to analyze gift-giving through a purely economic model. Gift-giving is more like a recognition of a relationship and a shared past through an expression of a wish that the receiver be happier. This wish is expressed through a direct attempt to make the receiver happier, but recognition of the relationship is at least as important a part of the practice. Normally, the relationship is recognized through a gift that demonstrates that the giver has knowledge of the receiver. Cash doesn’t really do this at all, but to a greater or lesser extent, gift cards do. Now, it’s clear that gift cards do this less than a really individualized gift would, but sometimes, for reasons of time or other things, this isn’t possible (in my experience at least, the inferiority of gift cards are noticed by people; they would prefer not to give gift cards). So gift cards at least allow such a giver some way to recognize the relationship.

I think the idea of sub-doxastic content is problematic. It suggests that the more you understand about yourself the more responsible you are and the less you understand the less responsible you are. I might agree with this on epistemic grounds, but the gap between reality and social order can appear quite broad. If this were to become the new social ethos it would possibly destroy notions of legal justification and responsibility. Alternatively everyone is required by law to spend a certain amount of time studying themselves equanimously, seeking out subconscious biases.

W.K. Clifford proposed the view that doxastic responsibility relied on epistemic and ethical justification. But clearly epistemic justification cannot be taken too far to the extent of the sub-doxastic in normal life circumstances, as your example illustrates. Whenever we try to epistemically justify somethings existence we appeal to an external source, something which is not-it. For example looking for symptoms of sickness for justifying the existence of a sickness. In the simplest we ask “What caused this?”, “Why did this occur?” and in so doing we appeal to an antecedent. We can follow this race indefinitely. Continuously trying to justify somethings existence. Even if we consider all the events immediately antecedent and contemporaneous with the event in question, we’d have left out the justification for the existence of those antecedent and contemporaneous events. I mean, even epistemic justification is subject to relativity.

It seems to be an inescapable paradox of how humans think humans ought to be and how we think we actually are. In neither case can we give ultimate justification. It may not be that this is a problem to be fixed by analytic philosophy. It could be that the solution to improving social responsibility will be one of embracing human virtue rather than relying on concrete justification. That is to say that people will seek to study and learn with equanimity because it is respected and considered to be a virtue. In so doing they will attain greater justification for their beliefs and act more appropriately but not absolutely. How violators of the social ethos are handled is another matter all-together. Whether they are gassed, locked-up in prison or treated for amotivational syndrome. It would seem appropriate to treat such people as lacking in correct point of view or motivation and not necessarily with heightened emotions.

I don’t know if that helps at all. Cheers

As to the reading/writing over the summer thing…I don’t want to talk about it.