constant escape
winter withered, warm
Well perhaps there can be two kinds of second-order pragmatism: the kind you mention, where by appealing to one set of values you can indirectly mobilize a different set of values, in other people; and another kind, where you are doing this to yourself. I think your point about it being grounded in self-interest is critical, but what would you say about applying all this to yourself? Granted I'm likely blinded by bias (IE I really want these things to work), but my firsthand experience is promising. But it might just be too tedious and complicated.
That is, instead of appealing to the base instincts of others in order to achieve a higher-order end, you appeal to your own base instincts - but it seems to require some kind of ability to navigate your own blind spots, which is paradoxical, and pull your own strings, in order to sustain the felt legitimacy of the first-order, base motivation. And it also requires, as in the Adam Smith example, an awareness of how the consequences of our actions ramify up into higher-orders - like how ideologies, nations, cultures, are somehow distinct things, "larger" than humans.
Applying it to other people would almost definitely be manipulative, unless the whole strategy can be rendered transparent, which isn't capital "I" Impossible, as far as I can tell. Applying it to yourself might just mean psychosis, with little benefit outside of supreme philosophic achievement.
That is, instead of appealing to the base instincts of others in order to achieve a higher-order end, you appeal to your own base instincts - but it seems to require some kind of ability to navigate your own blind spots, which is paradoxical, and pull your own strings, in order to sustain the felt legitimacy of the first-order, base motivation. And it also requires, as in the Adam Smith example, an awareness of how the consequences of our actions ramify up into higher-orders - like how ideologies, nations, cultures, are somehow distinct things, "larger" than humans.
Applying it to other people would almost definitely be manipulative, unless the whole strategy can be rendered transparent, which isn't capital "I" Impossible, as far as I can tell. Applying it to yourself might just mean psychosis, with little benefit outside of supreme philosophic achievement.